Water | Grist

Is There A Light of Hope Beneath the Mud?

Salvadoran mudslides: A plea for climate change solutions and holistic water policy 1
Posted 1 week ago Torrents of mud and boulders flattened villages in El Salvador recently, leaving over 100 people dead and thousands homeless. From all indications, climate change will be most acutely felt in an escalating frequency and ferocity of floods and droughts. It’s chilling to think that we ought to expect much more of this kind of devastation in the coming years.
Tipping toward disaster

At SEJ, doom and gloom without the sense of humor 0
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago Climate change panels at the annual Society for Environmental Journalists meeting are rarely cheerful events. But this afternoon's session on global warming as a national security issue was an even darker affair than usual.
Amigo, Can You Spare a BTU?

Mexican peasants pay the price for U.S. energy consumption 3
Posted 1 month, 4 weeks ago Chances are, the average U.S. citizen has no idea that their demand for electricity might require that a Mexican village be flooded for a hydroelectric dam.
Morocco’s unique vulnerability to climate change 1
Posted 2 months ago
With most of its economic activity near the coast, no legislation preventing building in the coastal zone and the government reportedly selling coastal land to developers at notional prices, climate change is a real threat to Morocco.
Red Snow Warning

The end of welfare water and the drying of the West 7
Posted 2 months ago
The Western U.S. has been experiencing epic drought the past several years -- but that's just one indication that we're suffering from severe weather "perturbulence." As the climate shifts and water dries up, agriculture, sprawling cities, and entire ecosystems are at stake.
Coal slurry smiles

NY Times nails Clean Water Act crimes and (lack of) punishment 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
Readers of the New York Times probably dropped their jaws in amazement at the lead story on Sunday: Seven-year-old Ryan Massey, of Prenter, West Virginia, smiled back with capped teeth, the enamel devoured by toxic tap water. His brother sported scabs and rashes, courtesy of the heavy metals--including lead, nickel--in their bath water.
EPA’s failure to publicize drinking water data prompts rethinking in agency, Congress 1
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
There is some evidence that Congress -- and the Environmental Protection Agency -- are rethinking their policies on a commonly used weed-killer after disclosures that the EPA failed to notify the public about high levels of the herbicide in drinking water.
weeding out weed killer

Water utilities lack proper filters for weed-killer 2
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Results from a federal drinking water monitoring program show that many public water companies are ineffective at removing a widely used weed-killer from their water supplies.
Glass half empty

Water must be on the table at Copenhagen talks 0
Posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago
The participants of the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm today unanimously said that water must be included in the COP-15 climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.
Gulp!

EPA fails to inform public about weed-killer in drinking water 1
Posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago
One of the nation's most widely used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.
Forest gumption

New Obama forest plan leaves roadless rule intact 5
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack laid out a broad vision for the U.S. Forest Service on Friday, promising strong conservation measures and an emphasis on restoring damaged forests.
Signed. Sealed. Will they deliver?

ForestEthics mails Fortune 500 companies to kick off tar-sands campaign 1
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
ForestEthics has mailed letters to more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, warning that their continued consumption of fuels from Canada’s tar sands—the world’s dirtiest oil—puts their brands at risk.
The wrong kind of bubbly

More gas contamination affects Pennsylvania residents 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Pennsylvania environment officials are investigating another natural gas well leak, after residents near the town of Roaring Branch complained last month that rust-colored water was flowing from a spring and two small creeks were bubbling with methane gas.
There's a drill in the hole and a hole in the ground and the methane bubbles all around, all around

Water problems from drilling are more frequent than PA officials said 1
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as "an anomaly." But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.
Don't Drink the Water

‘Tapped’ documentary pulls plug on bottled water craze 3
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
"Tapped," a new documentary about the bottled water industry from director Stephanie Soechtig and the producers of "Who Killed the Electric Car?", is a pretty damning look at how consumers have been tricked into spending too much money on water packaged in plastic and quite often not as clean as what's available from the faucet.
Is hindsight 20/20?

Learning from past civilizations 2
Posted 3 months, 3 weeks ago
To understand our current environmental dilemma, it helps to look at earlier civilizations that also got into environmental trouble. Our early 21st century civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond.
A WALK THROUGH THE WEEK'S CLIMATE NEWS

The Climate Post: Smalls steps and giant leaps 3
Posted 4 months ago
Hillary Clinton visited India, which sees an increasing value in clean tech. Congress prepares for summer recess as Copenhagen climate talks loom ever closer, and George Will continues to test the limits of journalistic integrity. It's all in a week's worth of climate news.
a dirty, hermaphrodite-fish-filled river runs through it

Help for the hurting Potomac 2
Posted 4 months ago
Washington, D.C. residents are currently banned from swimming in the Potomac, the river that cradles the nation's capital and feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.
From ProPublica

Energy industry sways Congress with misleading data 2
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
The two key arguments that the oil and gas industry is using to fight federal regulation of the natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing -- that the costs would cripple their business and that state regulations are already strong -- are challenged by the same data and reports the industry is using to bolster its position.
World Water Forum wrap-up

A right to rain 2
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
One man gathers rain to recharge groundwater reserves and another pushes salt water through a desalination plant for subsequent sale. Are these both viable solutions to the world’s water crisis?