Get Started for FREE
Sign up with Facebook Sign up with X
I don't have a Facebook or a X account
 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Scoop.it!
For more than a month, a rural part of Kentucky has been mostly without running water. When taps do work, residents worry the water is unsafe to drink. 
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
Scoop.it!
Explore the pipeline route, the effects it will have on surrounding communities and beyond, and a few of the alternatives to the fossil fuel-dependent economy of which DAPL is one small piece.
Scoop.it!
Humans are doing a pretty good job of seriously messing up our drinking water.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Well, these are important point to be sure, but we have left off the most important ones: aggregate human population and gross consumption/draw downs of water sources.
These six are threat to be sure, but "biggest".......?
Scoop.it!
Here in California's thirsty farm belt, where pumpjacks nod amid neat rows of crops, it's a proposition that seems to make sense: using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Indeed. This is the old mantra of folks: if you don't look for a problem, you won't see a problem/can't prove a problem exists.
Scoop.it!
Many rivers contain levels of ibuprofen that could be adversely affecting fish health, researchers report. In what is believed to be the first study to establish the level of risk posed by ibuprofen at the country scale, the researchers examined 3,112 stretches of river which together receive inputs from 21 million people.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
We have found this in our samples of rivers here in Ventura County.
As with many emerging contaminants, the true impacts of these substances are unknown. But it is safe to say, it is probably not a good thing they are in our coastal and inland waterways.
The best solution would be to simply not get this stuff in the water in the first place.
Scoop.it!
From industry giants thinking beyond freshwater to startups tackling the wastewater, here are the names to watch. Via Acquisti & Sostenibilità not-for-profit
Scoop.it!
Besieged by drought and desperate for new sources of water, California towns are ramping up plans to convert salty ocean water into drinking water to quench ...
Scoop.it!
As drought worsens in the western US, Cambrian Innovations aims to reduce water consumption and cost while producing energy Via Acquisti & Sostenibilità not-for-profit
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Super cool improvement in efficiency of waste water treatment. Clearly, getting clean tech into a form that is modular and turn key removed numerous barriers to entry.
Scoop.it!
Ive been reporting on water issues since 2008 when I posted a link from my old website, the Integral Warrior. Even then water managers all over the southwestern U.S. were predicting the water crisis using words like “catastrophe” and “Armageddon” to describe the water shortages they saw coming to their regions. We don’t seem to understand the concept of “limited resources” and apparently never have. Time to pay the piper?
|
Scoop.it!
Water comes from a deep ocean current off the coast of Hawaii and is desalinated using reverse osmosis
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is a consequence of people being totally decoupled from nature AND totally ignorant of a basic understanding of science. Reverse Osmosis is Reverse Osmosis. Crazy, crazy stuff.
Also, this is only possible because we do not properly price carbon.
Scoop.it!
Lawmakers have come up with a compromise to avoid a potential government shutdown and provide long-awaited aid for Flint, Michigan—though the band-aid measure will still keep that community, which has been grappling with a lead-contamination crisis for more than two years, waiting for funds at least until November. Via pdeppisch
Scoop.it!
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The story of one of the planet's great rivers.
Scoop.it!
The signs appear about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, tacked onto old farm wagons parked along quiet two-lane roads and bustling Interstate 5.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is a fantastic piece on the complexity of water fights and the powerful folks who lobby hard for a comparative few.
A great piece to start a discussion of water policy in California (and the western U.S. generally).
Scoop.it!
Los Angeles officials and environmentalists have begun deploying emergency low-tech watering devices to try to save trees in desperate need of water during the drought .
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Inspiration for low cost slow-release watering devices from our friends down under.
Scoop.it!
A project developed by WaterFX, a start-up in drought-stricken California, exploits two things the Central Valley possesses in abundance — fallow land and sunshine — to cut desalinization costs.
Scoop.it!
RALEIGH, N.C. — Federal prosecutors have broadened their criminal investigation of state environmental regulators after a massive coal ash spill Feb. 2 that contaminated the Dan River in North Carolina, issuing 20 more subpoenas demanding documents about communications and possible payments and gifts.
Scoop.it!
The majority of chemicals commonly used by industry have had little or no safety testing.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
So where are the libertarians here? Still think we should completely dispense with regulations? If so you get tanks in West Virginia, two miles up river from your main water supply for the core of the state, which have had no inspections for more than 20 years, and are packed full of a substance we have no full bioreactivity data for. Oh and the "leaks" flowed across the soil surface down into the river. Great that no one even thought this warrented visual inspection (or even the wall repair identified some time ago.
What wonderful due diligence.
Scoop.it!
This week, more evidence came in that hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) poses potentially serious risks to drinking water quality and human health. Via Anita Woodruff
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is not surprising, but it is perhaps the best argument yet that I have seen implicating fracking in major, long-term water quality issues.
Check out the paper this is abased on. I also didn’t realize the State of Colorado would sue any local jurisdiction attempting to constrain fracking efforts within their jurisdiction. Deeply concerning given this and other evidence of problems in the wake of these activities.
|
