U.S. mayors agree to phase out bottled water

“The change could mean people at city council meetings around the
country in the future could more often see pitchers of water instead of
clear plastic bottles on the tables of local legislators.”
This sends a clear message to consumers and it is a great message for the mayors to endorse. The question is where is the FCM on this issue. How can we get a similar resolution on their agenda?
Article is here.

Inter-state water transactions

This story, illustrates some of the challenges facing the US. In the article, the only demand that gets recognized is the use of water to supply a growing population. In the same manner that the Colorado river is completely consumed, where does the natural environment fit into their management scheme? Would decisions about water management be made differently if there wasn’t a state boundary there? With regard to managing water, political boundaries are completely arbitrary and yet, they set the agenda in the US as it is the only legal platform from which to begin a discussion about water “rights”.

It’s Time To Drink Toilet Water

Slate hits a note with this article by Eilene Zimmerman. The Netherlands started a practice almost 25 years ago of treating wastewater and pumping it into the ground. In their case though, it was to push back the saline water boundary with fresh water. If they pump out too much ground water they get salt water intrusions.

The waterfootprint.org is an interesting site worth checking out.

February Tab sweep: Water

Some collected tabs pertaining to water this week.

Adapting Water Use to a Fast Changing World

We are on the verge of a water crisis. As world economy and population continue to grow, we are becoming a much thirstier world. It is important to realize just how much water we need to make every aspect of our economy work. Every liter of petrol requires up to 2.5 liters of water to produce it. On average, crops grown for their bioenergy need at least 1,000 liters of water to make one liter of biofuel. It takes about 2,700 liters of water to make one cotton T-shirt, up to 4,000 liters of water to produce a kilo of wheat and up to 16,000 liters to produce a kilo of beef. The statistics are equally surprising for hundreds of other consumer products that we all take for granted like milk, juice, coffee, fruit, pizza, detergents, carpets, paint, electrical appliances, cosmetics and so on. On average wealthier people “consume” upward of 3,000 liters of water every day.

Water restrictions bite for 70000 as drought worsens

QUEENSTOWN and Whittlesea are in the grip of a drought that has forced the Lukhanji Municipality to institute stringent water restrictions on about 70000 residents. The restrictions came into effect on Friday and will remain in place until further notice. Municipal spokesperson Mkhululi Titi said the Bonkolo Dam, which supplies water to the two areas, is about 67% full, but has only one month’s supply left at the current rate of water usage.

“The ideal level would be above 85%. We haven’t had good rains in a while,” said Titi, adding that the municipality last introduced restrictions in 2003.

Water next big battleground

DISPUTES about the nation’s dwindling water supplies loom as the next great legal battleground, according to the country’s most senior judge, Murray Gleeson. … Justice Gleeson said courts would have an increasing role in settling environmental issues, especially as businesses and governments dealt with concerns about climate change.

Drought-stricken Georgia eyes Tennessee’s border — and river water

Others have threatened to fire rifles from Lookout Mountain.

“If they really do try to pull this off, we will do whatever we have to do to defend ourselves,” said Howell Moss, the mayor of Tennessee’s Marion County, noting that the disputed milewide strip of land has been an accepted part of his state for nearly 200 years.

There is a theme running through more and more water stories. That theme is echoed from the very early environmental movement spawned from the “limits to growth” book. These stories are linked by:

High demand -> Shortfalls in supply -> Conflict -> ________

The last word in that chain is not yet written. In many cases, it will be pursued through courts where there are courts with jurisdiction to resolve water problems. In other places, like intra-nation conflict, it could get very ugly. Let us configure a United Nations body with the express purpose of finding non-violent resolutions to these conflicts. A US style water rights based on property ownership is unlikely to be a workable solution.

Los Angeles to Drain Two Reservoirs Due to Cancer Risk

”

he Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
intend to drain 600 million gallons of water from Elysian and Silver
Lake reservoirs early next year, a process that will leave them out of
action for three to four months amid drought conditions, the department
said in a statement.

According to the
department, high levels of the carcinogen bromate were discovered by a
commercial water customer during tests in early October.”
- from here.

PVC concerns?

probably not for rigid PVC plastic. Story

Brisbane residents best water savers in world: Newman

From ABC News, “Councillor Newman says the Queensland Water Commission data, showing residents are using an average of 123 litres a day, means Brisbane has overtaken cities in Germany as the best water savers in the developed world.”

What does 123 litres of water a day look like compared to Canada?

I’m familiar with a typical value of 340 as the average daily water consumption per person but I have seen info suggesting that we are getting down to below 300 for some communities that have implemented water conservation measures.

Other info, here , here, here and here.

So if a community has implemented water conservation, what does it take to get down to the EU typical rate of 140 litres per capita? What does a solution look like that cuts a typical Canadian water consumption figure in half? To even consider this, we have to go and look at the CBC article and a breakdown of water use, Toilet flushing = 30%, and water used per task.

Just for completeness, I checked and our household’s consumption based on the last bill was 138 litres/person.

Top 10 causes of pipeline failures

A USA report from last year analyzed the 10 most common mistakes for serious pipeline failures. (What defines serious from superfluous I wonder?) More info here.

I think that 7 & 8 are big ones for water and wastewater.

Discovering a pin hole leak

Our children’s caregiver lives with us during the week and last night she came upstairs to say that she could hear water dripping. We have an old house and this is exactly the kind of thing that gives me palpatations when I hear it.

Investigation revealed that we did have a water leak but I could not find from where. Two years ago, we had a pipe freeze and burst which revealed itself with a light fixture filling up with water. We were lucky that we were home and caught that one when we did.

Thankfully, this time the old line had an isolation valve on it and so with relative ease I was able to close the valve and confirm that the dripping was slowing down. So I had the right pipe at least. I turned the line back on and climbed up on a chair and reached in towards the pipe and found a pin hole leak in one of the elbows. Wow, what causes that to show up?

I’ve read some of the reports that have associated excess flux on copper pipe soldering with pin hole leaks and maybe that’s what’s going on here. It’s not an easy failure to diagnose as compared to say the burst elbow from pipe freezing. It looked like someone had shot a bullet out of the elbow from inside. The pin hole leak for this elbow was on the top outside part of the elbow and I believe the flux leakage corrosion points were all along the invert or lower portion of copper pipe and not the upper side.

It’s in a tricky position to fix but that’s what my afternoon is going to look like.

A political rarity; Greg Sorbara compliments Finance Minister Flaherty

I saw this on TV last night and was pleased to actually see and hear one politician recognizing an opposing party’s political work.

“Ontario welcomes the proposed federal Working Income Tax Benefit, which will support people with low incomes. And we are pleased to see Ottawa’s proposal on the Capital Cost Allowance as a way of helping hard-hit manufacturers.” link to source.

All too often the only sound bite that is captured and/or presented is a critical comment that suggests that the budget presented is all crap. This is what the federal Liberals and NDP presented. I think that the federal conservatives have done a couple of good things with this budget including:

• rebates on fuel efficient vehicles *and* penalties on gas guzzling vehicles.
• tax incentives for big pharma to donate medicines to developing countries,
• the working income tax benefit, and
• A National Trust to protect land, buildings and national treasures.

The other item mentioned by Sorbara in the budget is the CCA for the manufacturing to have a two year window to write off new equipment along with the ACCA or accelerated Capital Cost Allowance to move from oil sands to green technology. Unfortunately, neither of these is a benefit to municipal utitilties that are starting to track their investments in capital but do not receive a tax benefit for doing so.

What municipalities need is an capital incentive program that replaces inefficient systems with green technologies for moving and treating water and wastewater.