General News:  Water Supply Dynamics   

 World Water Wars | Stories: Past Hour| Past 24 hours |Past Week | Past Month | 

Lake Mead near rationing levels [08/12/10] "Water levels in Lake Mead, the country's largest reservoir, are at a 54-year low, sparking rationing fears in Arizona and Nevada. [...]"   

Water scarce in Egypt [07/29/10] "Water shortages are expected to grow more severe in Egypt and public frustration with the situation is growing, water engineers say. [...]"  Note:  Stupid sequentials can't figure out that they need to build water desalination plants.

Pakistan's woes compounded by severe water crisis [07/26/10] "Water availability per person in Pakistan has fallen from about 5,000 cubic meters (175,000 cubic feet) in 1947, when the country was founded, to around 1,000 cubic meters (35,000 cubic feet) today. Most of the drop is the result of a population that has more than quadrupled since independence, but many scientists predict global warming could have a significant impact by shrinking the glaciers that feed Pakistan's rivers. Experts also point to inefficient irrigation methods in Pakistan as a key factor. [...]"  Note: Instead of using part of the billions sent to Pakistan to construct water desalination plants, in order to promote crop growth and supply adequate water to the population, the money gets pocketed by greedy brigands and buffoons. It's all a matter of choice combined with foresight. Of course, when you have minions and sequentials, largely ... they're conceptually hobbled, and largely dumb as a box of rocks.

Australia turns to sea for drinking water [07/13/10] "Australia will spend $13 billion to build desalinization plants to provide up to 30 percent of the country's drinking water from the sea, authorities say. [...]"  Note: It took them long enough to make this decision. They could have done it years ago. Why doesn't the IMF fund things like this for Africa? Why isn't China doing this for it's drought-stricken areas? Because they're inefficient and incompetent sequentially-run societies.

Israel has designs on water from the Nile River [04/28/10] "A study prepared by Dr. Adel Amer, head of the Center, "the front of the Economic Studies and Political Rights" in Egypt on the map, "Israel" aiming for a share of the waters of the Nile River. The study pointed out that "Israel" seeks to implement its plan by trying to encroachment in countries sources, abetting and attempting to Egypt and the Sudan to reduce their share of water, in addition to its theft of groundwater by drilling wells near the Egyptian border.  ..."   

World water crisis warning to UK [04/19/10] "A report from three engineering groups predicts that a rising world population, growing demand for water and the impact of climate change will make water more scarce in future. This could push up food prices, affect economic growth and even spark conflicts, posing a "serious threat to the UK", the study warns. Water is one of the most undervalued natural resources in the world but it affects national security through its impact on economic growth, food supply and healthcare, the researchers said. Direct water consumption in the UK is about 145 litres per person per day, but the report raises concerns that we rely on too much "virtual water" embodied in the food, clothes and goods we import. ..."  Note: Not to worry. We'll all be out of here fairly soon, and this won't be an issue. 

Australia to appoint population minister; develop strategy [04/04/10] "Australia is to create a new government post of minister for population tasked of developing an official population strategy, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Saturday.  Tony Burke, currently minister for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, will add the new job to his current portfolio, Rudd said. The new strategy is expected to take 12 months to develop.  Recent estimates have suggested Australia's population could grow by more than 50 percent to around 35 million in the coming decades, from its current level of around 22 million, fuelled largely by immigration. This has prompted concerns about whether such an increase is sustainable in the world's driest continent. ..."  Note:  How STUPID can these people be?  Australia is an ISLAND, surrounded by WATER and there is plenty of DESALINATION TECHNOLOGY clearly available. Where's the problem? It sounds like a Monty Python script with people from the Ministry of Stupid Walks.

The Looming Water Disaster That Could Destroy California, and Enrich Its Billionaire Farmers [03/29/10] "Just like the oligarchs who used the shock of Hurricane Katrina's destruction to tear down public housing, privatize public schools and pillage the city's poorest, California's most powerful business interests have positioned themselves to profit from this disaster. A handful of billionaire farmers and real estate developers are in line to pull off the most brazen water heist in American history, seizing control over much of Northern California's water supplies to do what they have always wanted: turn water, a shared public resource, into a private asset that can be traded on the open market.  At the center of this epic water grab is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a Yosemite-sized patchwork of waterways and farmland an hour east of Oakland that sits atop California's single largest water source. Formed by the confluence of state's two largest rivers as they flow out to the San Francisco Bay, more than half of all rainfall and snowmelt drains through the Delta, supplying two-thirds of California with water and irrigating most of the state's farmland. The Delta's agricultural, fishing and tourism industries produce up $5 billion in combined economic output a year, and the region remains one of California's last holdouts of small and family farms. It is also home to the most dangerous flood control system in America. ..."   

Red Cross: 900 million people lack clean water [03/23/10] "A Red Cross report reveals 900 million people across the globe have no access to safe drinking water as the world marks the World Water Day. ..."  Note:  I bet if those 900 million descended on their governments, the problem would get solved.

Documentary Film: Flow - For Love of Water  VIDEO [80:00] [01/30/10]   "Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question "CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?" Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround. (Excerpt from main website)  ..."  

California Gets Federal Help to Solve Water Crisis [11/12/09] "California Governor Schwarzenegger went to the Friant Dam near Fresno Monday to sign the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010. If approved by the voters next November, the measure would authorize the issuance of bonds in the amount of $11.14 billion to finance a safe drinking water and water supply reliability program for California ..."     Related: A water deal at long last "For decades, California's water wars have flared unabated - cities versus farms, north against south - while half measures left the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta drained and decimated. A solution involving all sides was only a dream. Until now. After days of closed-door talks and an all-night session, the Legislature pulled off a remarkable achievement this week. With the governor's prodding, Sacramento has crafted a five-bill package that goes a long way toward ending the constant feuding, promising stable water flows, environmental safeguards, and billions in bond money. "Save, share and store" is the slogan used by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, to describe the basics of the deal. It's not perfect. Agriculture, by far the state's biggest water user, won't face the strict curbs on water use that urban areas will. An $11.1 billion bond measure is a goodies-laden shopping list with projects barely linked to the water crisis. Touted job-creating benefits in updating the state's public plumbing are years away. The fate of new Peripheral Canal - and its substantial cost - is put off for now. But the real significance is plain. A dysfunctional state government took stock and banged out a comprehensive solution to a serious, complicated problem ignored for nearly a half century. A crisis moment - marked by a multi-year drought, declining salmon stocks, gridlocked interest groups and Sacramento leaders desperate to improve their ratings - produced the conditions for a breakthrough change. The historic nature of the water deal produced a political love-in with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger inviting groggy legislative leaders from both parties to a friendly announcement session within hours of the all-nighter that sealed the deal. It was the fulfillment of the long-promised bipartisan law-making that the Capitol has only fitfully produced. Democrats, led by Senate leader Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, and Republicans, headed by Senate leader Dave Cogdill and his Assembly counterpart Sam Blakeslee, got it done. Water policy may be one of the most intricate issues around. "No elevator speech can explain it. It's way too complicated," said Marin assemblyman Jared Huffman, a Democrat and top negotiator for environmental forces. ..."   

Jordanian Professor: Israel Will Go to War over Water [11/09/09] "Israel will go to war against Lebanon and Egypt to solve its water crisis, a Jordanian political science professor has charged. Dr. Ghazi Al-Rababah told the Jordanian Al-Arab Alyawm newspaper that the first war would be in Shebaa farms area, a small part of which Lebanon and Syria have been trying to force Israel to surrender. Although Israel is taking steps to solve the water shortage by building desalination plants that will be in full production in four years, al-Rababah declared that Israel will wage war against Egypt within seven years in order to control the Nile River. He accused Israel of "stealing hundreds of millions cubic meters of water from the Litani water in Lebanon, which has violated agreements by diverting water from flowing across the border. ..."   

Israel accused of denying Palestinians access to water [10/28/09] "Israel is accused today of denying the West Bank and Gaza access to adequate water through a "total" and "discriminatory" control that enables its own people to consume four times as much as the Palestinians. An Amnesty International report paints a picture of many Palestinian families struggling – and often failing – to secure enough water for drinking, cleaning, and agriculture while Israelis, including residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, have all they need for lush, irrigated farmland, swimming pools and gardens. Amnesty also suggests that taxpayers in countries who donate aid to the Palestinians are facing unnecessarily high costs to meet severe water shortages because their governments are unwilling to challenge "the most unreasonable" restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinian access to the regionally scarce resource..."  Note: Predictable.

Four-year drought pushes 23 million Africans to brink of starvation [10/23/09] "A four-year drought has pushed as many as 23 million people to the brink of starvation across East Africa, making it the worst in a decade or more. Close to four million of those at risk are in Kenya, where one person in ten survives on emergency rations. Last week clouds gathered over much of the country, but the rains have come too late to bring much relief. Aid agencies have warned that with them will come flooding, cholera, malaria and hypothermia. In the arid north, pastoralists have watched as their cattle collapsed from exhaustion and thirst, and those that survive now face floods. The people are scarcely holding on and the number of armed skirmishes over water and livestock is rising. ..." 

Future Conflicts & Wars Over Water [10/23/09] "Last year, Pakistan had suffered a loss exceeding five billion rupees in paddy crop production only as a result of water shortage after India stopped Chenab water to fill its Baglihar Dam during the month of September. India is violating Indus Water Treaty, and the objective seems to be India’s attempt to dry up Pakistan. India’s think-tanks have been working on river diversion plans with a view to creating acute water shortage in Pakistan, which could lead to shortage of wheat and other crops and resultantly inter-provincial conflicts over distribution of water..."   

Israel: Water reserves may be drained by 2010' [10/21/09] "If this winter is as lacking in rainfall as the last one, then by next summer Israel will have to take drastic steps such as importing [stealing] water and setting up portable desalination plants, officials believe .... Acknowledging that possibility, the Foreign Ministry, at the behest of the Water Authority, has been in contact with Turkey about shipping water across the Mediterranean Sea. There were talks on and off for much of the past decade about importing water from Turkey, but they were eventually discarded because it would be more expensive to import water than to desalinate it. However, the desalination project, while moving along, won't be able to ease the water crisis until 2013. In the meantime, extreme temporary measures may be needed and so talks with Turkey have been resumed. It would take an estimated 12 to 18 months for 30 million cubic meters of fresh water to hit Israel's shores, Shani wrote ... The Water Authority is in negotiations to increase the Ashkelon and Palmahim capacity by an additional 30 million cubic meters by having them run all the time, rather than making use of off-peak electricity. By the end of 2010, then, Israel could be desalinating 300 million cubic meters per year .... And yet, even with all that extra capacity, the water debt will still be steep and demand will still exceed supply, according to the Water Authority's projections. "  Note: Why Israel may attack Lebanon soon. Israeli stands to gain access to the Litani river as a water source. It's why there has been so much provocation there, recently, as reflected in Middle East news.   Related: Israel mulls water imports from Turkey   | Major water sources drying up as rain season begins 

After the Water Wars: The Search for Common Ground [10/15/09]  PDF  "After 32 failed attempts to reach consensus on water legislation and a deadly social conflict over water rights, IDRC-supported researchers in Bolivia have helped their country develop a water law that everyone could agree on. ..."      

U.S. Supreme Court takes on water battle between South, North Carolina [10/14/09] "The nation's most powerful judges plowed into a bitter dispute Tuesday over water use between South Carolina and North Carolina, asking pointed questions of lawyers for both states. Attorney General Henry McMaster said after the U.S. Supreme Court hearing that he was pleased by the justices' lively questioning in his 2007 lawsuit, which claims North Carolina wants to take too much water from the Catawba River before it reaches South Carolina. ..."   

Water wars threaten solar future [10/07/09] "In a rural corner of Nevada reeling from the recession, a glimmer of salvation seemed to arrive last year. A German developer announced plans to build two big solar farms, creating hundreds of jobs. But then things got messy. The company, Solar Millennium, revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 per cent of this desert valley's available water. Now Solar Millennium finds itself in the midst of a new-age version of a Western water war. Amargosa Valley's population is divided, pitting people who hope to make money selling water rights against those concerned about the project's impact on the community and the environment. "I'm worried about my well and the wells of my neighbours," George Tucker, a retired chemical engineer, said. This is one of the inconvenient truths about renewable energy: sometimes it demands a huge amount of water. Certain types of solar farms, biofuel refineries and cleaner coal plants could consume billions of gallons every year. "When push comes to shove, water could become the real throttle on renewable energy," said Michael E Webber, an expert and the assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin. ..."   

Great Drought Disaster Looms In East Africa [10/04/09] "Across East Africa an extraordinary drought is drying up rivers, and grasslands, scorching crops and threatening millions of people with starvation. In Kenya, the biggest and most robust economy in the region, the rivers that feed its great game reserves have run dry and since the country relies on hydropower, electricity is now rationed in the cities. ... And yet, it is in the semi-desert on the southern fringe of the Sahel zone where the most dramatic changes are being felt. Droughts are nothing new here and the nomadic way of life where herders follow patchy rains across the seasons developed centuries ago as a response to precarious natural resources. The herds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels – which are venerated by the nomads – were built up in the good years to pad the margins of life when the rains failed. But this way of life is being overwhelmed, even the camels are dying of thirst..."   

UN: 70 percent of world could be in drought by 2025 [10/04/09] "Drought could parch close to 70 percent of the planet's soil by 2025 unless countries implement policies to slow desertification, a senior United Nations official has warned. "If we cannot find a solution to this problem... in 2025, close to 70 percent could be affected," Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, said Friday. Drought currently affects at least 41 percent of the planet and environmental degradation has caused it to spike by 15 to 25 percent since 1990, according to a global climate report. "There will not be global security without food security" in dry regions, Gnacadja said at the start of the ninth UN conference on the convention in the Argentine capital. "A green deal is necessary" for developing countries working to combat drought, he stressed. ..."   

Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering  [09/14/09] "In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses. However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene ... (7-page story)"  

We Use How Much Water? Scary Water Footprints, Country by Country [09/10/09] "A country's water footprint, as opposed to simple water use, is the total amount of H2O needed for the production of goods and services. Figuring out a country's water footprint means adding all the water used plus the water inherent in products imported, then minus the water in exports. Using this top-down method, the average water footprint in the world is 1,243 cubic meters a year. As you already might have guessed, in the U.S. we are water hogs - we use more than twice the world average, or 2,500 cubic meters. That's equivalent to an Olympic-sized swimming pool for each and every one of us, or 2.5 million liters each. The Chinese, to compare, use 700 cubic meters annually. Read on for the water burden of American beef eating, Italian pasta slurping and India's vegetarianism. ..."    

  Turkey, Iraq and Syria in water crisis summit [09/10/09] "Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian ministers met in Ankara on Thursday to discuss water shortages in the major Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which run through all three countries. The meeting comes amid a diplomatic spat over Iraqi accusations that Syria is harboring terrorists. The Tigris River has plunged to record low levels, Iraqi farmers told CNN. Iraq is suffering a drought that its officials are calling a "catastrophe." Baghdad and Damascus want Turkey, where the source of the Tigris and Euphrates is located, to increase the flow of water passing through its network of dams. "Syria and Iraq are badly in need of water but our Iraqi brothers feel the need much more ... it is why this meeting is so important," Turkey's official Anatolian Agency quoted Syrian Irrigation Minister Nader al-Bounni as saying at the start of Thursday's tri-partite meeting to address water resources. "Our dams are empty and we have human needs." Also attending the meeting was Iraq's Water and Natural Resources and Turkey's Environment and Forestry minister, as well as its Energy minister ..."  

Mexico's Water Shortage Turning Into Food Crisis [09/10/09] "Regardless of cyclical weather patterns or larger scale changes in rainfall globally, new ways of managing water are going to be needed to avoid this kind of crisis in the future. It's something the entire globe, not just Mexico, is slowly having to come to terms with. Mexico City was once a lake, but now, thanks to over-pumping water reserves and poor management, desertification could be in its future - as is the case with many other areas ..."  Note: The planet is increasingly being made uninhabitable ... in anticipation of the endgame here coming to a close.  

  Goodbye Pools, Lawns and More: Why Life in the Southwest as We Know it Will Be History  [ 08/17/09 ] "Water in the very near future will be neither cheap nor plentiful, and much of the Southwest is destined for real trouble ... I have not read a clearer explanation of how much trouble the Southwest is in for, or a better accounting of the flawed thinking that got us into this mess, than James Lawrence Powell's excellent Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West. Powell lays out, with devastating precision and a wealth of facts, the reality that the Southwest as we've known it over the last 50 years is already done for. First, our assumptions about how wet the American West actually is have been based on a century that studies of tree rings show to have been anomalously wet: over the centuries, the region's usual state has been even drier than it is now. Second, though climate change is expected to lead to more rainfall during wet years, in the West's four major river basins (the Columbia, Missouri, Rio Grande and Colorado), the number of hot years expected as climate change worsens will be several times the number of wet years. Third, rising temperatures mean that the mountain snowpacks upon which all four rivers rely are going to continue shrinking. This is particularly a problem for the Colorado River basin, where evaporation into the desert air is so fast that "nearly 90 percent of the water in the streams must come from a virtual reservoir: the Rocky Mountain snowfields." But snow pack in the Rockies has already declined by 16 percent, and is expected to shrink far more, and far more quickly, in coming years ...." 

  Whose Water Is It? Water Rights in the Age of Scarcity  [ 08/15/09 ] "This question is perhaps the thorniest question in the world of water. Here's a look at some of the laws surrounding it...." 

Australians Ban Bottled Water  [ 07/10/09 ] "First popularized in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticized as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport" ... Australians spent 500 million Australian dollars ($390 million) on bottled water in 2008 _ a hefty sum for a country of just under 22 million people ... "I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognizing that there's safe drinking water coming out of our taps ..."   (As long as it's fluoridated)

World Bank finds Israel’s water policy hard to swallow  [ 04/30/09 ]  "As a former, and by many accounts successful, finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu presumably knows his way around economics. So when the Israeli prime minister says he will work to provide the Palestinians with economic, if not political, independence, might that not suggest his hard-line government understands that a prosperous Palestine would be an important first step towards a more stable Middle East?"

Water crisis rocks LA, Mexico City; who's next?  [ 04/12/09 ] "Water, water hardly anywhere. Water crises are rocking two of the world's largest cities as Mexico City starts a 36-hour water cutoff and Los Angeles is in the midst of a water dearth. The problem, however, is far wider than two of the most populous cities in the Western Hemisphere. Beijing, the capital of China, has a serious water shortage. The Israelis and the Palestinians are at loggerheads over control of the key aquifers west of the River Jordan that are vital to sustain both peoples. An unprecedented world population of 6.8 billion people -- more than three times that of 80 years ago -- and the inexorable reality of global climate change are guaranteed to make the long-term crisis worse ...."

Fixing Our Water Crisis Can't Be Done by the Corporations that Are Exacerbating It  [04/05/09 ]  "If we learned anything from the World Water Forum it should be that the privatization model has failed ...The World Water Forum itself is no longer the main story. The World Bank has spent 200 million dollars over fifteen years on privatization policies -- the same policies promoted by the World Water Council -- and by their own admission, these policies have failed. Two of the world's largest private water operators, Suez and Veolia, the major shareholders of the World Water Council, have received the lion's share of World Bank investments in water and sanitation, and, in their pursuit of full cost recovery around the world, have raised water tariffs and delivered poor service from Atlanta to Argentina." 

Who owns Colorado’s rainwater? + Catching rain water is against the law   [04/05/09 ]  "Future historians will shake their heads when they consider the fact that you were told you couldn't own or use the water that falls on your head, yet you still told yourselves that you were free, that there was nothing to worry about, that Obama has your back, and endlessly on. And I understand. The awful truth is quite unbearable. "Environmentalists and others like to gather it in containers for use in drier times. But state law says it belongs to those who bought the rights to waterways. Reporting from Denver — Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law. Holstrom’s violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain."

Out West, a new kind of water war  [04/04/09 ]  "In rural Chaffee County, Colo., one of the world's largest beverage companies has discovered water it deems fit for a bottle: clean and crisp, with the mountain spring flavor people are willing to pay for. Nestle Waters North America wants to tap an aquifer feeding a pair of springs near Salida, southwest of Colorado Springs, and draw 65 million gallons of water per year to bottle and sell under its Arrowhead brand. But many mountain residents say Nestle should go bottle someone else's water. "I'm afraid they will pump and pump until they suck it dry," said Michele Riggio, a Salida physical therapist who has led the opposition. The conflict is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle against the bottled water industry, which has enjoyed strong growth over the last decade thanks to the beverage's popularity among consumers who eschew tap water and soft drinks. As companies like Nestle, which operates 50 spring sites around the country, seek to acquire new water sources, communities have increasingly resisted, said Noah Hall, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and an expert in water law ..." Related: Water wars leave northern Colo. farmers dry   

UK:  Water scarcity 'now bigger threat than financial crisis' (March 2009 article)

Bottling companies guzzle about 5.4 million gallons a day of free water to sell  [03/10/09 ]  "Three years ago, House Democrats sought a fee on bottled water producers, but the bill was quietly drowned by Republicans in the Senate. Vermont and Michigan have already passed such a measure, and Maine is currently considering it. Now the issue is floating up again in that dreary annual IQ test otherwise known as the meeting of the Florida Legislature. Gov. Charlie Crist is pushing for a modest 6-cents-pergallon tax on water taken by commercial bottlers. The governor's office calls it a ''severance fee'' that would treat water like phosphate, oil and other natural resources extracted by private companies. Crist predicts the tax would raise $56 million the first year, much-needed funds that could be used for projects like desalinization plants."  Related: California Water Wars: Not a Conflict Between Fish and People 

Drought to cut off federal water to California farms  [02/22/09 ]  "Federal water managers said Friday that they plan to cut off water, at least temporarily, to thousands of California farms as a result of the deepening drought gripping the state. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a two-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven't had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years. The situation could improve slightly if more rain falls over the next few weeks, and officials will know by mid-March if they can release more irrigation supplies to growers. Farmers in the nation's No. 1 agriculture state predicted it would cause consumers to pay more for their fruits and vegetables, which would have to be grown using expensive well water."

Droughts Will Bring Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production  [02/10/09 ]  "After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks to be a humanitarian disaster around much of the world ..." 

Grim water outlook for Nevada and California   "Experts have offered a grim water outlook for Nevada and California, saying farmers can again expect to receive less water than normal this year because of a drought."

Manufacturing Thirst: The Hidden Water Costs of Our Industrial Economy   "From the mining of raw materials to energy production to the manufacturing process itself, industry guzzles tons of water."

The New Corporate Threat to Our Water Supplies    "Billions in private assets are now parked in "infrastructure funds" waiting for the crisis to mature and the right public assets to buy on the cheap. The first harbingers of a potential fire sale are already on the horizon. The City of Chicago has leased its major highway and Indiana its toll road. Private companies are managing major ports and bidding for control of local water systems across the country. Government jobs are also up for sale. For the first time in American history, the federal government employs more contract workers than regular employees. This radical shift to the private sector could become one of history's largest transfers of ownership, control, and wealth from the public trust to the private till. But more is at stake. The concept of democracy itself is being challenged by multinational corporations that see Americans not as citizens, but as customers, and government not as something of, by, and for the people, but as a market to be entered for profit."  3 pages

The World Bank Botches Water Privatization Around the World    "Despite admitting that corporations are screwing up water services, the World Bank still thinks privatization is a "real business opportunity." 

Growing World-Wide Water Shortage Expected To Get Worse    "Even in places such as India, access to clean water is a problem. And shortages of safe water aren't confined to third-world undeveloped countries. In the United States, a harmful chemical that was banned in Europe is still in use."

World Water Week kicks off in Stockholm    "A week-long conference on the impact of lacking water resources around the world began in Stockholm Monday with calls for radical changes in behaviour and mentality when it comes to water usage."

Nev. rancher awarded $4.2M for 'taken' water right   " A judge awarded more than $4.2 million to a late Nevada rancher's estate after finding that the U.S. Forest Service engaged in an unconstitutional "taking" of water rights out of hostility to the rancher, a property rights activist."

Water, the new oil, takes centre stage   " ... The global water shortage means it is fast becoming a commodity ... and one that corporate interests are realizing a profit on. Water has become a huge business, and it's increasingly being controlled by a very small number of corporations, such as Vivendi and Suez," says Barlow, who backs up her argument in her book, The Blue Covenant ..."   More

Business Leaders Seek Action On Global Water Crisis   "Business leaders representing some of the world’s largest companies today launched an international campaign urging governments of the Group of Eight (G8) countries to address with urgency the emerging global crisis in water and sanitation."

The New Water Politics of the Middle East  [Israeli] " ... Facing historical, psychological and political barriers that have impeded cooperation and deadlocked diplomacy, nations in the region are sliding toward conflict over water. Water’s growing role in the emerging hydropolitics of the region has stressed the need for a new approach to safeguard this diminishing resource. The integration of water into developing strategic cooperation frameworks becoming visible among regional states could facilitate the protection and preservation of water resources. This interaction could eventually pave the way for the long-term security of Middle East water. In light of the formidable barriers that have prevented agreement to date, such an approach may represent the only method by which to turn back the tide of the new water politics of the Middle East."

UN rejects water availability, necessary to life, as basic right   Well. I guess they'll have to drink beer and eat dirt cookies.

 World facing water crisis, UNDP report warns   "A report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned that the inability of the world's richer states to tackle a water and sanitation crisis could see millions of people die due to unchecked spread of diseases. The report urged the countries to make sure that every person would receive at least 20 liters of clean water every day while saying that the governments should spend a minimum of one percent of the GDP on water and sanitation. The UNDP added that there is a necessity of at least an additional $4 billion per year to be spent on clean water."  Related: Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis 

 Bush Family Paraguay Hideaway Update:    WMR's Paraguayan sources have confirmed that George W. Bush recently bought 42,000 hectares (over 100,000 acres) of land in Paraguay's northern "Chaco" region. The land sits atop huge natural gas reserves, according to sources in Asuncion. Moreover, the land deal was consummated in a dinner meeting between Bush's daughter Jenna and Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte. Although Jenna, who was in Paraguay under the cover of a 10-day UNICEF trip to visit child welfare projects, put the Bush family seal of approval on the land deal, the actual legal papers were worked out by Bush family lawyers and business representatives. Jenna Bush is supposedly working for UNICEF in Panama City. The Bush land is close to a new U.S. military installation, the Mariscal Estigarribia Air Base. It is also nearby a huge tract of land purchased by Sun Myung Moon that sits astride Latin America's largest water aquifer, the Guarani aquifer. According to earlier Madsen reports, Bush and the Carlyle Group are also the owners of major tracts of land along the proposed US super-highway linking Mexico and Canada, land that will be worth hundreds of millions more when the highway is completed.  Related: See Neo-Con Escape Plan to Paraguay? below.

 Neo-Con Escape Plan to Paraguay?   Fascists seem to have a penchant for escaping to this place. Apparently Bush and cronies are allegedly buying land down there .. "An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region...Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia." Related Article: Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay

US water pipelines are breaking    "It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation's cities is badly aging and in need of repairs. Billions for wars without end .....but no money for fixing the infrastructure."

 

 

 

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