Oil Disaster reaches Louisiana marshlands

Photo from Louisiana Gov. Jindal's tour of the environmental devastation in coastal marshlands caused by the BP oil disaster.

(Louisiana Gov.'s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, via the boing2)

Kohler Flush with ideas and water saving products

Water-saving toilets: designs have improved and "there's no trade-off now," said Shane Judd, product manger for water conservation at the Kohler Co.

"They're more efficient in terms of using less water and performing better than their 1.6-gallon counterparts."

Just installing a high-efficiency toilet, faucet and shower head can save an average family of four 39,000 gallons of water a year, compared with models considered the industry standard.

With all the attention on rising energy bills, there's been a big focus on energy-efficient appliances, but that hasn't always translated over to the water side.

"People just don't think about how much water they flush in their toilet. It's not top of mind," Judd said.

"When you tell somebody that 25% of the water that's consumed for indoor use is flushed down the toilet, they start to connect the dots" and see not only water savings but cost savings over time.

In the past few years, Kohler Co. has moved to green up its product line and now boasts that nearly every model of faucet it produces is water-saving, earning the Environmental Protection Agency WaterSense label.

Focusing on a sustainable future...

The company is embracing what Johnson Controls Inc., Kohl's Corp. and other companies have dubbed the "triple bottom line" - balancing economic, environmental and social factors in strategizing for the future.

"Our fundamental premise was that it's really about the triple bottom line - the economic, environmental and social aspect - and how can we develop a strategy, because at the end of the day we're still about business, still about growth and still about advancing this company, but in a sustainable fashion," Judd said.

....The company has revamped its product design process so that "everything takes place through the lens of sustainability," Judd said.

Case in point: the dual-flush toilet with no handle. Pick one button for "number one" and just 0.8 gallons of water will flush. Button number two flushes away a more significant amount of waste with 1.6 gallons of water.

"The design is very contemporary and easy to clean, so it allows consumers to install a product that has beautiful design but also conserves water," Judd said.

Education campaign

Kohler's new green push extends beyond its factories and products to a national education campaign designed to educate Americans about water scarcity.

"Thirty six states will face water shortages by 2013,"

Kohler warns on its www.savewateramerica.com Web site, the host site for its awareness campaign.

Please read full from Milwaukee Journal Sentential

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Haase:   While reducing consumer use is vital, reducing commercial and industrial water waste is critical.

Kohlers LEED Waterless urinals could also revolutionize water savings in large scale applications reducing "40,000 gallons of water per fixture per year" in typical commercial installations.

Learn more about WaterSense and what you can do to help make every drop count.

Related water posts

500 scientists call to conserve boreal forest in Quebec

Map of Quebec's Boreal north of the 49th parallel.

Thursday 500 scientists and conservation professionals—65 percent of whom have PhDs—sent a letter to Quebec's Premier Jean Charest calling on him to make good on his promise.

According to the letter, the carbon storage and water filtration services from Quebec's forests alone are worth 13.8 times the value of the extractive industries inside.

"Our scientific data confirm that Boreal ecosystems already efficiently store more carbon in their trees, soils and peat than any other environment in the world," said Nigel Roulet, Director of the McGill School of Environment in Montreal. "Development and conservation planning will determine whether this carbon gets released into the atmosphere. When we consider the Plan Nord, it is imperative that decisions made at the political level be based on sound scientific data."


"In protecting northern Quebec's natural environment and ensuring responsible development in the rest of the area, your government will set in motion one of the most ambitious sustainable development and nature conservation projects in North America, and one that could serve as a model for the rest of the world," the letter reads.

According to the letter, northern Quebec houses 340 million birds, more than a million caribou, and among the greatest populations of freshwater fish in North America. However, not all species are thriving: woodland caribou, the wolverine, and the golden eagle are all threatened with extinction.

"Northern Quebec is home to high-value conservation lands, most notably the vast intact forests and habitats for the woodland caribou and for more than half of the world's breeding pairs of the American Black Duck," said Dr. Marcel Darveau, head of boreal research and conservation for Ducks Unlimited in Quebec and adjunct professor at Laval University. "Along with housing a diversity of animals and flora beyond our immediate measure, this land offers indispensible ecological benefits to our society, most notably water filtration and carbon storage. We call for the protection of Northern Quebec's natural capital because, in our world of changing climate, its survival is vital to our own."

Read more at mongabay

Decades and billions away from clean water

... the Great Lakes is moving so slowly and it will take 77 more years to finish the job at the existing pace, according to a federal report.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still does not know the full extent of the problem even though the highly contaminated spots were identified two decades ago, said the report by the agency's inspector general.

"Without improved management, coordination and accountability, EPA will not succeed in achieving the results intended" for the recovery program, said the report, issued Monday.

Toxic sediment cleanup is among the goals of a $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan developed by government agencies and nonprofit groups in 2005.

President Barack Obama has pledged $5 billion toward carrying out the plan and requested $475 million in his 2010 budget. Roughly one-fourth of that amount would be devoted to the cleanups.

The plan estimates the total cleanup price at $2.25 billion in federal money, with state and local governments kicking in an additional $1.2 billion.

The inspector general's report analyzes the government's handling of Great Lakes "areas of concern" -- rivers, harbors and other locations where bottomlands are laced with toxic chemicals such as mercury, PCBs and heavy metal wastes.

"In the absence of coordinated planning, costs can escalate, resources are wasted, and risks to human health and the environment increase due to delays in site cleanups," it says.

Matt Doss, policy director for the Great Lakes Commission, which represents the region's eight states, also defended the EPA. The audit rehashed information about long-standing problems caused mostly by lack of money, he said.

"Why was it necessary to spend nearly $400,000 on a report to state the obvious?" Doss asked.

Read more at Michigan News

WDNR protecting 1.2 quadrillion gallons of groundwater

"Wisconsin has some of the strongest water standards in the country," ...we continually work to adapt to new challenges to make sure citizens have clean water to drink. We work with scientists to improve sampling protocols and better understand challenges related to waste. And our continued research helps us more fully understand the inter-relationship of water quality and quantity and address concerns with our water resources."

...Wisconsin continues to make progress in protecting Wisconsin's "buried treasure," its 1.2 quadrillion gallons of groundwater, but viruses and other new threats are emerging, and some longstanding problems, including nitrate contamination of wells, are increasing, according to a new report recently submitted to the Legislature by the state Groundwater Coordinating Council (GCC).

"We have plentiful groundwater resources in the state but they continue to be challenged both from a water quality and water quantity standpoint in 2009," says Todd Ambs, who chairs the council and leads the Department of Natural Resources water programs.

"The Groundwater Coordinating Council is heartened that in the last year Wisconsin continued to put in place important protections, and that we were asked to testify before state legislative committees on this critical resource. We look forward to continuing to work with them as they look at potential new ways we can effectively protect our groundwater, which provides drinking water to nearly 70 percent of Wisconsin residents and supports our economy and environment."

The GCC is an interagency group formed in 1984 to help state agencies coordinate non-regulatory activities and exchange information on groundwater.

The 2009 Groundwater Coordinating Council Report to the Legislature details how Wisconsin continues to build the legal and other infrastructure necessary to protect groundwater, citing passage of the Great Lakes Compact, implementation of the 2003 Groundwater Protection Act, and recent research findings such as those that have resulted in new techniques to detect and trace viruses in groundwater.

Wisconsins' Public Drinking water report is also available

DNR recently submitted "Safe Water on Tap: 2008 Annual Drinking Water Report" [PDF 1.46MB] to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to meet requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The report summarizes Wisconsin's public water systems' performance as a whole between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2008, according to Jill Jonas, who leads the Department of Natural Resources drinking water and groundwater program.

"Wisconsin public water systems provide a great value at a great cost but it's getting harder," Jonas says. "We're going to have to remain diligent over coming years to make sure that with limited resources we focus more and more on preventing contamination because it's the least expensive way of protecting our drinking water."

Please read full at Wisconsin DNR News

The REAL problem with power... water

Electric utility industry are "the single largest predators of our Nation's waters." Collectively, the power industry sucks in approximately 80 trillion gallons of water annually to cool their equipment - a number so staggering it is equivalent to four times the amount of water in all of the Chesapeake Bay.

.... For decades, electric power plants have quietly preyed on America's waterways and devoured our fisheries, but their actions have largely escaped government accountability. Now - after years of successful litigation brought by environmental groups - the federal Environmental Protection Agency and many states like California have the opportunity to do something meaningful to prevent this senseless slaughter.

How 'big' is this problem... epic

...power plants use water and kill on a massive scale fish, larvae and other aquatic organisms...

In New Jersey, the Salem Nuclear Plant - the nation's largest user of cooling water - withdraws more than 3 billion gallons of water per day from Delaware Bay, killing an estimated 845 million fish a year.

Combined, the 19 California plants using antiquated, once-through cooling technology are allowed to suck in 16 billion gallons of sea water every day and kill an estimated 79 billion fish, larvae and other marine life - including two dozen sea lions and a dozen seals - annually.

This killing surpasses many types of commercial and recreational fishing in some areas, and is completely unnecessary. Widely available and affordable technologies reuse and recycle cooling water, preventing fish kills almost entirely.

Most new power plants use closed-cycle cooling, which recirculates water and can reduce fish mortality by 95% or more.

But nearly 40 years after Congress first sought to solve this problem, the power industry continues its massive ecological destruction. Nationally, hundreds of outdated once-through cooling power plants remain on both fresh waterways and along our coasts.

Please read full via huffingtonpost

Neglected Clean Water Laws and the Cost of Suffering

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?”
...her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

“How is this still happening today?” she asked.

When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.

The new E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in an interview that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation’s water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. She added that strengthening water protections is among her top priorities. State regulators say they are doing their best with insufficient resources.

The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A.

In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.

That research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways...an estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from drinking water contaminated with parasites, bacteria or viruses, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. That figure does not include illnesses caused by other chemicals and toxins.

Read full from New York Times

Also see Clean Water Act Violations: The Enforcement Record

$1 billion proposed for Great Lakes restoration

Detroit News -- Congress is poised to nearly double its funding commitment to the Great Lakes,

The unprecedented amount of money being considered for the Great Lakes reflects President Barack Obama's pledge on the campaign trail of $5 billion for large-scale restoration.

Obama asked Congress for $475 million to get started. Already the federal government appropriates about $550 million a year to Great Lakes programs, which environmentalists expect will continue. If all goes as advocates hope, Congress would be committing about $1 billion to the Great Lakes in fiscal year 2010.

"This is a Great Lakes president," said Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint, noting Obama built his career in Illinois. "He really cares about the Lakes because he knows them."

But advocates say the high funding levels mean more than jobs. They will also mean cleaner water for boaters, swimmers and wildlife.

They hope Congress will sustain funding at the higher level. The House bill asks the Environmental Protection Agency to draw up a five-year cleanup plan at the higher funding levels.

Lynn Vaccaro, project coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant, predicts state programs could get roughly one-third of the money. She pointed out that 58 percent of the Great Lakes' U.S. shorelines are in Michigan, as are 44 percent of the contaminated "areas of concern" in U.S. feeder rivers and harbors.

Only Michigan lies completely in the basin. The other Great Lakes states are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Drawing on an analysis by the Brookings Institution, Vaccaro predicts that if $475 million was appropriated annually over five years, about $2 billion to $4.3 billion in economic activity could be created in Michigan.

That reflects expected spending increases on everything from fishing rods and beer to kayaks and charter boats. Plus, the value of homes and other property around previously contaminated areas would rise.

The funding boost would help businesses and wildlife groups alike.
... allow "us to start bringing the Great Lakes back to health rapidly and effectively."

The president's request includes:
• $146 million for cleaning up pollution in sediment in feeder rivers and harbors before it flows into the Lakes.
• $105 million to protect and restore habitat and wildlife.
• $97 million to stop "nonpoint" pollution, such as farm fertilizer and oil runoff, that closes beaches and leads to fish kills.
• $65 million to evaluate how the Lakes and wildlife are responding to cleanup efforts.
• $60 million for combating zebra mussels and other invasive species, which the EPA has estimated cause up to $5 billion in damage a year in the Great Lakes basin by destroying fisheries, clogging power plants' pipes and reducing property values.

"The problems are so huge that we'll need a sustained, multiyear commitment from both the administration and the Congress to fix 100 percent of the problems facing the Great Lakes,"

Please read full at Detroit News

Canada's quest for safe drinking water

In a G8 nation well-endowed with fresh water, many Canadians still struggle to acquire the potable kind.

Health Canada reported almost 2,000 boil-water advisories across the country last year.

The town mayor compares it to Third World conditions. He says residents knowingly drink unsafe levels of E. coli, even winding up with stomach problems, because they don't have much of a choice.

In April 2008, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported there were 1,766 provincial boil-water advisories across the country – plus 93 warnings in First Nations communities. It estimated that 90 Canadians die annually from tainted water.

This year, 113 First Nations were under drinking-water advisories on July 31, Health Canada said.

But Steve Hrudey, a University of Alberta water expert, says drinking-water advisories were designed for emergencies, not everyday life.

“To have boil-water advisories in place for months and years, as is the case in a number of Canadian communities, is basically saying ‘We don't want to know,' ” Hrudey said.

Governments should be doing more to ensure smaller communities have access to clean water, he said.

“I think in a country as rich as Canada, to be paying as little attention to small community water supplies as we are, is really kind of sad,” Hrudey said.

Please read full from The Globe Mail

“The people of Illinois have a right to know when their water could be contaminated,”

Press Release (VIA glrppr)– August 23, 2009. Governor Pat Quinn today signed a bill to help ensure Illinois citizens have safe drinking water and prevent future incidents like the water contamination discovered earlier this year in Crestwood.

"The people of Illinois have a right to know when their water could be contaminated," said Governor Quinn. "This bill helps prevent terrible incidents like what happened in Crestwood from happening again."

House Bill 4021, sponsored by Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley) and Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest), requires that all users of a community water supply be notified when water is contaminated or there is a threat of contamination. Current Illinois law only requires the IEPA to notify water supply owners and operators of contamination. The bill also establishes a monetary penalty and makes providing false information to environmental enforcement officials a felony under state law.

"A safe drinking water supply is absolutely critical to the health of the people of Illinois," said Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who helped draft the legislation. "This law requires notification to ensure that people have timely information about their water in order to protect themselves."

Last April, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) discovered that millions of gallons of water tainted with vinyl chloride were allegedly pumped into homes in Crestwood. Vinyl chloride has been linked to cancer and liver damage and is created by the breakdown of perchloroethylene (PCE), a solvent used for dry-cleaning.

Crestwood officials allegedly told residents and regulators that the village supplied only treated Lake Michigan water to residents and businesses-owners. However, records show that the village continued using the contaminated well to supplement the water supply until 2007, over 20 years after the IEPA told village officials it was contaminated. The well has since been shut off and capped.

Governor Quinn was joined by Doug Scott, Director, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency; Jack Darin, Director, Sierra Club - Illinois Chapter; and Rep. Robert Rita (D-Chicago).

Video Governor signs bill regarding water contamination.

Without water there are no talks at Copenhagen COP-15

Without talks on water conservation and management all other discussions are irrelevant...
The participants of the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm last Friday unanimously said that water must be included in the COP-15 climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December. Reprinted from Stockholm Water Institute.

We urge the global water and climate communities to look beyond COP-15 and work through dialogue to strengthen global mechanisms that can enhance collective action on water and adaptation. These should include, but not be limited to, better sharing of knowledge and technology in support of adaptation measures in developing countries, active support for capacity building and access to improved levels of financing.

Finally, the water community expresses its commitment to strengthening institutional cooperation at all levels between the climate, water and wider development communities under appropriate mechanisms and institutional arrangements in order to work more collectively to address the immense development challenges ahead.

Read more gristy comments here &

U.S. Drinking Water and Watersheds Widely Contaminated by Hormone Disrupting Pesticide

A widely used pesticide known to impact wildlife development and, potentially, human health has contaminated watersheds and drinking water throughout much of the United States, according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and is a known endocrine disruptor, which means that it affects human and animal hormones. It has been tied to poor sperm quality in humans and hermaphroditic amphibians. See  Atrazine: Poisoning the Well

“Evidence shows Atrazine contamination to be a widespread and dangerous problem that has not been communicated to the people most at risk,” said Jennifer Sass, PhD, NRDC Senior Scientist and an author of the report. “U.S. EPA is ignoring some very high concentrations of this pesticide in water that people are drinking and using every day. This exposure could have a considerable impact on reproductive health. Scientific research has tied this chemical to some ghastly impacts on wildlife and raises red flags for possible human impacts.”

“People living in contaminated areas need to be made aware — and the regulators need to get this product off the market,” said Sass.

Link shared by Shirl Kennedy of DocuTicker.com

Oil a non issue compared to the water.

In the United States, we constantly fret about running out of oil. But we should be paying more attention to another limited natural resource: water. A water crisis is threatening many parts of the country -- not just the arid West.

...Droughts make matters worse, but the real problem isn't shrinking water levels. It's population growth. Since California's last major drought ended in 1992, the state's population has surged by a staggering 7 million people. Some 100,000 people move to the Atlanta area every year. Over the next four decades, the country will add 120 million people, the equivalent of one person every 11 seconds.

More people will put a huge strain on our water resources, but another problem comes in something that sounds relatively benign: renewable energy, at least in some forms, such as biofuels. Refining one gallon of ethanol requires four gallons of water. This turns out to be a drop in the bucket compared with how much water it takes to grow enough corn to refine one gallon of ethanol: as much as 2,500 gallons.

In the United States, we've traditionally engineered our way out of water shortages by diverting more from rivers, building dams or drilling groundwater wells. But many rivers, including the Colorado and the Rio Grande, already dry up each year. The dam-building era from the 1930s to the 1960s tamed so many rivers that only 60 in the country remain free-flowing. Meanwhile, we're pumping so much water from wells that the levels in aquifers are plummeting.

We're running out of technological fixes.
 
 Read more from the Our Water Supply, Down the Drain at Washington Post

Two-thirds of U.S. fish exceeded EPA level of mercury concern for fish-eating...

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior (USGS)

 Scientists detected mercury contamination in every fish sampled in 291 streams across the country, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study released today.

About a quarter of these fish were found to contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish, established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More than two-thirds of the fish exceeded the U.S. EPA level of concern for fish-eating mammals.

“This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds, and many of our fish in freshwater streams,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation’s waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers.”

See - Mercury in Stream Ecosystems report

MANY thanks for submission by Shirl Kennedy DocuTicker

Coming Age of Permanent Drought

Heart of Dryness: James G. Workman new book follows the spread of dryness across continents and through time to outline a grim common destiny of climate change and permanent water scarcity.

"We don't govern water," he writes. "Water governs us," and the lack of it will tear us apart if we fail to learn from survivors of millennia in dry lands: people like the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert Game Reserve in Botswana, a small nation sandwiched between South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

So, what can we learn from the Bushmen?
They can teach us how to live within nature's strict limits and how to conserve not just our water, but our own energies as well. Qoroxloo's stillness in the desert heat conserves her own sweat - the almost Zen wisdom of inaction. It's easy to make analogies as our own energy crisis deepens, energy and water conservation collide. The biofuel panacea turns out to be a water-guzzling nightmare, while the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta's giant water pumps are the state's biggest guzzlers of electricity.

...invisible hand: the libertarian faith that localized water markets are the answer...
This is simplistic at best and economic folly at worst.

Read more: sfgate.com

See full image at flickr

Water Scarcity Looms for over a BILLION

Water scarcity grows in urgency in many regions as population growth, climate change, pollution, lack of investment, and management failures restrict the amount of water available relative to demand.

The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in "closed basins"-regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal, and environmental needs of all.

Their estimate is consistent with a 2007 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculation that 1.2 billion people live in countries and regions that are water-scarce.

And the situation is projected to worsen rapidly: FAO estimates that the number of water-scarce will rise to 1.8 billion by 2025, particularly as population growth pushes many countries and regions into the scarcity column.

Water scarcity has many causes. Population growth is a major driver at the regional and global levels, but other factors play a large role locally. Pollution reduces the amount of usable water available to farmers, industry, and cities. The World Bank and the government of China have estimated, for instance, that 54 percent of the water in seven main rivers in China is unusable because of pollution. In addition, urbanization tends to increase domestic and industrial demand for water, as does rising incomes-two trends prominent in rapidly developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil.

Water Scarcity Figures
(tables below and read more at www.worldwatch.org):

Table 1. Water Import Dependence, Selected Countries, 1997-2001

Country	Water Import Dependence (percent)	Country	Water Import Dependence (percent)
Netherlands	82	Egypt	19
Jordan	73	United States	19
United Kingdom	70	Australia	18
Japan	64	Russia	16
South Korea	62	Indonesia	10
Germany	53	Brazil	8
Italy	51	Thailand	8
France	37	China	7
Spain	36	Argentina	6
Mexico	30	Pakistan	5
South Africa	22	Bangladesh	3
Canada	20	India	2

Source: Chapagain and Hoekstra, Water International, March 2008.

 

Table 2. Water Required to Produce Selected Foods

Product	Embedded Water Content (cubic meters per ton)
Beef	13,500
Pork	4,600
Poultry	4,100
Soybean	2,750
Eggs	2,700
Rice	1,400
Wheat	1,160
Milk	790

Source: World Water Council.

Table 3. Water Consumption by Energy Type in the United States

Energy Type	Water Consumed  (cubic meters per megawatt-hour)
Solar	0.0001
Wind	0.0001
Gas	1
Coal	2
Nuclear	2.5
Oil	4
Hydropower	68
Biofuel (first generation)	178

Source: Morrison et al.

Complete trends will be available with full endnote referencing, Excel spreadsheets, and customizable presentation-ready charts as part of our new subscription service, Vital Signs Online, slated to launch this fall.

Water is Missing from Renewable Energy Equation

The latest report from Lux Research, "Global Energy: Unshackling Carbon from Water," observes that while new energy sources and extraction methods may reduce carbon intensity, they often impose increased water usage.

"On a planet where only 0.008 percent of the water is renewable, such tradeoffs will become an increasingly important consideration for executives and policymakers," said Michael LoCascio, a senior analyst at Lux Research and the report's lead author. "Fortunately, many of the technologies and approaches needed to reduce water intensity are here today, or on the horizon."

The report, according to the company's press release, provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of how all the major conventional and alternative fuel and electricity sources balance their carbon dioxide and water intensity, as well as other important factors like cost and scalability. It also analyzes how alternative energy sources, improved extraction and efficiency, water recycling technologies, and improved energy distribution could help increase the environmental and economic viability for given energy technologies.

The report finds that:

• Retrofits and upgrades will make coal and natural gas electricity sources more water and/or energy efficient. Representative solutions include boiler water treatments, like electrocoagulation, advanced ion exchange and membrane electrolysis, as well as dry condensers and cooling tower water recapture.
• New and improved extraction technologies will be employed. Exploitation of oil sands and improved deep sea extraction will continue to make oil the cheapest, if dirtiest, source of energy for automotive drivetrains. But water recycling technologies like desalination and hydrocarbon recovery could reduce the water- and carbon-intensity of oil extraction from new sources like the tar sands.
• The slow roll-out of transcontinental high-voltage DC transmission lines will hinder low-carbon, low-water energy sources like solar and wind. Biofuels use far too much water and are capable of providing too little energy to make up more than a few percent of global needs.
• Nuclear is the only low-carbon, low-cost energy source that can reliably meet future electricity needs, but water is its Achilles' heel. However, advanced designs promise to increase efficiency and reduce water intensity, while placing plants on the coasts decouples them from increasingly scarce fresh water sources.

Water and WasteWater News

Bottled Water Safe? Who knows...

An Environmental Working Group (EWG) investigation of almost 200 popular bottled water brands found less than 2 percent disclose the water’s source, how the water has been purified and what chemical pollutants each bottle of water may contain.

Just 2 of the 188 individual brands EWG analyzed disclosed those three basic facts about their water.

Some of the more interesting discoveries were that mainstream brands such as Sam’s Club and Walgreen’s scored relatively high marks, while waters marketed as elite, including Perrier, S. Pellegrino and the Whole Foods store brand, flunked because they provided almost no meaningful information for consumers.

Why the glaring lack of disclosure?
Houlihan said that bottled water companies enjoy a regulatory holiday under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which give beverage corporations complete latitude to choose what, if any, information about their water they divulge to customers.

In contrast, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — the federal agency that oversees the nation’s municipal water utilities — requires all 52,000 community tap water suppliers nationwide to produce an annual water quality report: The utilities’ reports detail water source and pollutant testing results for customers, as required under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

An estimated 58 percent of these reports also describe water treatment methods.

Source: Environmental Working Group

HUGE 30% reduction in rail fuel consumption and cost from CHINA

From the "next big future"-  China is installing two prototype magnetically levitated (maglev) systems for transporting coal in Inner Mongolia in an attempt to increase transport speeds and efficiencies, and to reduce pollution. Cost studies show $0.13 to 0.017 per ton-mile depending upon the length of magnetic pipe. Rail and truck costs are in the $0.35 to 0.05 per ton-mile cost range.

Magplane Magpipes
Magplane Technology designs and fabricates pipeline transport systems using the linear synchronous motor technology developed for the Magplane system. Typical applications for pipeline transport range from priority mail packages to ore transport. A typical ore application would have an underground pair of 60 cm diameter pipes for outbound and returning capsules, and typically carry 10 millions tons per year over a distance of 50 km. A 15 page pdf "Capsule Pipeline Transport Using An Electromagnetic Drive"


Truck and Rail Freight Statistics Updated
Treehugger reports on the latest efforts to increase the efficiency of rail and truck freight transportation costs.

State-of-the-art trucks can begin to approach the ton-miles per gallon of trains (350+ ton-miles for trucks vs. 400 to 450 ton-miles for rail).

RMI's [Rocky Mountain Institute - energy efficiency evangilists] 2008 peer-reviewed analysis, based on tested science, found a combination of improved aerodynamics, low rolling resisitance tires, and more efficient engines could more than double the ton-mileage of the average class 8 truck from 130 ton-mile per gallon to 275 ton-mile/gallon.

This is mostly theoretical improvements which have not been implemented even in a real life test trial. Walmart has the goal of achieving these level of efficiency gains for its truck fleet by 2015

US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) show that pipelines move about 20% of the nations freight.

US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) costs of freight transporation by mode

Air 82 cents per ton mile
Truck 26 cents per ton mile
Rail 2.9 cents per ton mile
Barge 0.72 cents per ton mile (2001)
Pipeline 1.49 cents per ton mile (2001)


RAND study of rail versus truck freight external costs in accidents and pollution. Magnetic pipelines would have lower external costs as well as lower energy costs. Only barges would have lower costs. Barges have more pollution and barges need to have a sufficiently deep waterway to allow for transportation. The magnetic pipeline is faster than a barge.

2008 Canadian Railway study of rail trends. (38 page pdf)

Energy use by mode of freight transportation according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office.)

Oil pipelines use only 500 BTUs (British Thermal Units) per ton-mile (280 ton-miles per gallon of diesel fuel), but they are limited by their very specialized function. The efficiency of inland barges (990 BTUs per ton-mile or 140 ton-miles per gallon on average), is likewise offset by the roundaboutness or circuity of most rivers. Also, significant amounts of energy may be required to bring cargo to a waterway system: grain and other farm products are sometimes trucked 200 miles to a river, increasing energy use per ton-mile by 50 percent or more.

The efficiency of rail transportation varies considerably depending on the commodity and the level of service provided; at one extreme, unit trains designed to carry only coal typically require less than 900 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (155 ton-miles per gallon), while at the other extreme high-speed short trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) trains use about 2,000 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (68 ton-miles per gallon).

Intercity trucks require on average about 3,400 BTUs per ton-mile of cargo (41 ton-miles per gallon), twice the rail average and 1.7 times that for rail TOFC. It is not surprising that trucks require more energy since they provide a generally higher level of service than rail.

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