Water61
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A Visit to Gowanus
I recently took a trip to the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn to visit its infamously polluted (and smelly) canal. After decades of controversy, the Environmental Protection Agency recently named the canal as a Superfund site—one of the few such designations in an inner-urban area. In its report, the EPA found that the Gowanus Canal “has…
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Energy, Agriculture, and the Environment: Dead Zones and the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Catastrophic, tragic, disastrous: these are all words that have been used to describe the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It is impossible to deny that these words apply – thick, goopy crude has already coated the beaches and estuaries of the Gulf, contaminating more than 120 miles of coastline. The spill is…
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Asian Carp, Aquatic Interlopers Threaten the Great Lakes
While the nation and the world morns the destruction of marine habitat and the deaths of an untold number of animals, birds, fish, and tiny organisms in the Gulf of Mexico, another battle is being waged, one in which people are desperately trying to find a way to eliminate one type of fish in an…
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Water Access in Mbola MVP: Not Just Another Pipe Dream
For the first week of rotations I went out with the Water and Sanitation team in the Mbola Millennium Village. My interest slowly peaked, as the challenges of providing improved water points to the village coincided with our own struggles for water supply at the Tabora MDP student house.
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The Permaculture Approach to Water
Permaculture has many facets, but one of the most exciting is its approach to water. Permaculture designers believe that through intelligent landscape design, it is frequently possible to go beyond conservation of water to actually recharge groundwater supplies.
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Improving Access to Safe Water and Sanitation in Kisumu, Kenya
Many families in developing countries, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. Proper sanitation facilities are also rare, particularly in informal settlements and peri-urban areas. Despite the valiant efforts by local and national governments, international NGOs, foundations and corporations to bring clean water and sanitation facilities to sub-Saharan…
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Water, Another Crisis for Iraq
In a place like Iraq, our attention is on the big issues, and we might forget that life also goes on for regular people. They need to grow crops and wash dishes and make tea. For many people in the country, those mundane things can be every bit as big an issue. If you don’t…
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Obama’s Oil Speech: What Wasn’t Said
I was eagerly anticipating President Obama’s speech last night and very much hoping it would mark a true turning point in the administration’s handling of the crisis. However, like many others, I was sorely disappointed. While the speech used plenty of combative terms (“battle plan”, “siege”) it was completely absent of specifics, both for responding…
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The Implications of Snowcover on Climate: A Conversation with Stefan Sobolowski (Part 1)
Stefan Sobolowski says he has always had a passion for water, weather and climate—a passion he attributes to lifetime of skiing, hiking, snowboarding, and playing in oceans. Here, Stefan discusses his research on the effects of continental snowcover on climate and why one cold winter in the United States doesn’t mean that there is no…
