Tag Archives: Water Crisis

Tigris-Euphrates water level is becoming a real crisis

Euphrates

Important Takeaways:

  • The Tigris-Euphrates Basin’s Water Crisis Is a Looming Disaster
  • With the region home to 12 of the most water-scarce countries on the planet, the significance of effective, collaborative water management cannot be understated.
  • In a dramatic display of collective frustration, the streets of Baghdad recently became a theatre of dissent as around 300 Iraqis took to Nisour Square to protest acute water shortages. The demonstrations were held on 18 July near the Turkish embassy and marked a crucial moment in Iraq’s ongoing water crisis. They highlighted mounting tensions in the Middle East over shared water resources, the repercussions of climate change and poor governance.
  • Iraq’s water scarcity comes back to its geography. It sits at an intricate intersection of water resources. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, originating in neighboring Turkey and Iran, respectively, are vital lifelines for Iraq. However, unyielding demand for water upstream has led these countries to construct dams and diversions that diminish flows downstream, devastating Iraq’s water supply.
  • In Syria and Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates supply the vast majority of water. The Euphrates provides around 85% of Syria’s renewable water, and the two rivers combined make up nearly 100% of Iraq’s supply. Ownership of the rivers’ basins is divided among Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
  • Diplomatic resolutions are complicated by the unpredictable flow of the Tigris, but Turkey’s control of 88.7% of the Euphrates basin’s water potential is the main strain on water relations.

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National Guard sent to help with water distribution crisis across Mississippi capital

Revelations 18:23 ‘For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’

Important Takeaways:

  • Jackson water crisis deepens as state deploys National Guard
  • 600 National Guard troops at mass water distribution sites across the Mississippi capital as workers struggled to repair beleaguered plant pumps that have left many without reliable running water for weeks, with no end in sight.
  • State officials opened seven mass water distribution sites
  • Officials told reporters the locations would be supplied by 108 trucks for the next few days, enough water for the city’s 150,000 residents, plus 30,000 out-of-town workers.
  • The city has been under a boil-water notice since late July due to what the state called quality issues, and the water plant has been plagued by problems in recent years including staff shortages, failed environmental inspections, a freeze and a fire.

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Colorado River Crisis as tensions rise on which states get less water. Parties have not made an agreement and time is running out

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Tensions grow over lack of a water deal for the shrinking Colorado River
  • The states and managers of affected water agencies were told to come up with plans to reduce water use drastically, by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet, by mid-August. After weeks of negotiations, which some participants say have at times grown tense and acrimonious, the parties have yet to reach an agreement.
  • The absence of a deal now raises the risk that the Colorado River crisis — brought on by chronic overuse and the West’s drying climate — could spiral into a legal morass.
  • There have also been growing tensions between the states of the river’s Lower Basin — California, Arizona and Nevada — and those of the Upper Basin — Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah.
  • The federal Bureau of Reclamation is scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday to present the government’s latest projections of reservoir levels, which will dictate water cuts for the Lower Basin states under a previous 2019 deal. Lake Mead and Lake Powell have fallen to record-low levels, now nearly three-fourths empty, and are projected to continue dropping.

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Colorado river level worsens, 7 states to have water reduced

Revelation 16:9 “They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.”

Important Takeaways:

  • As water crisis worsens on Colorado River, an urgent call for Western states to ‘act now’
  • With the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs continuing to drop to new lows, the federal government has taken the unprecedented step of telling the seven Western states that rely on the river to find ways of drastically cutting the amount of water they take in the next two months.
  • Details about the federal government’s approach to the crisis two days after Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced that major cuts of between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet will be needed next year to keep reservoirs from dropping to “critical levels.”
  • For comparison, California, Arizona and Nevada used a total of about 7 million acre-feet of Colorado River water last year.

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Weeks after winter storms, Mississippi city still grappling with water crisis

By Joseph Ax and Rory Doyle

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Officials in Mississippi’s largest city, Jackson, are aiming to have running water largely restored by the weekend, nearly three weeks after devastating winter weather left tens of thousands of residents without service.

The city on Friday was again distributing non-potable water at four sites so people can flush their toilets, and residents must still boil any faucet water before using it for food preparation, drinking, washing dishes or brushing teeth.

Charles Williams, the city’s public works director, said on Thursday that workers should soon be able to sample enough water to lift the boil advisory.

“I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Williams said at a news conference, sounding more optimistic than he did on Wednesday, when problems at the city’s treatment plant caused pressure to drop across the entire system. At that time, he estimated around a quarter of Jackson’s 43,000 water connections – most of which serve multiple households – were not operating.

Officials did not have an updated estimate as of Friday, though city spokeswoman Michelle Atoa said the system maintained pressure overnight.

Tamiko Smith, 53, spent several anxiety-filled days scrambling to find clean water to perform the at-home dialysis treatments her husband, Otis, requires four days a week.

She tracked down some packaged water at a dialysis training center. Her husband’s uncle, however, who comes to Jackson to receive his own dialysis at a clinic, went three days without treatment because the facility had no access to water.

“It was very stressful,” said Smith, who compared the situation to living in a “third-world country.”

The problems stem from the same cold snap that wreaked havoc in Texas last month, shutting down the state’s power grid and leaving millions without heat in sub-freezing temperatures.

Jackson, the state capital with a population of more than 160,000 people, has seen more than 100 water main leaks since the storm and has been repairing them as quickly as possible, officials said.

The city’s mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, sent a letter to Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves earlier this week requesting $47 million in emergency funding to repair and improve Jackson’s water system.

Resident Jennifer Cattenhead, 39, and her three children finally had water service return on Thursday after more than two weeks without it.

“I was like, ‘Oh Lord,'” she said with relief.

Cattenhead had driven miles to find stores with jugs of water in stock, and she melted ice to use for flushing toilets. The first week after the storm, her house also had no power or heat, forcing her family to sleep in their cars for warmth.

The crisis has also shuttered businesses across the city. Jeff Good, the co-owner of three restaurants, said his pizzeria, Sal & Mookie’s New York Pizza & Ice Cream Joint, would open on Friday for the first time since Feb. 17 after getting water restored on Thursday.

Workers at his Broad Street Bakery & Café, meanwhile, were spending all day on Friday baking after the water returned ahead of reopening on Saturday morning.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Maria Caspani and Rory Doyle; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Diane Craft)

South Africa’s Cape Town faces severe economic troubles over drought

Sand blows across a normally submerged area at Theewaterskloof dam near Cape Town, South Africa, January 21, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Rating’s agency Moody’s warned on Monday the water crisis affecting Cape Town would cause the city’s borrowing to rise sharply and the provincial economy to shrink the longer the situation lasted.

A severe drought afflicting South Africa’s Western Cape province is expected to cut agricultural output by 20 percent in 2018, decimating the wheat crop and reducing apple, grape and pear exports to Europe, according to national government.

The City is bracing for “Day Zero” in late August when its taps could run dry.

Moody’s said in a report that one of the most direct impacts would be on Cape Town’s operating revenues, as 10 percent of them are from water charges.

The ratings agency estimates capital expenditure related to water and sanitation infrastructure could be as much as 12.7 billion rand ($1 billion) over the next five years.

“The long-term solutions are likely to require significant capital and operating expenditure,” Daniel Mazibuko, an analyst at Moody’s said.

The drought also threatens to slow South Africa’s economic rebound which has been fueled by a surge in agricultural production. Cape town generated nearly 10 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product in 2016.

Last Tuesday, Statistics South Africa said the economy grew 3.1 percent in October-December, the highest rate since the second quarter of 2016, after expanding by a revised 2.3 percent in the third quarter. Agriculture showed a 37.5 percent expansion after growing 41.1 percent in the previous quarter.

Government has declared drought a national disaster after its southern and western regions including Cape Town got hit hard by the drought, freeing extra funds to tackle the crisis.

(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia)

Dwindling hopes for Ecuador, death toll over 400

Ecuador's President Correa embraces a resident after the earthquake in the town of Canoa

y Julia Symmes Cobb and Ana Isabel Martinez

PEDERNALES/CANOA, Ecuador (Reuters) – Earthquake-stricken Ecuador faced the grim reality of recovering more bodies than survivors as rescue efforts went into a third day on Tuesday and the death toll climbed over 400 in the poor South American country.

Praying for miracles, distraught family members beseeched rescue teams to find missing loved ones as they dug through debris of flattened homes, hotels, and stores in the hardest-hit Pacific coastal region.

Meanwhile, a moved President Rafael Correa, visiting the disaster zone, said the quake had inflicted between $2 billion and $3 billion of damage on the OPEC nation’s already-fragile economy.

The damage from the quake could knock between two and three percentage points off gross domestic product growth, he told reporters. “Let’s not deceive ourselves, it’s going to be a long struggle … Reconstruction for years, billions (of dollars) in investment.”

In Pedernales, a devastated rustic beach town, crowds gathered behind yellow tape to watch firemen and police sift through rubble overnight. The town’s soccer stadium was serving as a makeshift relief center and a morgue.

“Find my brother! Please!” shouted Manuel, 17, throwing his arms up to the sky in front of a small corner store where his younger brother had been working when the quake struck.

When an onlooker said recovering a body would at least give him the comfort of burying his sibling, he yelled: “Don’t say that!”

But for Manuel and hundreds of other anxious Ecuadoreans with relatives missing, time was running out.

As of Tuesday, rescue efforts would become more of a search for corpses, Interior Minister Jose Serrano told Reuters.

The death toll stood at 413, but was expected to rise.

The quake has injured at least 2,600 people, damaged over 1,500 buildings, and left 18,000 people spending the night in shelters, according to the government.

In many isolated villages or towns struck by the quake, survivors struggled without water, power, or transport. Rescue operations continued, but the sickly, sweet stench of death told them what they were most likely to find.

“There are bodies crushed in the wreckage and from the smell it’s obvious they are dead,” said Army Captain Marco Borja in the small tourist village of Canoa.

“Today we brought out between seven and eight bodies.”

Nearly 400 rescue workers flew in from various Latin American neighbors, along with 83 specialists from Switzerland and Spain, to boost rescue efforts. The United States said it would dispatch a team of disaster experts while Cuba was sending a team of doctors.

To finance the costs of the emergency, some $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders was immediately activated, the government said.

Ecuador also announced late Monday it had signed off on a credit line for $2 billion from the China Development Bank to finance public investment. China has been the largest financier of Ecuador since 2009 and the credit had been under negotiation before the quake.

(Repoprting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Pedernales and Ana Isabel Martinez in Canoa; Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Lawsuit over Flint water crisis says 17 children have high lead levels

(Reuters) – A group of Flint, Michigan, parents and their children filed a class action on Monday alleging that gross negligence by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and others caused the city’s drinking water to become contaminated with lead.

The lawsuit was filed in Detroit federal court and seeks damages for a proposed class of “tens of thousands” of Flint residents and property owners who have suffered physical or economic injuries. The named plaintiffs are seven residents and their 17 children who lawyers say have heightened lead levels.

The state’s slow response to the water crisis drew sharp rebukes from Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on Sunday. Both called for Snyder’s resignation. A spokesman has said the Republican governor has no intention of stepping down.

Flint, a predominantly black city of 100,000, was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched its water source in April 2014 to the Flint River from Lake Huron. The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from city pipes and into the drinking water.

The city switched back last October after tests found high levels of lead in blood samples taken from children, but the drinking water has not returned fully to normal. Flint began replacing lead pipes running to homes on Friday.

Attorneys Hunter Shkolnik and Adam Slater allege in Monday’s lawsuit the governmental defendants failed to take measures required by federal law to eliminate the dangers and downplayed the severity of the contamination to residents.

Children are especially vulnerable to lead exposure, as even small amounts can stunt development, leading to lifelong academic and behavioral problems.

Current and former officials and workers in Michigan and Flint are named as defendants, along with engineering firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, which was hired to assess the feasibility of using Flint River water.

A firm representative said the lawsuit mischaracterized its role and it would vigorously defend its position in court.

The lawsuit accuses the governmental defendants of gross negligence, which is an exception to the immunity that shields federal and state governments and employees from lawsuits over their official duties. The strength of the immunity defense has kept many leading plaintiffs’ lawyers away from filing lawsuits over the Flint crisis.

The families seek payment for past and future health costs and monitoring as well as compensation for lost property value, replacement of pipes and reclamation of contaminated property.

(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Anthony Lin and Matthew Lewis)

Michigan governor issues appeal over Flint funds denial

(Reuters) – Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has urged federal officials to reconsider their denial for funds to help deal with the crisis caused by lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint, his office said on Thursday.

The contamination and the state’s long delay in addressing the problem have sparked outrage and drawn attention from U.S. presidential candidates.

In the latest appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Snyder is requesting money to pay for food, water and other essential needs; the removal of health and safety hazards; activation of emergency operations centers; measures to avoid further damage; and homeowners’ repairs not covered by insurance.

A FEMA spokesman said Snyder’s appeal was under review by the agency.

The agency turned down an earlier request for financial help in January because the areas in which Snyder requested aid were deemed not appropriate, but has provided non-monetary support in the form of a FEMA coordinator.

Also in January, Snyder asked for federal declarations of emergency and major disaster. President Barack Obama approved the federal emergency declaration, but denied a major disaster declaration. Snyder appealed that decision and was denied.

Snyder said on Thursday that Flint needed continued local, state, federal and national efforts. “Assistance from our federal partners could go a long way in moving Flint forward,” he said.

Activists and some Democratic state lawmakers have demanded that Snyder resign, but a spokesman said the Republican governor had no intention of stepping down.

Snyder is scheduled to testify before a U.S. congressional committee on March 17.

Also on Thursday, Snyder said the federal government approved a waiver allowing for Medicaid coverage for children and pregnant women in Flint.

Flint, a predominantly black city of 100,000 about 60 miles northwest of Detroit, was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched the source of its tap water from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in April 2014.

The city switched back last October after tests found high levels of lead in blood samples taken from children.

Water from the Flint River, which was more corrosive than Detroit’s, leached lead from the city’s pipes, posing widespread health risks.

Experts have said it could take some time for anti-corrosive chemicals now being added to the water to re-coat pipes so that they will not leach more lead.

Meanwhile, Flint officials said they would begin replacing lead pipes running to homes with copper on Friday as part of a $55 million project.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales; Editing by Ben Klayman, Tom Brown, Alan Crosby and Marguerita Choy)

Michigan officials knew of Legionnaires’ outbreak long before warning

DETROIT (Reuters) – State government officials knew about an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and its suspected link to contaminated water in impoverished Flint, Michigan, at least 10 months before a public announcement was made, documents released on Friday showed.

The disclosure of the documents, among thousands of pages of emails and other material released, comes as Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder faces pressure to resign over his administration’s handling of the Flint water crisis.

Michigan’s Genesee County, which includes Flint, had 87 cases of Legionnaires’ from June 2014 to November 2015, 10 of them fatal.

Flint’s water supply was contaminated by lead, a serious public health threat, after its water supply was switched from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014 in a cost-cutting move when the city was under a state-appointed emergency manager.

Friday’s documents echoed previous disclosures showing that high-ranking state officials knew about an increase in Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County and a possible link to Flint’s water 10 months before the governor said he got information about the outbreak.

Stephen Busch, a district manager in the drinking water division for Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, wrote in an email on March 17, 2015 that the city should take action to optimize water quality to help limit the potential for occurrence of Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’.

Emails also show Busch tussling with county health officials over the issue and saying it was premature to link the public water system with Legionella. Busch was suspended last month and his job status is currently on review, a state official said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was approached by Genesee County health officials in February 2015 about an increase in reported Legionnaires’ disease cases, but state officials subsequently told the agency they would handle the investigation into the matter themselves, a CDC spokeswoman said.

In January 2016, state officials asked for the CDC’s help in the matter.

Liberal group Progress Michigan said Friday’s release of documents and emails was all for show, and called on Snyder to release those of his and his executive staff’s.

“If the governor is serious about wanting to be transparent, he will release every single document and communication regarding the Flint Water Crisis, including those of his executive staff,” Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan, said in a statement.

Flint, a predominantly black city of about 100,000 people, switched back to Detroit water in October after tests found high levels of lead in samples of children’s blood. Water from the Flint River was more corrosive and leached more lead from the city pipes than Detroit water did. Lead can damage the nervous system.

Snyder, who has apologized for the state’s poor handling of the water crisis, alerted the public to the Legionnaires’ outbreak on Jan. 13 and said he had only heard about it two days earlier.

“Gov. Snyder first became aware of the Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak in mid-January of this year,” his press secretary Dave Murray said. “He’s made it clear that he wants to be made aware of such issues more quickly, and already made some changes in some state departments.”

On Friday, a U.S. House of Representatives oversight panel said Snyder would testify on the Flint water crisis next month. Darnell Earley, who was Flint’s state-appointed emergency manager when the city switched from Detroit’s water system, will also testify.

Snyder said in a Friday statement in which the state released emails and other documents from several state departments that “all levels of government failed the people of Flint. This crisis never should have happened.” He said by making the documents public, anyone could review them.

The Legionella bacteria is found in certain plumbing systems, including hot tubs, humidifiers, cooling towers and hot water tanks. Legionnaires’ is spread by breathing in mist from water, and cannot be spread from person to person.

(Additional reporting by Dave McKinney, Fiona Ortiz, Karen Pierog, Karl Plume, P.J. Huffstutter and Justin Madden in Chicago, David Shepardson and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Tom Brown)