In California, Farmers Rely on Oil Wastewater to Weather Drought
U.S. Overlooking Chevron’s Kern River oil field with the Sierra Nevada in the background, March 30, 2015. Percy Feinstein/Corbis
Calls For Immediate Shutdown Of Illegal California Injection Wells As Regulators Host ‘Aquifer Exemption Workshop’
While California legislators are calling for immediate closure of the thousands of injection wells illegally dumping oil industry wastewater and enhanced oil recovery fluids into protected groundwater aquifers, regulators with the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) were holding an “Aquifer Exemption Workshop” in Long Beach on Tuesday. Just 23 out of the 2,500 wells DOGGR officials have acknowledged the agency improperly permitted to operate in aquifers that contain potentially drinkable water have so far been closed down — 11 were closed down last July and 12 more were shut down earlier this month. Given the urgency of the situation, it certainly does not look good that DOGGR made time to hold a workshop to outline “the data requirements and process for requesting an aquifer exemption under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” when it has given itself a two-year deadline to investigate the thousands more wells […]
Water rationing may become a way of life in California drought
LOS ANGELES — After the driest January on record and dire predictions of the worst and most persistent drought in 1,000 years , California is once again cracking down on water wasters and reminding residents that water rationing may be a way of life for years to come. The State Water Resources Control Board sounded an alarm this week by mandating tougher restrictions, forcing local water agencies that don’t already limit outdoor watering to institute a two-days-a-week maximum. All restaurants are now required to serve water only upon request and hotels must offer guests the option of not having towels and linens laundered every day. A majority of the state’s 415 urban water districts already have drought emergency plans , but the state’s call to action is expected to generate tougher rules and stiffer enforcement statewide. Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to announce $1 billion in emergency drought funding. […]
Global population growth threatens to outstrip fresh water supply
ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Global demand for fresh water is set to outstrip supply as a result of population growth by the middle of this century if current levels of consumption continue, a study said. Fears of water shortages could intensify although this is not the first time in history that demand is poised to outpace supply, Tony Parolari, the study’s lead author, said on Wednesday. “Global water consumption per capita has been declining since 1980 which means efficiency is increasing,” Parolari, a researcher at Duke University, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “But if population growth trends continue, water use will have to decline more substantially.” The world’s population is expected to hit 9.6 billion by 2050 from more than 7 billion now, according to U.N. estimates. Whether humans can adapt to declining water supplies depends on what new technologies for finding water are developed, and whether population […]
California’s Cleaner Fuel Comes at Cost to Water: Report
(Bloomberg) — The water it takes to supply energy to California, the biggest U.S. fuel market, has risen almost four-fold over two decades. And the culprit isn’t oil. It’s biofuels, according to a report. California’s “water footprint” for energy — the water used to produce transportation fuels, natural gas and electricity consumed in the state — rose to 7.7 cubic kilometers in 2012 from 2.1 in 1990, the report prepared by university and environmental researchers showed. Almost all of the increase came from water used to grow biofuel crops in the U.S. Midwest and overseas to help meet the state’s goals for using low-carbon fuels, according to the paper published by the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The increase in water demand for biofuels highlights an unintended consequence of low-carbon fuel policies being adopted and considered across the U.S. to curb global warming and reduce the nation’s dependence on […]
On the River Nile, a Move to Avert a Conflict Over Water
Ethiopia’s plans to build Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Nile have sparked tensions with Egypt, which depends on the river to irrigate its arid land. But after years of tensions, an international agreement to share the Nile’s waters may be in sight. For thousands of years, Egyptians have depended on the waters of the Nile flowing out of the Ethiopian highlands and central Africa. It is the world’s longest river, passing through 11 countries, but without its waters the most downstream of those nations, Egypt, is a barren desert. So when, in 2011, Ethiopia began to build a giant hydroelectric dam across the river’s largest tributary, the Blue Nile, it looked like Egypt might carry out its long-standing threat to go to war to protect its lifeline. But last weekend, all appeared to change. Ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan agreed on the basis for a deal for […]
Water Scarcity Risks Being a Source of Conflict
Yemen, an impoverished desert country racked by years of conflict, instability and misgovernance, may soon add another dubious distinction to its unfortunate track record: At current rates, it may become Continue Reading
Arctic oil can wait, advocacy group says
Proposals for safe energy work in arctic U.S. waters stirs debate from environmental and industry circles. Photo by longtaildog/Shutterstock The Interior Department last week unveiled seven proposals meant to enhance regulations governing oil and gas operations on the arctic shelf of the United States. The new rules would require companies to adopt oil spill response plans suitable for the arctic environment and have the ability to drill a relief well in the event of a catastrophe like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, among others. The government said the proposals follow an examination of arctic operations carried out by Dutch energy company Shell off the coast of Alaska in 2012. Michael LeVine, a senior counsel for advocacy group Oceana, said in response to email questions the federal government should start over with arctic energy regulations. "Good choices about whether to allow these activities and, if so, […]
China’s water grab
Marxists a century or so ago believed that what they called “Oriental despotism” arose in Asia because of the need in China and elsewhere to control the water supply. In 1957, Karl Wittfogel ’s work on the subject, “Oriental Despotism,” was published, warning that the need to control water for irrigation and other purposes in the region had given birth to a totalitarian state unlike any that had developed in the West. China is now the world’s largest economy. Though its ascension has been a long time coming, China ’s new status has analysts once again looking to water as one of its most powerful strategic levers. In fact, understanding China ’s water policy is as crucial to fostering world peace and international relations in the 21st century as arms treaties and diplomatic missions. In much of the world today, water is a more precious natural resource than oil. […]
Pakistan Braces for Major Water Shortages
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Energy-starved Pakistanis, their economy battered by chronic fuel and electricity shortages, may soon have to contend with a new resource crisis: major water shortages, the Pakistani government warned this week. A combination of global climate change and local waste and mismanagement have led to an alarmingly rapid depletion of Pakistan ’s water supply, said the minister for water and energy, Khawaja Muhammad Asif. “Under the present situation, in the next six to seven years, Pakistan can be a water-starved country,” Mr. Asif said in an interview, echoing a warning that he first issued at a news conference in Lahore this week. The prospect of a major water crisis in Pakistan, even if several years distant, offers a stark reminder of a growing challenge in other poor and densely populated countries that are vulnerable to global climate change. In Pakistan, it poses a further challenge to Prime […]