This is why domestic sanitation is so important...

The New York Times reported today that clogged sewers and floods of wastewater have caused an epidemic of cholera that is "now gripping more than half the country". 

Read the full article here. 

Flooding in Colombia

On the coast of Colombia, the poorest of people are living in flooded house and traveling around their riverbed communities on makeshift boats.  In the community where I work a crocodile has crossed the river to feast on the urban stray dogs.  This type of flooding is affecting the entire country and causing the number of internally displaced people to rise even further.  Currently, Colombia has one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world after Darfur.  This map best illustrates the extent of this ongoing natural disaster. 

Levi's Denim Blues

Rueters reports that the finishing process for a pair of jeans runs somewhere near 42 liters of water. However, Levi's is releasing a new line they are calling "WaterLess" and are using 28% to 96% less water in the line's production. Is this a marketing technique based on a need to reduce water use because of factory location (China and India) or simply a desire to cash in on the green fashion movement?

See Reuter's article here. 

Cali, Colombia Might Need Daniel Beard

The dam building era in the United States started in 1935 with the completion of the Hover Dam.  After this, the Bureau of Reclamation built more dams on more bodies of water than any other organization in the world.  More importantly, this government agency influenced water politics world wide and contributed greatly to the global culture of damming (and damning) the world's rivers.   Interestingly enough Daniel Beard, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, has become an avid protester of dams, declaring the era of dam building in the U.S "over".  Pearce elaborates:

"He cut a startling figure. Daniel Beard, the recently retired commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S government agency that has built more large dams on more rivers than any other body in the world, had taken off his suit and donned a T-shirt and was striding through the streets of Nagaragawa in southern Japan at the head of a thousand protesters.  He was yelling, 'No more dams'" ( Ch. 15, para. 1). 

Pearce writes about Mr. Beard's participation in this demonstration to illustrate how dated the ideas of dams are in the current economic and environmental atmosphere.  Pearce quotes Beard as saying at this event, "This is one of the most awful dam projects I have ever seen- and I've seen some....It will supply water that nobody needs, will probably destroy a salmon fishery on a beautiful river, and may actually increase the risk of flooding." 

Mr. Beard has been converted from dam builder to dam protester for good reason.  Dams, at this point in time, are considered rather environmentally and economical unsound.  Besides belching uncanny amounts of methane and reeking havoc on ecosystems, they generally are not good economic investments. 

However, none of this increasingly common knowledge is influencing Emcali, a company based in Cali, Colombia, who is considering building a dam on the Cali river.  Although I do not know the details of the project, I believe it is highly unlikely that this will be a sound economic or environmentally friendly decision. 

You can find a brief article on the matter here. 

Colombia's Worth will be tied to its Ecosystems

Colombia's worth will be tied to its ecosystems, according to the World Bank and CNN.

"If we are going to address the alarming loss of habitat and the degradation of ecosystems in the world, we have to properly value natural capital," said Warren Evans, the World Bank's Director of Environment.

Colombia and India will be the first two countries that will undergo an analysis by the World Bank to assign an economic worth to these countries most valuable ecosystems, including the Amazon River Basin.  This decision by the World Bank could have a very significant positive impact on the prevention of water and environmental degradation but also further commodifies water and natural resources. See the full article here. 

See

Book Review #5: The World's Water

The World’s Water:  The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources (2008-2009)

By Peter H. Gleick

After reading so many books by journalists and economist, it was a bit startling but also refreshing to read a book by a scientist.  There is a very interesting chapter on urban water use in the United States.  However, what I found most useful were the charts in the data section of the book that gave a country-by-country break down, by region, of everything from annual renewable water resources to percentage of the population with access to sanitation.  What I learned about Colombia is organized in the chart below. 

Country	Colombia
Total renewable freshwater supply	2132 km3/yr
Fraction of population with access to improved drinking water (urban)	1970 88 1975 86 1980 93 1985 100 1990 87 1994 88 2000 98 2002 99 2004 99
Fraction of population with access to improved drinking water (rural)	1970 28 1975 33 1980 73 1985 76 1990 82 1994 48 2000 73 2002 71 2004 71
Fraction of population with access to improved drinking water (total)	1970 63 1975 64 1980 86 1985 1990 86 1994 76 2000 91 2002 92 2004 93
Fraction of population with access to improved sanitation (urban)	1970 75 1975 73 1980 93 1985 96 1990 84 1994 76 2000 97 2002 96 2004 96
Fraction of population with access to improved sanitation (rural)	1970 8 1975 13 1980 4 1985 13 1990 18 1994 33 2000 51 2002 54 2004 54
Fraction of population with access to improved sanitation (total)	1970 47 1975 48 1980 61 1985 1990 64 1994 63 2000 85 2002 86 2004 86

Book Review #4: When the Rivers Run Dry

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century (2007)   

By Fred Pearce

Pearce’s work illustrates how localized water tragedies and successes further the global water debate and how solutions to water problems and conflicts depend on geography, geopolitical atmospheres and relationships between global industry, national government and community organizers.  Essentially this book is a cross between ethnography, a novel and a newspaper.  It is a text that takes a reader to every corner of the earth to explore and understand the breadth and complexity of water issues.  Pearce traveled from Hover Dam to the Yellow River and everyplace in between to understand how river ecosystems work when they are allowed to run wild and how dams impact those ecosystems.  This work led him to write about industrial pollution of rivers and ground water, international conflict regarding water, urban development and water treatment, and arsenic and fluoride poisoning in disenfranchised villages. 

When the Rivers Run Dry is griping because Pearce weaves the stories that he uncovers into a web of ideas that leaves his reader with an enhanced understanding of the urgency with which water issues must be addressed.  Additionally, Pearce employs the wisdom of water experts from every governmental, international and non-profit organization that has a hand in water policy, development, management and treatment. 

 Pearce is informed and unpretentious when he offers his rational for writing this book.  He informs his reader of how much water it takes to grow some of the world’s most popular foods.  It takes 130 gallons of water to grow a pound of wheat, 650 gallons for a pound of cheddar cheese and 3000 gallons for a quarter pound of hamburger.  “I figure that as a typical meat-eating, beer-swilling, milk-guzzling Westerner, I consume as much as a hundred times my own weight in water everyday.  Hats off, then, to my vegetarian daughter, who gets by with about half of that” (ch. 1, para. 7).  What he makes clear is that the current state of the global economy as it relates to water is unsustainable.  Globally land is desertifying, aquifers are being diminished and rivers are literally running dry.  Yet, countries with very little water to waste are exporting water hungry crops, low yield crops like alfalfa and cotton.  

To combat this, Pearce suggests that farmers be taught how to make wastewater irrigation safe and that all new homes in Los Angeles be required to harvest rainwater.  If everyone in Los Angeles harvested rainwater, he argues, more than 50% of the cities water needs would be met (right now they are piping in water from hundreds of miles away).  He also suggests that small water projects and recharge ponds used hundreds of years ago be employed to recharge aquifers, particularly in rural areas.  He warns against moving toward desalination, reservoir building and expensive infrastructure projects because he believes they are counter productive and outdated, especially in developing countries.

When the Rivers Run Dry is the most informed, well-written, reasonable and holistic book I have read in my water journey thus far.  If you only read one book about water I would highly recommend choosing this one.  If you are on your own water journey this is the book to start with. If you are a filmmaker you better snatch this one up before someone else beats you to the punch.