water matters31
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Safe Water or Abundant Energy? Take Your Pick
In the recent documentary Gasland, Josh Fox investigate the rapidly growing practice of hydraulic fracturing or “hydrofracking” that natural gas companies have developed to produce gas from underground shale deposits.
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Let’s Take a Break: NY Senate Passes Moratorium on Hydraulic Fracturing
Fracking is an interesting example of a topic we talk about frequency at the Columbia Water Center – the water-energy nexus. In this case, the link relates water quality to energy supply. While fracking in the Marcellus Shale could provide significant supplies of relatively clean energy (natural gas), it also creates a huge risk for…
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Global Population Growth and Water Scarcity Q&A
Russell Sticklor with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program in Washington, DC. recently contacted me requesting my thoughts on a number of issues for an article he is writing on global population growth and water scarcity for the magazine, Outdoor America. I thought some of the comments might be interesting to our blog…
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The World is Hemorrhaging Oil—The Oilpocalypse Continues
For several months now we’ve been hearing about the BP Deepwater Horzion catastrophe—which, in spite of some reports to the contrary, is far from over. But that’s not the only place bad things are happening with petroleum — in just the last couple of weeks the world has experienced at least three other major oil…
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Scary Water Study from the NRDC
A fascinating and frightening recent study from the National Resources Defense Council unveiled serious threats to water sustainability in the United States over the coming decades. In an era of rapidly unfolding climate change, the Council’s research found that more than 1,100 counties, or one third of all counties in the lower 48 states, face…
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Sewage treatment isn’t rocket science – except when it is
It’s a case of finding a use for what was thought of as waste. Sewage treatment processes produce methane and nitrous oxide, both greenhouse gasses, while leaving undesirably high levels of nitrogen in the discharged water. On their own, all three of these things are harmful to the environment. Stanford University reports that a team…
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Water in Paris
I have been spending the month of July in Paris, France for a study abroad program, and during my time here, I have been able to observe different water habits of people abroad. My observations are in no way absolute, but I have found several interesting trends in water in Paris that I wanted to…
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DRBC Gives Tentative Go Ahead to Fracking in PA — New York Skips the Meeting
According to the Delaware River Basin Commission, over 15 million people—about five percent of the nation’s population—rely on the Delaware River Basin for “drinking, agricultural, and industrial use.” New York City alone gets half its water from reservoirs located on tributaries of the Delaware. It’s no understatement, then, to suggest that the commission—a regional body…
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Water at last! Happy days for Milha, Brazil
It’s the last day of my visit to Brazil, where I’ve been getting to know the staff of the Columbia Water Center Brazilian office, and learning about the projects here. The projects are a fascinating mixture of down-to-earth (literally down in the earth) sustainable water access, and high level climate modeling to support water management…
