Archive for the ‘Water’ Category

29 Apr

Calamity, Catastrophe, or Cataclysm?

Posted by plohnes in Global Warming, Resource Conflict, Water.

Photo Credit: FoodAndYou. Some rights may be reserved.

Dire warnings and dismal predictions often seem to be the stock in trade of environmental activists. Hyperbole helps fundraising and hyperventilating about imminent threats get page views. Two of the leading subjects for pumped-up concern are global climate change and vanishing resources. But rarely are both topics so alarmingly conjoined as they have been by Michael Klare, author of The Race for What’s Left and Resource Wars.

Writing for TomDispatch.com, Klare argues that we are on the cusp of a new world order dominated by struggles over access to affordable resources. He says that humanity is faced with two converging and utterly unprecedented disasters: severe resource depletion and extreme climate change. His prognosis is not a happy one. The civil, political, and military institutions we have developed over centuries would be strained to deal with either threat alone. Together, they present a monumental global challenge.

It’s not just peak oil. The world is also heading for peak water. Klare cites the disastrous drought in Russia that decimated that country’s wheat crop in 2010 as just one in a litany of destabilizing events global warming will visit on us. The roiling discontent of the Arab spring flowed at least in part from the enormous spike in wheat prices caused by the murderous heat in the Russian steppes. Klare tells us such resource shocks will become increasingly common as the globe warms and resources diminish.

He is hardly alone in seeing the threat. The Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper (no Pollyanna, he) cites competition and scarcity involving natural resources as a national security threat on a par with global terrorism, cyberwar, and nuclear proliferation. “Extreme weather events (floods, droughts, heat waves) will increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism.”

So while we may become inured to the environmental movement’s escalating warnings, those alarms are not groundless carping. A prudent and conservative individual or organization would be well advised to take them into account. The world may be warming but there are still icebergs in our path. It would be best not to collide with one.

10 Apr

A Heartfelt Eulogy for Florida’s Manatees

Posted by Kyle Hargus in Water, Wetlands.

Photo by MyFWCmedia

Photo by MyFWCmedia

This spring has already proven to be extremely tragic for Florida’s manatee population, and a new report this week from the New York Times suggests even more fatalities before the season is over. So what the heck is going on, right? These deaths (widely recognized as “mysterious” by most major news organizations) are part of a phenomenon commonly referred to as a “red bloom” or red tide, which affects Florida’s waters every year.

A red bloom is an influx of toxic red algae that appears in the shallow waters of the state’s western coast, and is poisonous to any marine life who would try to feed off of affected sea grass, where the toxins cling. Florida’s manatees have succumbed to this invasion before, but never in such alarmingly high numbers. This year, the red bloom has killed 241 of the state’s 5,000 manatees, far surpassing the previous record of 151 fatalities. This comes after reports earlier this year that manatees had been dying from an even more “mysterious ailment” in the state’s eastern rivers, where they should be safe from the red bloom, but apparently not from another mysteriously deadly algae in the Indian River Lagoon having similar effects. Tragically, more manatees are expected to die before this whole sad dance wraps up for another year.

But so: who’s to blame for the red bloom phenomenon? Is this something we can avoid? Experts are uncertain, reports the Times, of there are any human factors to consider here, and how they would weigh against other natural factors like weather and seasonal timing, however:

“Phosphorus runoff from fertilized farms and lawns may have contributed, because algae thrive on a phosphorus diet. The Caloosahatchee River, which runs through rural Florida farmland, empties into the ocean at Fort Myers.”

And sadly (though don’t get me wrong: despite their appearance, I love a manatee as much as the next fellow), manatees are not the only Florida wildlife affected: though the numbers are less drastic, the red bloom will affect birds, dolphins and any other marine life it comes in contact with.

More at Grist | Treehugger | NPR

17 Jan

What the Frack?

Posted by Laura Lucas in Fracking, Uncategorized, Water.

The Associated Press revealed on Wednesday that it discovered the EPA had evidence indicating that a major drilling company was responsible for contaminating drinking water at homes near its operation. When the EPA moved against the company, however, it threatened not to cooperate in a large-scale study of fracking within the industry. Soon after, the EPA ceased investigative activity directly targeting the company. Yet at one point, the agency was so concerned about the local water quality that it issued an Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Order regarding the situation. The order was later retracted.

20 Mar

EPA Sued Over Nutrient Pollution in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Administrative Procedures Act, Agriculture, Environmental Enforcement, EPA, Water.

Photo by turtlemom4bacon. Some rights reserved.

Law Firm Faegre Baker Daniels sent out a Legal Update this week detailing two complaints filed simultaneously against the EPA over actions (and inactions) taken in regards to nitrogen and phosphorus runoff in the Mississippi River.

One complaint (Gulf Restor’n Network v. Jackson, E.D. La., No. 2: 12-cv-00677), filed March 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana by the Gulf Restoration Network (and others), claims that the EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by denying a 2008 petition that asked the EPA to establish state water quality standards and total maximum daily loads to address excessive nitrogen and phosphorous pollution in the waters of the Mississippi River Basin and northern Gulf of Mexico.

The other complaint (Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. Jackson, S.D.N.Y., No. 12-CIV-1848), filed the same day in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Natural Resources Defense Council (and others), seeks to compel the EPA to address a 2007 petition requesting that the EPA publish updated standards on secondary treatment technology for publicly owned treatment works, and include nitrogen and phosphorous removal in those standards. The agency never even responded to the petition.

Faegre points out that, “[f]or the agriculture industry and farmers, the implications of the lawsuits are significant. According to the Iowa Farm Bureau, the cost of complying with the nitrogen and phosphorous standards sought by environmental groups could be as high as $600 million per year nationwide.”

25 Jan

NRC Report Champions the Benefits of Wastewater

Posted by Kyle Hargus in NRC, Uncategorized, Wastewater, Water.

Photo by Pam_Broviak. Some rights reserved.

As the National Research Council made clear way back in 2001, “In this new century, the United States will be challenged to provide sufficient quantities of high-quality water to its growing population.” According to a new report authored and released by the NRC’s Water Science and Technology Board (made up of sixteen government officials, researchers, and industry specialists), approximately 12 billion gallons of used water is discharged each day into oceans, rivers, and groundwater by American municipalities, when this wastewater could be easily “captured and reused.”

As climate change and population growth force the need for more stringent water conservation methods ever higher, this new report argues that the current practice for disposing of this used water is to treat it by recycling it back through larger bodies of water, when in fact this “natural treatment” step may be entirely unnecessary, when this water could be put to immediate use in bolstering out national water supply.

The New York Times points out that in some areas of the U.S., local governments are already implementing such measures. The Southwest Florida Water Management District has been using un-treated wastewater for decades across a broad spectrum of uses (none of which involve any human consumption, which seems to be the biggest hang-up for the American consumer, a POV that was considered in the parameters of the NRC report). Ten percent of total water use in this district employs recycled water, whereas this figure stands at less than three-tenths of 1 percent nationwide.

Despite the obvious benefits, and though the study concludes that there are no significant risks in these potable reuse water projects (finding no comparable differences between common drinking water sources and potable reuse water), the legalities of enforcement of these standards on a larger federal level are somewhat dicier. The EPA is on shaky ground enforcing national water reuse standards under the Clean Water Act, and so, at least for now, the decision to reuse wastewater seems to rest on a district-by-district-level. I’ve linked to the full version of the NRC report above, and you can read a nice summary of the report here.

22 Nov

Water Disclosure

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Climate Change, Environmental Disclosure, Water.

Photo by Davidpd. Some rights reserved.

Jenner & Block’s Corporate Environmental Lawyer Blog yesterday posted a bit about the results of the recently released 2011 Water Disclosure Report by the not-for-profit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which holds “the largest database of primary corporate climate change information in the world”. The blog post highlighted the following “key findings” from the process and the report:

  1. 190 companies or 60% of identified companies responded to the questionnaire – a 10% increase over last year.
  2. Over half (59%) of companies responding reported exposure to water-related risks such as flooding, scarcity and reputational damage.
  3. One third (38%) of companies already have experienced water-related business impacts, such as disruption to operations from severe weather events or water shortages.
  4. 63% of companies believe that water presents commercial opportunities and commonly identified opportunities relate to increased water efficiency, among others.
  5. 72% of companies understood the linkages or tradeoffs between water and carbon emissions.
  6. 41% of companies confirm that the biggest water risk facing their businesses is water stress or scarcity.

The findings were based on a questionnaire sent to 315 companies on the Global 500 Index identified as operating in the most water-stressed locations or industry sectors.

The report itself has a great breakdown of trends across the sectors, but if you are interested in seeing some real life examples of water-related risk disclosure from public companies, check out knowledgemosaic’s risk factor search page, which extracts risk-related disclosure from SEC filings.

In the past year alone, there have been more than 800 risk factors mentioning floods or flooding. For instance, NewLink Genetics reports:

“Our facilities are located in areas where floods and tornados are known to occur, and the occurrence of a flood, tornado or other catastrophic disaster could damage our facilities and equipment, which could cause us to curtail or cease operations.”

(click here to see an excel report of all flood-related risk factor search results)

Interestingly enough, in the same time period, there have been only 17 mentions of water stress, shortage or scarcity in the risk factors. One such risk factor – from Anheuser-Busch InBev S.A. – reads:

“We also face water scarcity risks. The availability of clean water is a limited resource in many parts of the world, facing unprecedented challenges from climate change and the resulting change in precipitation patterns and frequency of extreme weather, overexploitation, increasing pollution, and poor water management. As demand for water continues to increase around the world, and as water becomes scarcer and the quality of available water deteriorates, we may be affected by increasing production costs or capacity constraints, which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.”

(click here to see an excel report of risk factor search results mentioning water stress, shortage or scarcity)

14 Sep

Seattle’s Future Water Woes

Posted by Kyle Hargus in Public Utilities, Water.

Photo by tarnalberry. Some rights reserved.

No doubt there are bigger water related-problems in the national news, with the summer’s drought in Texas casting a grim agricultural shadow over the coming year and the storms that have hit the east coast and the Gulf in recent weeks causing more than a just a stir. But seeing as we at Knowledge Mosaic are based in Seattle, let’s put national issues aside and take a little look at some local news! Trust me, I’m sure this has some inklings of national resonance anyhow, as this must be a pattern occurring more or less on a wide scale across the US.

Though Seattleites have done an admirable job of lowering water usage to its bare essentials in recent years (we are reported to be using the same amount of water now that we were using in 1957, and the population has almost doubled in that time), the Seattle Times reports that the amount Seattle has been paying for water has, regardless of the amount of water conserved, almost doubled since 2000, and may see an additional 25% raise before 2014.

Seattle citizens have voiced displeasure with Seattle Public Utilities, stating that they’ve done their best to follow the “How to Reduce Water Use” tips that they’ve put on their website, and that their bills are still rising month by month. The issue is that maintenance and construction work on water-related projects (“dams, reservoirs, pipelines and pumps,” as the Times alliteratively puts it)continue to rise, while consumers are still on the hook for paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to build facilities like the Cedar River Watershed. The Seattle City Council voted last night (before this post went to press!) on the proposal to raise water bills, and it was expected to pass.

14 Jun

National Ocean Council’s Actions, Jackson

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Climate Change, National Ocean Council, Oceans, Water.

Photo by Aube insanité. Some rights reserved.

What has two categories, nine priority objectives, and aims to address some of the most pressing challenges facing our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes?

The National Ocean Council’s Strategic Action Plan, of course!

On June 2nd, the Council released an introduction to, and content outlines for, the nine priority objectives that make up the Strategic Action Plan (SAP). The SAP was mandated by a White House Executive Order released last year, which incorporated the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force established the year before. The task force, the Council, and the whirlwind of activity surrounding them, have all been in the name of maintaining “healthy, resilient, and sustainable oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of this and future generations.”

The nine priorities of the SAP, which are split into two categories (“How we do Business” and “Areas of Special Emphasis”) cover everything from broad “ecosystem-based management” principles to “changing conditions in the Arctic,” and are intended to be fleshed out – with the help of public comments – and available in draft form later this year.

You can read previously submitted comments on the SAP outlines or submit your own comments until July 2, 2011. Need a quick overview? Law firm Perkins Coie has a good one here.

17 May

Let’s Hope This Sunlight Can Kill Coliform, Arsenic, and Bad User Interfaces

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Consumer Tools, Drinking Water, EPA, Transparency, Water.

Photo by mrhayata. Some rights reserved.

In the name of transparency, the EPA announced yesterday the release of several improvements to the availability and usability of drinking water data in the Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) tool.

The updated Safe Drinking Water Act search page can ostensibly used to pinpoint violations of drinking water standards in any given individual’s community. The interface, however, leaves much to be desired.

A geographic search on the tool will return a list of violators in your area. However, because of the nature of any given city’s water systems, it can be difficult to know whether a specific discharge or exceedance of the maximum contaminant levels is affecting or has affected your neighborhood’s drinking water.

To boot, the page is riddled with acronyms whose explanations are difficult to locate, and – once you have the codes all figured out – it is still often unclear whether a given episode of noncompliance has been resolved.

If you agree that the functionality and usability of the Drinking Water Data Search could be improved, don’t be shy about letting the EPA know. They are currently accepting comments on the tool that will be used to improve the service.

3 May

EPA and Army Corps of Engineers Issue Draft Guidance on Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act

Posted by Hester Serebrin in Army Corps of Engineers, Clean Water Act, EPA, Water, Wetlands.

Photo by Marc Veraart. Some rights reserved.

On May 2, 2011, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jointly issued a request for comments in the Federal Register on draft guidance that is intended to clarify how the two agencies will make determinations about whether waters are protected by the Clean Water Act (33 USC §1251 et seq.).

The proposed guidance, which also implements two relevant Supreme Court decisions that concern the extent of waters covered by the Clean Water Act (Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos v. United States), once finalized, will supersede a 2003 ‘‘Joint Memorandum’’ on the topic and existing 2008 guidance entitled “Clean Water Act Jurisdiction Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Rapanos v. United States & Carabell v. United States.”

The agencies believe that “under this proposed guidance the number of waters identified as protected by the Clean Water Act will increase compared to current practice and this improvement will aid in protecting the Nation’s public health and aquatic resources.”

Law firm Fulbright & Jaworski published a Briefing late last week that highlights some of the expected changes resulting from the adoption of this proposed guidance, focusing on the agencies’ increased jurisdictional reach – a change that, according to Fulbright & Jaworski, “legal challenges are guaranteed to follow.”

You can read more about the guidance – including an analysis of potential economic benefits and impacts associated with the guidance – on the EPA’s Clean Water Act Definition of “Waters of the United States” webpage. Comments will be accepted on the proposal through July 1, 2011.

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