Water43
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Bottled Water – Big Business in Indonesia
The movement to challenge the bottled water industry has come a pretty long way in countries like the USA, Australia and Canada. Public education campaigns by organizations like the Council of Canadians, Pacific Institute and Corporate Accountability International, have debunked the myth that bottled water is necessarily cleaner or healthier than tap water, and emphasized…
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Safety Be Dammed: High-Risk Dams on the Rise
In the still hours just before midnight on March 12, 1928, thousands of people slumbered in the handful of agricultural communities nestled along the Santa Clara River in Ventura County, California. Tony Harnischfeger and his family slept quietly in a small house at the foot of the St. Francis Dam, a 195-foot high concrete gravity…
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Western Water Woes – Is Big Infrastructure the Way to Go?
Guest Blog by Michael Clark Pat Mulroy, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, spoke on July 20 at a US Chamber of Commerce conference, as part of its Invest in Water Initiative, and proposed a bold idea: build a pipeline to divert Mississippi River flood waters to the West. This, she said,…
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Walking the Tightrope of Groundwater Management
As climate changes and supplying water becomes more challenging, one company says it has a better management strategy.
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Removing Dams and Restoring Rivers
On Sept. 17, 2011, the removal of two large hydroelectric dams on the Elwha River in Washington State, which have blocked migrating salmon from reaching their spawning grounds for almost 100 years, will begin. While this is the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, it is just one of several major dam removals planned…
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Hydraulic Fracturing: Resources for Journalists
(Updated Feb. 12, 2019) Earth Institute scientists can offer a wide range of expertise to journalists covering natural-gas production using hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking). This includes basics of energy exploration and extraction; rock mechanics; contaminants in underground water; manmade earthquakes; and economic/political questions surrounding the practice. Here is a brief guide. (Click on hyperlinks for individual…
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Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests
Mountaintop removal mining, an environmentally devastating form of coal mining that involves blowing off the tops of mountains, has already leveled over 500 mountains and buried 1,200 miles of streams in the Appalachians.
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Sewage Still Plagues Hudson River
People are swimming in the Hudson again, and while clumps of sewage rarely float by anymore, the water is not reliably clean, says a report released this week from the environmental group Riverkeeper. Four years of testing by Riverkeeper and Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, show recurring hot spots, especially after rain, when overwhelmed sewers divert…
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Canadian Boreal: Protecting Today’s Water for Tomorrow
Canada’s Boreal forest is far from the public eye, but it contains 25 percent of the world’s wetlands.
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“
