What’s in your water? Understanding Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

Source: Water Matters

A 2008 study from the University of Calgary indicates that the sex of fish have changed as a result of endocrine disruptors found in the Oldman and Bow River water supplies. These findings raise the question: If these chemicals can change the sex of fish, what effects can they have on you and the water you drink? As Albertans increase their water literacy, many are asking questions about impact of endocrine disruptors on human health.

What are Endocrine disruptors?

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) interfere with hormones. In both humans and animals, the endocrine system uses hormones from different glands, such as hypothalamus, thyroid, adrenal glands, for growth, development, reproduction, neurological processes, and immune functions. Endocrine disruptors mimic natural hormones like estrogen or testosterone or block the reception of hormones to other cells affecting how hormones are made or received.

Found in many of the products people use everyday such as pharmaceutical drugs, plastics, cosmetics, detergents, and pesticides, endocrine disruptors often emerge in municipal wastewater supplies. There are roughly five categories of EDCs: hazardous chemicals known as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pharmaceutical drugs, products associated with plastic, pesticides, and heavy metals.

The common use of endocrine disrupting chemicals is mirrored by their prevalent movement through our environment. For example, many pharmaceutical drugs that exit a person’s body end up in the municipal wastewater system. Detergent used for washing clothes also drain into the same system. Meanwhile endocrine disruptors can be transported through run-off from lawns, farmland or feedlots and industrial wastewater. The failure of wastewater treatment facilities to filter out EDCs leave them free to interact with fish, human and other organisms that may ingest them downstream.
EDCs and Ecosystems – Implications for wildlife and people.

Pesticides are a common source of endocrine disruptors. A 2005 Alberta Environment study found pesticides are common and widespread in Alberta’s surface water (rivers, lakes, streams, irrigation canals and returns, and urban streams). The study found 44 different types of pesticides in 65% of the samples at 326 locations, mostly located in the agricultural areas of Alberta. The effects documented of pesticides on the endocrine systems of frogs and amphibians included inhibited growth and changed reproductive organs even under low doses.

[*Agricultural runoff of pesticides has been linked to various reproductive issues in fish.]

The University of Calgary study, the result of a collaborative work between several universities, found EDCs in the Oldman and Bow Rivers. According to the study, EDCs from multiple sources including municipal wastewater and agricultural runoff was found to negatively impact the Longnose Dace, a small fish that grows to about six inches. Both rivers showed unusual sex ratios resulting in high numbers of females at downstream testing sites, most influenced by agricultural and municipal wastewater. Ninety percent of the fish along the Oldman River were found to be female, and 60% of the fish were found to be female along the Bow River. Other research on the Oldman River indicates that the potency of EDCs can increase up to approximately 400 times when present in combination with other environmental contaminants or EDCs. While the EDC potency could explain different sex ratios in fish, it also raises questions about the impact of these same EDCs to human health.

Risks to people

The risks associated with pesticides, a prevalent endocrine disruptor, are substantial. Pesticides risks to human health include:

* increased risk of cancer (e.g. non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, childhood leukemia, and breast cancer)
* neurological impairment (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease)
* developmental effects (e.g. autism)
* reproductive effects (e.g. sperm abnormalities, birth defects)
* organ damage
* interference with the human hormone system

 

Regulating EDCs for human health – a complicated debate

The debate over EDCs and their impact on human health is the subject of much debate. The fundamental question is: What maximum allowable concentration (MAC) of an EDC can be considered safe for people and the environment? Maximum allowable concentrations (MACs) are limits set to define safe levels of exposure to chemicals like EDCs.

Answers vary depending by type of EDC and jurisdictions. Some evidence suggests very conservative MACs may be appropriate. For instance a 2007 United States expert panel commissioned by several health institutes concluded low-doses of endocrine disruptors like bisphenol-A (BPA) can have an impact on human health. BPA is an agent used to harden common plastics such as those used make plastic reusable water bottles. BPA is known to cause abnormalities in reproductive health, neurobehavioral (like hyperactivity disorder and autism), obesity, and type-2 diabetes.

EDCs such as pesticides are also highly debated in Canada. In particular, the herbicide 2,4-D used to control weeds in cereal crops, lawns, turfs, and pastures is prevalent in Southern Alberta’s basins according to Alberta Environment. While it is considered safe to use by Health Canada (2009), more recent evidence suggests 2,4-D in combination with other pesticides can affect neurological function, reproduction, immune systems, kidney function and the growth and development of children. In 2004, the Ontario College of Family Physicians advised Canadians to limit their exposure to pesticides including 2,4-D, until there is more conclusive research. Internationally, Europe and Australia have set guidelines for MACs that are much more conservative than Canada’s guidelines. Some estimates indicate Canadians can be exposed up to 1000 times more 2,4-D than Australians and Europeans (Boyd 2006).

By and large, research on endocrine disruptors and their effects on human health is still in its infancy. For example, there is little understanding of the risks associated with EDCs in combination with other EDCs or chemicals. Until more data is collected about the cumulative effects of EDCs on both people and ecosystems, a precautionary approach is warranted.

Water act excludes Mother Nature [Ontario]

November 5, 2009

Funding blocked after Peterborough discovers most water pollution caused by Canada geese not agriculture

by BRIAN LOCKHART

Peterborough’s goose poop problem has revealed that clean water legislation, intended to keep agricultural and other waste out of waterways, ignores the effects of Mother Nature.

A flock of Canada geese that has taken up residence several hundred metres north of the city’s water intake pipes has created a mess that was initially blamed on agricultural activity several miles upstream.

A Peterborough Public Utilities Commission study in 2006, however, determined that 68 per cent of the E. coli bacteria entering the raw water supply came from goose droppings.

When the city applied for funding under the Ontario drinking water stewardship program to control the pesky birds however, the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) turned it down. Apparently it doesn’t meet the criteria of the Clean Water Act.

Threats, as defined in the Clean Water Act 2006, are land use activities which correspond to land uses within the Planning Act or conditions that result from activities, says Heather Malcolmson, MOE manager of source protection planning. Past activity land use is also considered.

“The Act is set out to provide tools,” she says. “The Stewardship Funding Program is enabled within the Act.”

Malcolmson says Peterborough’s problem falls “out of the scope” of the Act. She suggests the city look for funding elsewhere in the province.

The Trent Conservation Source Protection Region supported the city’s application to the Ministry. They requested that one of the Act’s technical rules be revised to include “discharge of avian feces to surface water” as a local threat. They also wanted “congregation of waterfowl upstream of an intake” as a circumstance.

“It’s our mandate to work with source protection and municipalities are among our stake holders.” explains Glenda Rogers, Trent Conservation Project Manager. “You have to make local requests. In this situation the geese are very close to the water intake.”

The ministry denied the request in an October 23, 2009 letter signed by Ian Smith, director of the ministry’s source protection programs branch.

Jack Sisson, curator of the 60-acre Riverview Park and Zoo in Peterborough where the birds have decided to call home, says goose numbers have been increasing over the past 10 years, ranging from 20 to 60, depending on the day.

“We have a company that comes to scare the geese away, but it doesn’t alleviate the problem for good,” he says.

Sisson says Lakefield, about 15 kilometres north of Peterborough, has the same problem.

Jane Lewington, spokesperson for Conservation Ontario, a network of 36 conservation authorities, says she’s not aware of similar problems in other municipalities. BF

Inexpensive Arsenic Filtration System Based on Cattails Could Help Clean Up the Drinking Water of 57 Million People

According to the World Health Organization’s fact sheet about arsenic in drinking water, there are between 46-57 million people globally who are exposed to levels of arsenic higher than the “safe” 0.01 mg/l. Many of those are in poor countries where expensive filtration systems are out of reach, which is why Jeremiah Jackson’s invention is so important! The civil and environmental engineer created a cheap filtration system based on cattails, and he didn’t patent it so that it is more accessible. Read on for more details on how it works.

It all started when Jeremiah’s brother told him about the big problem of arsenic in drinking water in eastern India and Bangladesh. These areas were encouraged to stop drinking surface water years ago because it was contaminated by various pathogens, so people started drinking water from wells. What wasn’t known at the time was that the ground water was naturally contaminated by arsenic (“about six times the world recommended [safe] maximum amount of arsenic”).

Jackson says:

In India, it chronically shortened people’s life spans to 55 years, which is about 35 years less than what we have; and primarily that’s attributed to the arsenic poisoning. It’s a terrible way to live and die. You eventually get cancer and it affects a whole series of organs in your body.

How to Get that Arsenic Out?
First he started by looking at what was already known about arsenic removal by aquatic plants, and found pretty much nothing. So he set up an experiment on his patio, with some buckets containing cattails. In some buckets he added arsenic, and in others he didn’t (as a control). After taking regular measurements, he found that the cattails were absorbing the arsenic and cleaning up the water.

The next step was to build a prototype cheap enough that an average Indian family could build it to filter about 50 liters of drinking water each day. No moving parts, nothing fancy. He built it out of a kiddie pool: “about 18 inches deep and about 3.5 feet in diameter or about 12 square feet of surface area accommodating about 12 cattails.”

After 6 weeks of running the experiment, he found that the filtration system removed about 89% of the arsenic in the water and brought it below levels considered safe.

He said: “The cattail actually thinks the arsenic is a nutrient. It absorbs it as if were a nutrient, a fertilizer. And I found the plants actually flourished.”

If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is. This could help millions of people cheaply and in an environmentally friendly way. Of course, the cattails probably will have to be disposed of properly at some point after they have absorbed a certain amount of arsenic, but that’s a much smaller problem than drinking arsenic-poisoned water on a daily basis.

And this is just a start! Maybe other plants are even better at removing arsenic from water.

Via Rancho Santa Fe Review, Blue Living Ideas

Veolia Water Solutions commissions first BIOSTYR biological aerated filter in Kingston, Canada

13 May 2009

VEOLIA Water Solutions and John Meunier have started up their first BIOSTYR biological aerated filter in Canada at the Ravensview Wastewater Treatment Plant in Kingston, Ontario.

Veolia Water Solutions says biological aerated filters are compact treatment processes, which combine filtration and aerobic/anoxic treatment using a fixed-film biological degradation process.

According to Veolia Water Solutions, the BIOSTYR biological aerated filters use a floating polystyrene media comprised of individual spherical beads as the support for bio film growth.

Wastewater is fed in an up-flow manner through the BIOSTYR, leading to a biological abatement of the pollution, as well as physical filtration of suspended solids.

Veolia Water Solutions says the application required a compact and efficient biological treatment technology because of space restrictions.

Water and Energy [US]

Next Big Future (http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/water-and-energy.html )

February 10, 2009

Water and Energy

For any energy source, the cooling water can be waste-water or salt-water if the siting of the power plant has those non-fresh water sources available. Coal and solar-thermal can have more siting issues. Coal needs to be nearer to coal resources because millions of tons/year of coal is needed per plant. Solar thermal needs to be in sunny areas.

The main concerns with water that is used for energy relate to the fresh water budget of an area and rate of fresh water withdrawals. So if fresh water is turned into steam that leaves an area and falls as rain elsewhere it is no longer part of the current water budget for a particular area.

Understanding Water
Some water definitions

Watershed (Drainage Basin, Catchment Basin, River Basin)
(1) The total region or area above a given point on a stream or lake that contributes water to the flow at that point. It is designated by the dividing line of area from which surface streams flow in two different directions; the line separating two contiguous drainage areas. (2) United States usage. The total area above a given point on a stream that contributes water to the flow at that point. The entire region drained by a waterway or which drains into a lake or reservoir. (3) British usage. The topographic dividing line from which surface streams flow in two different directions; the line separating two contiguous drainage areas. (4) The area drained by a stream and its tributaries

Watershed Management
Managing all the natural resources of a watershed to protect, maintain, or improve its desired water budget, both quantity and quality, over time.

Water usage and biofuels.

A useful measure of performance from a water-efficiency standpoint is the net energy yield per unit of water withdrawn or consumed. Consumptive use of water is largely due to evaporation losses from cooling towers and evaporators during the distillation of ethanol following fermentation. Consumptive use of water is difficult to directly measure because it depends on relative humidity, wind speed, and temperature in addition to the process configuration. However, water permits are generally required from state authorities to withdraw well water or surface water for industrial use, and this water is more or less continually metered. For that reason, this report considers water withdrawals as the measure of water use. This includes both consumptive and non-consumptive use, but as biorefineries increasingly incorporate water recycling, the difference between consumptive and total water use is decreasing.

Water budget. A summation of inputs, outputs, and net changes to a particular water resource system over a fixed period. (Also, water balance model).

Wikipedia on water resources.

It is estimated that 69% of world-wide water use is for irrigation, with 15-35% of irrigation withdrawals being unsustainable.

It is estimated that 15% of world-wide water use is industrial. Major industrial users include power plants, which use water for cooling or as a power source (i.e. hydroelectric plants), ore and oil refineries, which use water in chemical processes, and manufacturing plants, which use water as a solvent.

It is estimated that 15% of world-wide water use is for household purposes. These include drinking water, bathing, cooking, sanitation, and gardening. Basic household water requirements have been estimated by Peter Gleick at around 50 liters per person per day, excluding water for gardens.

Recreational water use is usually a very small but growing percentage of total water use.

Explicit environmental water use is also a very small but growing percentage of total water use. Environmental water usage includes artificial wetlands, artificial lakes intended to create wildlife habitat, fish ladders around dams, and water releases from reservoirs timed to help fish spawn.

Sandia Presentation on Water and Energy
Sandia has a 14 page water and energy overview

FURTHER READING
Production of High Purity Water From Seawater at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant

Greenbiz : Curbing Our “Profound Waste” of Water

Curbing Our “Profound Waste” of Water
By Marc Gunther
Created 2009-05-04

Water’s on my mind. I’m just back from a rainout of the Washington Nationals-St Louis Cardinals baseball game. Second rainout of the season for the Nats — and on both dates, I had tickets!

As best as I understand the issue (which is not very well), there’s little or no danger that the world as a whole will run short of water, which makes water different from other natural resources like oil, gas or precious metals. Using water wisely is important, nevertheless, because more than 800 million people around the world lack access to clean drinking water and 2.5 billion don’t have access to a safe toilet, according to the Global Water Challenge. Water is also a big environmental issue because it takes enormous amounts of energy to move water around. 

An estimated 3 percent of national energy consumption, equivalent to approximately 56 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), is used for drinking water and wastewater services. Assuming the average mix of energy sources in the country, this equates to adding approximately 45 million tons of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. – US EPA

Far more energy — I couldn’t find the numbers — is used to move water around for agriculture and landscaping. So if we can learn to use water more efficiently, we can save a lot of energy.

Given that, here’s a surprising and mildly disturbing fact: There are about 60 million automatic irrigation systems across the U.S., operated by governments, real estate developers, suburban office parks and retailers, and most of them operate on timers. That is, they water the grass or plants every few days for a set number of minutes, regardless of whether it has been raining or not. So here in the Washington, D.C., area, even on this drizzly afternoon, we can assume that some automated sprinklers are sprinkling.

“This current technology makes about as much sense as having a timer instead of a thermostat in your house,” says Chris Spain, the founder of a company called Hydropoint, which offers smart irrigation systems.

I interviewed Chris while helping the Environmental Defense Fund research and writing its 2009 Innovations Review, a report on innovations that are good for business and for the environment. We met last month at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green, where Chris spoke about water.

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Petaluma, CA, Hydropoint helps its customers save water. They include eBay, Lockheed Martin, Cisco, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Amazon and Advanced Micro Devices, as well as big real estate developers and municipalities.

Hydropoint downloads weather data from about 40,000 weather stations across the U.S., asks customers to fill out a detailed questionnaire about their soil, plantings, sun and shade conditions, then calculates how much water is needed and when. Once Hydropoint has gathered data, it installs controllers on the customer irrigation systems and transmits instructions wirelessly to the systems.

Spain, an enterpreneur who worked in software, new media and television production before getting into the water-saving business, has become a self-educated expert on H2O. He told me that landscaping consumes about 58 percent of urban water, and that landscapes are typically overwatered by 30 to 300 percent.

The Hydropoint website also says:

“Four million watt hours of power are expended and 5,360 pounds of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere with every one million gallons of water consumed.”

The city of Newport Beach, Ca., an early Hydropoint customer, says it reduced landscape runoff (and associated pollution) to its popular beaches by 70 percent. Independent research studies which governments need before buying the Hydropoint system confirm dramatic savings in water usage.

By the way, farmers don’t do much better when it comes to water use. Another company highlighted in EDF’s review is PureSense, which provides smart irrigation systems so that farmers can reduce their water usage.

Two things worth noting about these companies. First, they help repair market failures. farmers and landscape owners are wasting lots of water, and paying for it, because it’s easy to see when the ground needs water (grass turns brown) and harder to know the ground is getting too much water. Second, because Hydropoint and PureSense rely on wireless technology and weather data, they show how information technology will play a vital role in solving environmental problems.

Because most customers end up saving water, Spain says, the payback period for the initial investment in Hydropoint equipment is about 18 to 24 months.

The business is growing fast. “We’ve just scratched the surface in terms of market opportunity,” Spain says. “We address an area of profound waste.”

Toronto water has drug-resistant bacteria

Bacteria resistant to some antibiotics have been found in Toronto tap water, a University of Michigan scientist says.

The water remains safe to drink, he said, but the finding raises the possibility that disease-causing bacteria will pick up the resistance genes.

In the United States, researchers have found bacteria that have evolved to become resistant to some antibiotics in some municipal water supplies.

At his lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., microbiologist Prof. Chuanwu Xi showed a stack of petri dishes, some filled with yellow dots of bacteria that should have been killed off by antibiotics. The source of the bacteria was drinking water from several communities in Ohio and Michigan.

“In tap water in Toronto, there’s antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Xi said, after testing water samples provided by CBC News.

The researchers don’t know what kinds of bacteria they’ve found, just that they can’t be killed by antibiotics.

But most bacteria in the environment are not the kinds that cause human disease, so the water is safe to drink, the researchers said.

The real concern is the genetic pollution created by antibiotic-resistant genes circulating in the environment, and the risk that human pathogens will pick up those resistant genes, said Gerry Wright, a researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Bacteria “have this remarkable ability to take up drug-resistance genes from their neighbours,” Wright said. “In some cases, they can collect dozens of drug-resistance genes and incorporate them into their genomes. It’s really quite astounding.”

Since overuse of antibiotics helps fuel drug-resistant bugs, public health officials continue to fear they may run out of options to treat human infections, he said.

Julianna Cummins, National Post
Published: Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Business of blue : China’s water needs create opportunities for Canadian purification systems

 Stimulus plan fuels sales of advanced Canadian purification systems

By Hillary Brenhouse International Herald Tribune 27 October 2009 Montreal

The staggering economic growth in China has come at a heavy cost, paid in severe contamination of the country’s air, soil and water. But now the Chinese government is aggressively pursuing more stringent environmental regulation, with a particular focus on water distribution and wastewater treatment.

Recent stimulus spending has opened up the Chinese market to green initiatives. And Canadian companies are responding to the call for advanced water treatment and reuse technology. “It’s not well known that China has set aside more money for the adoption of clean technologies than any other country on the planet,” said Dallas Kachan, managing director of Cleantech Group in San Francisco, which tracks global investment in clean technologies.

The Chinese economic stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan, or $585 billion, announced a year ago, focused nearly 40 percent of its spending on environmental and energy-efficient projects. The climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December is likely to prompt policy shifts that further drive the market for clean technologies in China, Mr. Kachan said.

 This is possibly the best time to be doing business in China as a clean-tech company.

“It’s important to get in now and form relationships.” Since 2006, the clean technology market in China has “gone from niche to mainstream,” and it is growing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent, according to Tsing Capital, one of the country’s first clean-technology venture capital firms.

Canada has a strong track record for innovation and investment in clean water technology and already has a foot in the Chinese market. “Canadian companies like Zenon Environmental that are world leaders in ultraviolet technology have benefited a lot of the emerging companies looking to enter China,” said David Henderson, managing director of XPV Capital, a Toronto-based investor in emerging water industry companies.

Alan McMillan is managing director of Omazo Ventures, a technology incubator firm also based in Toronto, and chairman of BX Jishu, a Chinese clean-technology distributor. Omazo, through BX Jishu, distributes in China equipment manufactured by UV Pure Technologies, also of Toronto, that purifies water using ultraviolet light.

This summer, Omazo struck a deal with a Shanghai-based hotel chain to supply 1,000 Chinese hotels with UV Pure’s purification units. Omazo declined to name the buyer but said that on average, each unit would cost $2,000 and hotels would typically need 2 to 10 units, depending on their size. Omazo is focused on the commercial property market – and specifically, on bringing clean water to China’s burgeoning hospitality industry. “That’s our penetration strategy,” Mr. McMillan said. “We see the hotel industry as being one of the first to demand clean water. Hotels have extreme water needs for their pools, restaurants, showers. And the people who stay in them have high expectations.”

The trade service division of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce recently announced a plan to build 10,000 green hotels by the year 2012 – hotels that will need to be outfitted with the latest in water treatment technology. In 2007, China raised its national standards for drinking water and established an inspection network to monitor water quality. The Health Ministry added 71 benchmarks to the 35 already required under previous standards.

But water sources are still considered unreliable, and boiling water in hotels for drinking continues to be the norm. UV Pure specializes in systems for institutions like hotels, schools and hospitals. Conventional ultraviolet systems tend to foul up when treating water in China because of high mineral content, and typically require costly water softeners. UV Pure’s technology features a self-cleaning mechanism, which according to the manufacturer allows it to operate effectively even in exceptionally hard water.

 ”There’s no question that opportunities abound for clean-tech companies in China,” said Rick VanSant, UV Pure’s chief executive. “The Canadian government has done an excellent job in pursuing an improved relationship with China. And Canada has been a relative hotbed for the development of leading environmental technologies, particularly with respect to water disinfection and wastewater treatment technology.” Trojan Technologies, a company based in London, Ontario, which was acquired five years ago by Danaher, a diversified U.S. engineering company, is another that has sold ultraviolet disinfection technology to China – in its case to hundreds of municipal wastewater treatment plants located mostly along the fast-developing coast. Sales have been helped by a revision in government regulations on wastewater disinfection – based partly on Trojan’s input – to allow ultraviolet treatment as an alternative to chlorination.

“The new regulation and the Chinese government’s most recent five-year plan, which identifies building infrastructure to collect sewage and treat it as one of its main priorities for first-tier cities, dovetailed to create a market opportunity,” said Marvin DeVries, Trojan’s chief executive. “It was an opportunity that we were, and still are, anxious to participate it in.” The company also supplies, through local Chinese distributors, ultraviolet water treatment systems in industrial markets and products designed to disinfect water in private homes. At present, its initiatives in China are moving forward much ahead of schedule.

 ”In no other geography have we found stimulus funding translate into orders and deliveries as quickly as we have in China,” Mr. DeVries said. “As a Canadian company, we were never under any allusions that the Canadian market would be big enough for us,” he said. “Right from the outset we adopted an export mentality.”

But Trojan’s acquisition by Danaher in 2004 was a crucial factor helping its entry to China and similar markets, he added. Using Danaher’s existing sales organization in the country, Trojan was able to leverage its experience and infrastructure almost immediately.

Is the privatization of water the right thing to do?

Is the privatization of water the right thing to do?  Part of the Macleans ‘Running Dry’ Series Thursday, September 3, 2009 

 Back in 1999, when Bolivia decided to privatize water services in Cochabamba, the country’s third-largest city, it didn’t bargain for the backlash that would unleash. Mobs of angry Bolivians, some armed with Molotov cocktails, took to the streets in protest. Martial law was declared, and in the ensuing violence one person was killed and several others were injured. Eventually the government withdrew the private water contract, and Bechtel, the U.S. engineering giant overseeing the water system, was run out of the country. Since then, documentaries such as The Corporation, Blue Gold and Flow have used footage of the riots to highlight the perils of water privatization. But it’s too bad the filmmakers didn’t stick around to see how things turned out.

Since water delivery has been returned to the state-run utility, things haven’t improved at all. Fully 80 per cent of the new management is “not qualified to perform their responsibilities,” according to one former senior staffer. Two directors of the water authority have since been sacked for corruption, several managers have been fired for similar charges, and the utility is now hobbled by inefficiencies, nepotism and “blatant company corruption,” according to a recent study by the Transnational Institute. Now, party politics and electoral concerns determine “who gets service and when,” and the “fragmented hodgepodge” of expansion projects is neither coherent nor technically viable. Fully half of Cochabamba’s people are still without water, and those who have service only have it sporadically—for some, as little as two hours a day.

“I would have to say we were not ready to build new alternatives,” admitted Oscar Olivera, who led the Bolivian protests that forced Bechtel out.

 It has long been assumed that privatizing water services is bad for the poor, bad for the environment, and leads to the inequitable distribution of water. The usual argument is that private companies will put profits ahead of people, cutting off the supply of fresh water to those who can’t afford it. However, new evidence has emerged showing that the opposite may be true.

Right now, more than 90 per cent of the world’s local water distribution systems are state-controlled, and in many countries, they’re doing a terrible job.

Currently, 1.1 billion people—one-sixth of the world’s population—do not have access to clean running water.

Meanwhile, in wealthy countries such as Canada, the massive subsidization of the systems leads to enormous waste. That was fine when water was cheap and plentiful, but it’s becoming less so, and the subsidies are creating a dangerous illusion. Some say privatization could lead to more realistic pricing, less waste, and better distribution—even to the world’s poor.

Over the next four decades, water use is expected to triple as the world’s population grows by a predicted three billion people to 9.5 billion.

At the same time, global warming appears to be speeding up the hydrologic cycle, making wet areas wetter, and dry areas drier. By 2030, nearly half of the world’s population will inhabit areas of severe water stress, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

In short, more water will soon be required to slake the thirst of a world that many say is already using too much. But right now we’re still using fresh water at such a high rate that “groundwater supplies and major aquifers throughout the world are dropping rapidly,” says Boston-based trade analyst Michael Locascio of Lux Research Inc.

“Infrastructure is collapsing and people aren’t willing to pay, nor are utilities willing to raise the price high enough to pay for repairs. We’re treating it irresponsibly—not as the asset that it really is.”

The problem is that in some parts of the world, such as Canada, fresh water is cheap and plentiful, so it gets wasted, while in areas where it’s scarce, governments often have little incentive to get it to the people who need it the most.

“Scarcity is not a quantity issue: it’s a distribution issue,” says law professor Gabriel Eckstein of the Texas Tech School of Law. “We have enough fresh water globally to provide every person on earth a hundred times over.” Private water markets, he says, could get it to the people who need it.

For instance, Singapore has been buying water from Malaysia, and Israel has considered a similar agreement with Turkey. Greenland, newly flush with glacial runoff thanks to global warming, is looking to export surplus supplies, according to its deputy minister of foreign affairs. It has 10 per cent of the world’s fresh water reserves and a population that barely tips 57,000.

If water distribution was privatized, prices for individual consumers would likely increase with use, which would have the positive side effect of encouraging conservation. Prices for industry and agriculture, which use 20 and 70 per cent respectively, would likely use a tiered system. But it would be “very efficiently” implemented by the market, says Eckstein. “At some point, you let the market come up with its own price,” he says, which it is well-equipped to do.

 Some worry that charging market prices for water could lead to humanitarian concerns: the poor, who don’t have the money to pay for it, could be cut off. But that assumes the poor haven’t been cut off already, which in many countries is not true.

In the developing world, only the economically powerful—industry, agriculture and elites—have access to running water, says Ashok Gadgil, senior staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. People living in slums and rural areas do without.

The truth is that many of the world’s poorest people are, perversely, already paying three to 10 times the global average price for water, due to the failure of public utilities to provide any access at all, says Caroline Boin, a director at London think tank the International Policy Network. In Kibera, a sprawling Nairobi slum—the biggest in Africa—the only way to get water is through a network of porters that provide water to 500,000 people a day, hauling it in canisters on their backs or by donkey. By some estimates, more than half the population of cities in the developing world get their water this way.

Activists who warn against the dangers of privatization are right to be wary. Trading water is not like trading oil or softwood lumber: there are no substitutes. Because of this, the idea that water can be sold for private gain is still considered “unconscionable” by many, says James M. Olson, one of the top environmental lawyers in the U.S. But scarcity and the lure of extraordinary profits, he says, may “overwhelm ordinary public sensibilities.”

The solution may lie not in banning private markets in water altogether, but allowing freely functioning markets, held to account by tight government regulation.

Because of increased competition for water, “humanity is converging on the need to make public policy trade-offs that have never had to be made before,” says Robert Sandford, chair of the UN water initiative in Canada.

 “In many parts of the world, cities are competing—with one another, with agriculture, and nature—for water, and we’re going to have to make some very difficult choices.” Given their flexibility and capacity to collar economic incentives and technological innovations, market-based institutions are well suited to address the precarious water future. “No matter where you stand on privatization,” says Boin, “nobody should be happy with the status quo.”

WWF-Can : Canada’s Rivers Are At Risk

GLOBE-NET October 15, 2009

Canada’s most precious natural resource – fresh water – is in jeopardy due to the effects of climate change and growing water demand, according to a new WWF-Canada report released today called Canada’s Rivers at Risk: Environmental Flows and Canada’s Freshwater Future. The report uses a scientific approach that focuses on the importance of water flow to examine the health of 10 Canadian rivers and reveals that some are dangerously close to drying up. It concludes that we must value our fresh water differently and take immediate action to protect it. Evaluating the health of our rivers according to what scientist refer to as environmental flows reveals a truer, and more troubling, picture of Canada’s freshwater future than the more traditional focus on raw quantities of water within our borders. It forces us to look at the scale that matters most when it comes to fresh water – the watershed.

When we do, we find that growing more food, generating more electricity, quenching the thirst of expanding cities, and fuelling industry, are taking their toll on the nation’s rivers.

 ”The combined threats of climate change and growing demand for fresh water by cities, agriculture and industry are converging on Canada’s rivers,” says Tony Maas, Director, Fresh Water for WWF-Canada.

 ”Even seemingly remote northern waters like the Mackenzie are at risk. As temperatures rise, and industrial water withdrawals and interest in hydropower increase, we must start planning now to protect river flows to ensure water security for the communities and economies that depend on them.”

Emerging threats: The report shows that the overallstatus of these rivers is troubling, due to three primary threats:

1. Climate change is altering the entire context of water management, resulting in changing precipitation patterns, increasing evaporation, melting glaciers, and causing droughts and floods to become more frequent and intense;

2. Growing water demands by expanding industries, agriculture and urban growth, are drawing down rivers to sometimes dangerously low levels; and

3. Growing demand for low-carbon energy is driving construction of new hydropower projects which can alter river flows and cause species and ecosystems to suffer.

Required action:

The report recommends two critical points of action for restoration and protection of river flows.

First, the federal government must play a much stronger role in Canadian water stewardship. The Mackenzie River is emerging as a national priority for freshwater conservation. The federal government can play a much stronger leadership role in protecting the waters of this vast watershed by facilitating implementation of the Mackenzie River Transboundary Water Agreement to ensure increasingly intensive development in upstream jurisdictions does not impair the health of the river, and the communities, downstream. Among the most urgent priorities for federal government leadership in the Mackenzie watershed is the is the development of an enforceable water management framework to secure environmental flows in the Athabasca River in the face of growing water withdrawals by industry.

 Second, to avoid irreparable damage, the report recommends there must be a long-term plan to keep rivers flowing for people and nature. This includes strong federal leadership to address climate change – both at the UN Climate Conference this December, as well as in implementing a credible, national action plan to reduce emissions and put strategies into place for adapting to a changing freshwater future across Canada.

“These issues are of a scope and scale that require national leadership on fresh water in Canada now,” said Gerald Butts, President and CEO, WWF-Canada. “Water is our most important national resource. Our responsibility is to steward it wisely to ensure that future Canadians can benefit from it as we do today.”

River Summaries:

Skeena River, BC – supports Canada’s second largest wild salmon fishery (worth $110 million annually). Proposed development of mines, coal bed methane fields, oil and gas pipelines, and run-of-river hydropower projects could significantly affect the Skeena’s natural flow and potentially compromise the watershed’s incredible biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

Mackenzie River, NWT, YK, BC, AL, SK – is one of the world’s longest free flowing rivers and plays an important role in regulating ocean circulation and climate. The Mackenzie watershed has experienced greater temperature increases than anywhere else in Canada which further impacts flows, and growing interest in hydropower development is an emerging threat.

Fraser River, BC – contributes to 80 per cent of the province’s economic output and produces more salmon than any other river on earth. Its fishing industry is worth over $300 million annually. Major dams on the Fraser’s tributaries, drainage for flood control, and withdrawals for agriculture and urban use have compromised flow within the watershed.

Athabasca River, AL – provides the greatest direct inflow of water to the world’s largest boreal freshwater delta – the Peace-Athabasca Delta. Together, the river and the delta support over 30 species of fish and more than a million migratory birds each year. The amount of water taken for development is projected to increase by at least 200 per cent by 2015.

Nipigon River, ON – was once a turbulent river but now its flows are highly regulated. Only three meters of its original 95-metre vertical drop remains unharnessed by dams. However, it is a great example of what is possible in terms of restoring river health – even in the face of significant threats. Operation of hydropower dams on the river have been improved to restore flows to more natural conditions, and the ecosystem and fish populations are showing strong signs of recovery.

South Saskatchewan River, SK, AL – is Canada’s most threatened river. Hundreds of dams exist throughout its watershed and 70% of the flow is withdrawn for agricultural and urban use. The water scarcity typical of the region’s arid climate is expected to intensify under climate change, which experts describe as an emerging water crisis.

Grand River, ON – is one of the most regulated rivers in Canada – more than 100 dams and control structures along the Grand and its tributaries have significantly altered the river’s natural flow regime. Increased demand for water to supply growing cities is a growing threat.

St. Lawrence River, QU – drains water from the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, the Great Lakes. Its natural flow has been drastically altered and is currently in a declining state due to numerous hydropower dams and the infrastructure developed to create the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors.

Saint John River, NB, QU – is the longest river in Atlantic Canada. Hydropower dams on the river have dramatically altered river flows and contributed to the decline of the Atlantic salmon population that is now endangered. Downstream from the dams, river flows can fluctuate by as much as 91% over a 24-hour period; at times flows are reduced to the point that the riverbed almost dries up.

Ottawa River, ON, QU – is severely fragmented by hydropower dams in both the Quebec and Ontario portions of its watershed, the Ottawa is one of the most regulated river systems in Canada. Its natural flow regimes have been dramatically altered, compromising habitat and the diversity and distribution of the river’s fish and shoreline vegetation.

The full report and an executive summary are available at www.wwf.ca/rivers