Tehuacan Valley Mexico's Water Crisis
Posted on 05/26/2010 at 08:57PM +AddThis
There’s no water distribution infrastructure in Mexico’s San Marcos Tlacoylaco, and clean freshwater has been scarce as well as prohibitively expensive to buy for decades. But help is on its way to San Marcos, a town of about 10,000 people in the upper Tehuacán Valley, because new rainwater storage tanks and sewage-recycling systems in individual homes are making water more accessible to families.
A Mexican non-profit group, Alternativas, is at the source of this economic and social change in San Marcos. Alternativas has developed a two-pronged approach aimed at residences and farms that involves water management systems for residences coupled with a campaign to replace corn with amaranth as a staple crop. This ecologically-based water conservation model, tested in San Marcos and 200 other towns, is seen as a potential strategy for solving the uncertain future for all of Tehuacán Valley’s increasingly troubled water supply.
Indeed, a prolonged drought last year that damaged the nation has made water scarcity in Tehuacán worse. The already limited supply has also been compromised by population growth, funding shortages and pollution. More people than ever—from every class and background—have lost access to clean water for days at a time. Facets of Mexico’s economy have been severely damaged as its deepest aquifers have been drained.
People have moved to cities and now travel along the highways in the valley to look for employment, only to be told they won’t even find water. The water table has dropped so low that no new well permits are available. Swelling urban populations have placed further strain on cities already lacking financial resources.
Tehuacán City—as well as all other cities in Mexico with populations of 50,000 people or more—was required by law to open its first water-treatment plant by 2005. But the plant was too costly to finish, according to Raúl Hernández Garciadiego, director general of Alternativas, the Tehuacán-based NGO that develops and implements sustainable living practices. Now the city, which has a population of 300,000, is throwing out wastewater that contaminates downstream rather than cleaning and re-using it.
Alternativas discovered contamination across wide swaths of the valley as the organization looked for a location for their new, larger amaranth factory. Amaranth production is one part of the NGO’s water conservation plan.
Since indigenous peoples in the Tehuacán Valley domesticated corn for the first time in the history of mankind between 5000 and 3400 B.C., maize has become the world’s food staple. But corn requires heavy water use. Amaranth, on the other hand, uses less water and has better nutritional value.
Sixteen years ago Alternativas began a growing cooperative called Quali, or quality, to support amaranth production. As a result job opportunities expanded and malnutrition rates in communities decreased due to amaranth. With yields booming, Quali started to look to build a new, larger factory in 2008. Their search began in the northern part of the Tehuacán Valley, near San Marcos.
But biological waste from industrial chicken farms and chemical pollutants from fabric treatment plants, known as maquiladoras, had contaminated huge areas. Quali members tested every factory site before construction, and found that most were heavily contaminated.
The group decided to move its new factory down the valley, and began construction on the new facility in 2009.
Last summer, as the drought cut off critical rainfall in the region and across much of the country, Quali farmers lost 50 percent of their crop. It’s a dramatic loss that Garciadiego still marks as a success, since other farmers in Mexico without irrigation lost 100 percent of their yield.
Despite the recent drought and long-time pollution, Quali’s annual amaranth yields have increased by an average 35 percent, Garciadiego said.
But while Quali members could pick an alternative site for their factory, residents in polluted areas of the valley cannot move so easily. After years of living with the contamination, residents have suffered health problems.
Cervical and breast cancer incidence rates are higher in the Tehuacán Valley than most of Mexico. A February 2009 newspaper report in La Jornada de Oriente 5 stated that in the Tehuacán county four to five new cases of cancer discovered every week in public health clinics.
Water contaminants and particulate matter in the air are to blame, according to Garciadiego. At times the activist has felt powerless to help. But he found strength in community leaders, like Francisca Rosa Valencia who was a San Marcos native.
Valencia was a tireless community organizer who pioneered water management and amaranth expansion in the valley for 20 years. In 2007 she fell ill with cervical cancer, dying from the disease just three months later. Losing her was a huge blow to the area’s ecological movement.
“We didn’t understand the Lord’s decision to invite her to the sky,” Garciadiego said. “Some of our friends said that perhaps she deserved to see the fruits of her work from a special place. It was a very hard shock for each one of us when she passed away.”
Despite the loss, Valencia left behind a legacy of exceptional hard work, water conservation and amaranth expansion that Garciadiego and Alternativas hope to continue.
In the two years since Valencia died, Alternativas has not only expanded its amaranth production, but also developed parallel waterworks throughout much of southern Mexico’s Mixteca Popoloca region.
The organization has served more than 200,000 residents in over 200 villages and built 7,500 water works of different sizes as of December.
“Nowadays people can fulfill the family household need, farm small plots nearby and water their animals, mainly goats,” Garciadiego said.
People’s crops are healthy and their goats have water dripping down their chins because of Alternativas’ water management system. Their system installs rainwater storage tanks and sewage-recycling systems in every home possible.
The tank saves enough water during the wet season to sustain each family through the dry season. A biodigester anchors the sewage recycling system that processes family waste and then connects to small garden that acts as a filtering area. Whatever families grow absorbs nutrients from the fertilized ground.6
Industrial chicken farms dot the landscape of the Tehuacan Valley.
With the rainwater tanks and biodigesters, Garciadiego said, families have a self-sufficient water supply that costs only as much as the initial equipment installation.
For centuries townspeople walked vast distances from their squat cinderblock and adobe homes to find water. Recently they’ve depended on erratic pumping from wells, or lost a high percentage of their income buying water in large tanks brought to them on trucks. Now they have a convenient, in-home alternative.
Alternativas’ model also eliminates the need for reservoirs, piping, sewers and treatment plants—all impossibly expensive, logistical nightmares in these rural towns.
“The hydrological approach, drilling, piping, pumping and delivering sewage to water treatment, is so costly that in majority of cases this model of water management is not possible to be set in place,” Garciadiego said.
Garciadiego hits the ‘p’s’ of pumping and piping with such rhythmic disdain he might as well be describing pipes made of gold—the concept is that impractical.
Garciadiego believes his organization’s work in the Mixteca Popoloca region is only the first stage in spreading the ecologically based model to improve water availability, agricultural success and livelihoods across the valley. Alternativas’ model is a new paradigm for water-starved, impoverished areas across Mexico, he said.
Even with the world’s tenth-largest economy, Mexico does not have the resources to implement Western-style water infrastructure, he said.
“If we use a sound, ecological approach to management, to household water use, to drip irrigation and water treatment at house level with nothing but initial construction cost,” Garciadiego said, “it will be an ecologically sustainable future for water management.”
Alternativas’ solution could be part of a comprehensive water management plan Mexico is trying to piece together amongst regions with different economic and geographic environments.
But the national water commission of Mexico, CONAUGA, hasn’t fully embraced Alternativas’ plan. Garciadiego said there is a lack of government understanding, as well as a business imperative to expand Mexico’s traditional infrastructure of reservoirs, pipes and treatment plants.
Juan Bezaury, Mexico representative for The Nature Conservancy, said that while Alternativas’ model works in poorer isolated areas, Mexico needs piping and infrastructure in major urban centers.
The civil, but somewhat disconnected, relationship between Alternativas and CONAGUA exemplifies the problem Bezaury sees with water management planning in Mexico—it’s full of multiple disconnected organizations.
“We’re still falling far behind. There’s not even an integrated plan to tackle the issue. We have a supply that’s failing, and no clear track to restore the problem.”
-Juan Bezaury
“We’re still falling far behind,” Bezaury said. “There’s not even an integrated plan to tackle the issue. We have a supply that’s failing, and no clear track to restore the problem.”
But the track remains clear in Garciadiego’s mind, at least at the local level. He’s taking his message about a sustainable model that will work across Mexico to foundations and civil organizations this month.
In November the world’s attention will turn to Mexico in anticipation of the United Nations climate change summit, the first after Copenhagen’s 2009 meeting. As the climate changes droughts will likely become worse, Garciadiego said, and he wants to focus on how increasingly severe water scarcity will affect people. Especially the poor.
Garciadiego wants to attract some of that international attention towards Alternativas’ model, and bolster ongoing water supply restoration efforts in Tehuacán and beyond.
To Bezaury, Mexico’s water future depends on a unified strategy across the government, non-profit and business worlds the response to Mexico’s water challenges. It must focus on technical demands rather than political gain, in a sector known for corruption and inefficiency.
“We have a supply that’s failing, and no clear track to restore the problem,” Bezaury said. “Moving into elections time I’m not sure what [will] happen.”
written by Andrew Maddocks of Circle of Blue. You can reach him at Andrew@circleofblue.org.
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Water Disclosure Project
Posted on 05/18/2010 at 09:43PM +AddThis
The Carbon Disclosure Project, a non-profit that compiles global corporate climate change data, announced the launch of a questionnaire today that will poll 300 businesses in water-intensive industries to release detailed information about their usage of the precious resource.
This is the first time that the independent British-based organization is applying its model for emissions’ measurements to water. Companies will measure and disclose information on their water usage, explore the risks and opportunities in their operations and supply chains, as well as water management and improvement plans.
The results, which will be published in late 2010, will give the companies and their investors new tools to analyze water-related risks and bottom line opportunities.
Marcus Norton, head of the water disclosure program, said the survey’s broad acceptance is a sign that companies are beginning to understand water as an important part of their supply chain.
“Companies will need to operate in a water-constrained world,” Norton told Circle of Blue. “Investors will be very interested in knowing that it’s a part of their long-term planning.”
Companies participating this year are concentrated in water-intensive sectors, and includes Ford, L’Oréal, PepsiCo and Reed Elsevier already signed on. More than 130 financial institutions with a combined $16 trillion in assets, which includes Allianz Group, HSBC, ING, and National Australia Bank, are also contributing, according to a CDP press release.
Molson Coors, the global brewing company, announced this week that it not only be a reporting company, but a lead sponsor for the Water Disclosure project. Molson Coors sponsored the recent WaterViews survey of public opinion, published by Circle of Blue, which found that water tops climate change as a global priority.
“This effort will go a long way toward providing a common framework for companies to assess and report on their water usage and water-related risk moving forward,” said Bart Alexander, vice president global corporate responsibility for Molson Coors in the press release.
The questionnaire has three general categories: water management and governance, water-related risks, and metrics. The first group of questions asks how companies work with various parties, from governments to local groups, when it comes to their water supply. Investors interested in these businesses, Norton said, want to know how companies are anticipating the dangers of operating in water-scarce regions.
Norton said CDP designed the survey to collect meaningful data that doesn’t create an excessive reporting burden. While it’s a “rocky” process that will develop over many years, companies have no incentive to mislead shareholders, Norton said.
While carbon emissions have the same effect on London as they do on Michigan, the effect of water scarcity varies across the globe, making useful data harder to gather. This makes localized information the most valuable, according to Norton.
“Until you look at that I don’t think the data is truly meaningful,” he said.
CDP aims to use the project as a lens that connects local and global water issues that will, in turn, give companies and investors far more information, awareness and understanding.
“This is an iterative process of improvement,” Norton said. “We’ll be developing modules for different industries and sectors.”
Eventually, Norton will use the survey’s first year to explore ways the survey should expand and hopes to prioritize two additional categories: the largest, most water-intensive companies and the regions with the worst water scarcity.
Meanwhile Norton says this project will advance global awareness of the water crisis in the coming years.
“I’ve heard people describe us with water as where we were with carbon and climate change five years ago.”
Companies have until July 31 to respond to CDP’s survey.
by Andrew Maddocks
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/water-disclosure-project-releases-surveys-to-300-companies/
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The Price of Water
Posted on 05/18/2010 at 09:23PM +AddThis
A first of its kind survey of residential water use and prices in 30 metropolitan regions in the United States has found that some cities in rain-scarce regions have the lowest residential water rates and the highest level of water use. A family of four using 100 gallons per person each day will pay on average $34.29 a month in Phoenix compared to $65.47 for the same amount in Boston.
The survey, conducted by Circle of Blue over the last several months, also found that average daily residential water use ranged from a low of 41 gallons per person in Boston to a high of 211 gallons per person in Fresno, Calif.
The Circle of Blue survey includes data on water rates and water usage from the 20 largest U.S. cities, according to the 2000 Census, and ten regionally representative cities to gain a broad view of urban water pricing. The survey comes as municipal water departments and their customers across the country contend with the ironic and unintended consequence of the economic recession and water conservation. In most major cities water use is declining while rates charged to residential customers are rising 1.
The effect of the crossing trends is less severe in Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee, where municipal water is supplied by the lakes and prices range from $24.12 to $28.36.
“The reason why rates are so low in the Great Lakes region is proximity to abundant water,” said Nick Schroeck, executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Detroit. “Moving water takes an extraordinary amount of energy. Energy costs are higher in arid regions where water has to be brought from far away. For us, you look at the larger cities, and they are right on one of the lakes. It’s easy to get water to the population centers.”
Even though prices are comparatively low, rates in the Great Lakes region have increased in recent years because of declining consumption. Most of that decrease is attributed to the loss of industrial activity, though shrinking urban populations and personal frugality are also factors.
“For more than 20 years industry has been moving south looking for cheaper labor. I’m hoping that now they’ll start coming back looking for cheaper water.”
-Richard Meeusen, WAVE Founder
Falling demand is a concern for Carrie Lewis, the superintendent of Milwaukee Water Works, because the utility’s revenue comes from water sales, so less use means higher rates. In an interview, Lewis described a downward-sloping graph showing the decrease in water sales over the last three decades. Sales in Milwaukee dropped 41 percent from 1976 to 2008, primarily because water-intensive breweries and tanneries went out of business or left town.
“That’s a frightening graph if you make money selling water,” Lewis said.
As a result, water conservation is not a big part of Milwaukee’s agenda. Milwaukee Water Works (MWW) rejected a suggestion from the state public service commission to institute a block tariff rate structure, which would have raised prices for high-volume users to encourage using less water. The city is actually looking to increase water use because of its spare infrastructure capacity and ample supply.
“MWW could double its customer base without having to build new facilities,” Lewis said. “There’s no capital cost to avoid by increasing water use.”
To that end, some Milwaukee businesses want the city to fish for industry with the lure of cheap water, according to an article from the American Water Works Association. Business owner Richard Meeusen started the group Water Attracting Valued Employers (WAVE) to lobby for a discounted industrial water rate.
“For more than 20 years industry has been moving south looking for cheaper labor, I’m hoping that now they’ll start coming back looking for cheaper water,” Meeusen told the AWWA.
Water demand in Milwaukee is similar to urban areas across the United States. Per capita water use is dropping in nearly every city surveyed, and total water use has fallen or remains steady in some cities despite population bulges.
Water in the Southwest
Declines in demand are especially notable in arid cities of the Southwest and southern California. These regions binged in the 20th century on relatively abundant supplies brought from afar, using water to leverage growth. But as populations have disproportionately grown in comparison to the available supply, cities are cutting back to avoid building costly desalination plants, investing in diversion schemes or buying expensive water through market exchanges.
Per capita use in Santa Fe has dropped 42 percent since 1995 and total use is down nearly 30 percent, while Phoenix consumes the same amount of water now as it did 10 years ago despite adding roughly 400,000 residents. Figures released two weeks ago from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power show that it supplied less water in February than any time in the last three decades, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Las Vegas has significantly cut outdoor water use by prohibiting front lawns for new houses since 2003. As a result, water deliveries from the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies Las Vegas, dropped by 20 billion gallons from 2002 to 2003–enough water to cover the annual residential needs of a city of 150,000.
People living in the Southwest are often excoriated for their water use, but critics neglect the necessity for water, argues Stephanie Duer, water conservation program coordinator for Salt Lake City Public Utilities.
“I never hear people complain about Alaska or Connecticut using too much heating oil,” Duer said in an interview. “It seems to me that since we’re in a dry region we will be using more water.”
Water use needs to be weighed against the other benefits it provides, Duer added. “I hear people say ‘Why don’t you plant native species’ Well, We don’t have a single shade tree that would grow at this elevation. Do you want to live in a city without trees? We want to keep the urban forest for quality of life and keeping shade helps to reduce energy use in the summer. We’re working hard to find that balance in water use.”
“Water use is generally not publicized much outside of droughts. Water sort of has a technical side that often doesn’t get communicated well to the public.”
-Drew Beckwith
Though water supplies are precious in these places, the price of water for residential customers is relatively cheap. A family of four using 100 gallons per person each day will pay on average $32.93 a month in Las Vegas compared to $72.95 for the same amount in Atlanta, which has more than ten times the amount of average annual rainfall as Las Vegas, according to National Weather Service statistics. While many factors contribute to water pricing, such as the energy used to pump water, the price of chemicals for treatment costs, recent infrastructure projects and operations efficiency–the difference in several Western cities can partly be explained by government subsidy.
“In the West there was massive federal investment in major water infrastructure,” said Heather Cooley, a researcher for the Pacific Institute’s water program. “Those states and cities didn’t have to pay the capital cost. California’s Central Valley Project is an example of that. The capital cost not including interest still hasn’t been paid, and that was built over 50 years ago. The subsidies create an artificial price.”
Water delivered via the Central Valley Project, a federal initiative led by the Bureau of Reclamation, is primarily directed toward agriculture. The same federal support helped build the Central Arizona Project, a canal that connects water from the Colorado River to Phoenix, Tucson and other cities in three Arizona counties.
Residents of those cities who benefit from this lifeline channeled through the Sonoran Desert are paying only 45 percent of the project’s $3.6 billion cost. The difference is a national burden.
The Central Arizona Project, Hoover Dam, California’s State Water Project, Colorado’s Big Thompson Project are all water supply diversions paid for in part by federal or state tax funds. But when new supply projects are financed by customers directly, higher water rates are the consequence.
Take Santa Fe, for example.
The city has the highest overall rates in the survey and the highest rates for high-volume users. Because water is scarce and current groundwater use is unsustainable, the city is building the $217 million Buckman Direct Diversion to tap water from the San Juan-Chama diversion. It is a non-federal project, and the $187 million after-grant cost is being jointly paid by the city and the county.
While Santa Fe’s supply project meets current needs, high-growth areas typically levy a one-time connection fee on new development to place the burden on newcomers for acquiring anticipated supplies or building treatment. In Las Vegas, for example, residents buying new houses would pay $1,440 to the Las Vegas Valley Water District and $4,870 to the regional supplier, the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
“Most of the infrastructure is paid for by new customers,” said Doug Bennett, SNWA’s conservation manager. “There’s not a lot of infrastructure dollars in the water rate.”
Growth in Las Vegas has slowed in the last few years because of the economic crisis and the housing bubble implosion. Water utilities are not getting many connection fees-–down to 1,139 in 2008 from a high of just over 24,000 in 2005. Slower expansion means the city does not have to worry about meeting constantly rising demand.
“Instead of worrying about meeting next year’s capacity, now there’s plenty,” said Matt Thorley, principal financial manager for LVVWD.
The Future of Water Prices
In many cities, residents lean on infrastructure investments made in the years following World War II. The strain shows. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 240,000 water main breaks occur each year. Leaky pipes lose billions of dollars of treated water annually, and sewer overflows cause outbreaks of disease.
Last year the EPA estimated that $335 billion would be needed to fix the country’s aging water supply system in the next few decades, according to the New York Times. But where that money will come from is unknown.
According to Jack Moss, an advisor to Aquafed, the international water industry association, cities have to decide whether to make improvements through taxes or tariffs. The problem is that neither government spending nor higher water bills gather much voting support.
Despite the hand wringing over prices, water in the U.S. remains cheap. In most cities surveyed by Circle of Blue a family of four can buy enough water for its indoor needs–50 gallons per person per day for washing, drinking, cooking and flushing–for less than $25 per month, which is a relatively small portion of a family budget.
“Water is very reasonably priced,” said Doug Bennett, conservation manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “[As a result], it’s not a major expense on people’s radar screen.”
Meanwhile when prices come up for discussion there are always social justice concerns about access for the poor. However, with a few exceptions such as Detroit 4, most cities have adequate financial assistance programs to ensure in-home access for all.
One barrier to better water management is communication between utilities and customers–a common chorus amongst water rate researchers interviewed for this article.
“Water use is generally not publicized much outside of droughts,” said Drew Beckwith, a water specialist with Western Resource Advocates. “Water sort of has a technical side that often doesn’t get communicated well to the public.”
Another problem may be habit. Water has generally been so cheap for so long, that people have become anchored to the past price, not realizing that sustainability costs money to achieve.
Prices will undoubtedly rise in the near future. But the question of whether the increase comes via higher taxes or tariffs remains because bearing the price of doing nothing would be much worse.
Note: Water rate information was gathered from the website of each city’s water utility and based on single-family residential rates. It is current as of April 1. Average prices for cities with seasonal rates were calculated using seasonal weighting. For water use information, Circle of Blue asked water departments directly the daily per capita usage for single- and multi-family residential customers.
by Brett Walton
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/the-price-of-water-a-comparison-of-water-rates-usage-in-30-u-s-cities/
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Saving U.S. Water and Sewer Systems is Costly
Posted on 05/13/2010 at 09:21PM +AddThis
One recent morning, George S. Hawkins, a long-haired environmentalist who now leads one of the largest and most prominent water and sewer systems, trudged to a street corner here where water was gushing into the air.
A cold snap had ruptured a major pipe installed the same year the light bulb was invented. Homes near the fashionable Dupont Circle neighborhood were quickly going dry, and Mr. Hawkins, who had recently taken over the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority despite having no experience running a major utility, was responsible for fixing the problem.
As city employees searched for underground valves, a growing crowd started asking angry questions. Pipes were breaking across town, and fire hydrants weren’t working, they complained. Why couldn’t the city deliver water, one man yelled at Mr. Hawkins.
Such questions are becoming common across the nation as water and sewer systems break down. Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.
In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and this weekend’s intense rains overwhelmed the city’s system, causing untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.
State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.
For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.
Mr. Hawkins’s answer to such problems will not please a lot of citizens. Like many of his counterparts in cities like Detroit, Cincinnati, Atlanta and elsewhere, his job is partly to persuade the public to accept higher water rates, so that the utility can replace more antiquated pipes.
“People pay more for their cellphones and cable television than for water,” said Mr. Hawkins, who before taking over Washington’s water system ran environmental groups and attended Princeton and Harvard, where he never thought he would end up running a sewer system.
“You can go a day without a phone or TV,” he added. “You can’t go a day without water.”
But in many cities, residents have protested loudly when asked to pay more for water and sewer services. In Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Sacramento — and before Mr. Hawkins arrived, Washington — proposed rate increases have been scaled back or canceled after virulent ratepayer dissent.
So when Mr. Hawkins confronted the upset crowd near Dupont Circle, he sensed an opportunity to explain why things needed to change. It was a snowy day, and while water from the broken pipe mixed with slush, he began cheerily explaining that the rupture was a symptom of a nationwide disease, according to people present.
Mr. Hawkins — who at 49 has the bubbling energy of a toddler and the physique of an aging professor — told the crowd that the average age of the city’s water pipes was 76, nearly four times that of the oldest city bus. With a smile, he described how old pipes have spilled untreated sewage into rivers near homes.
“I don’t care why these pipes aren’t working!” one of the residents yelled. “I pay $60 a month for water! I just want my toilet to flush! Why do I need to know how it works?”
Mr. Hawkins smiled, quit the lecture, and retreated back to watching his crew.
On Capitol Hill, the plight of Mr. Hawkins and other utility managers has become a hot topic. In the last year, federal lawmakers have allocated more than $10 billion for water infrastructure programs, one of the largest such commitments in history.
But Mr. Hawkins and others say that even those outlays are almost insignificant compared with the problems they are supposed to fix. An E.P.A. study last year estimated that $335 billion would be needed simply to maintain the nation’s tap water systems in coming decades. In states like New York, officials estimate that $36 billion is needed in the next 20 years just for municipal wastewater systems.
As these discussions unfold, particular attention is being paid to Mr. Hawkins. Washington’s water and sewer system serves the White House, many members of Congress, and two million other residents, and so it surprised some when Mr. Hawkins was hired to head the agency last September, since he did not have an engineering background or the résumé of a utility chief.
In fact, after he had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1987, he spent a few years helping companies apply for permits to pollute rivers and lakes. (At night — without his firm’s knowledge — he had a second career as a professional break dancer. He met his wife, a nurse, when he fell off a platform at a dance club and landed on his head.) But he quickly became disenchanted with corporate law. He moved to the E.P.A., where he fought polluters, and then the White House, and eventually relocated his family to a farm in New Jersey where they shoveled the manure of 35 sheep and kept watch over 175 chickens, and Mr. Hawkins began running a series of environmental groups.
The mayor of Washington, Adrian M. Fenty, asked Mr. Hawkins to move to the city in 2007 to lead the Department of the Environment. He quickly became a prominent figure, admired for his ability to communicate with residents and lawmakers. When the Water and Sewer Authority needed a new leader, board members wanted someone familiar with public relations campaigns. Mr. Hawkins’s mandate was to persuade residents to pay for updating the city’s antiquated pipes.
At a meeting with board members last month, Mr. Hawkins pitched his radical solution. Clad in an agency uniform — his name on the breast and creases indicating it had been recently unfolded for the first time — Mr. Hawkins suggested raising water rates for the average resident by almost 17 percent, to about $60 a month per household. Over the coming six years, that rate would rise above $100.
With that additional money, Mr. Hawkins argued, the city could replace all of its pipes in 100 years. The previous budget would have replaced them in three centuries.
The board questioned him for hours. Others have attacked him for playing on false fears.
“This rate hike is outrageous,” said Jim Graham, a member of the city council. “Subway systems need repairs, and so do roads, but you don’t see fares or tolls skyrocketing. Providing inexpensive, reliable water is a fundamental obligation of government. If they can’t do that, they need to reform themselves, instead of just charging more.”
Similar battles have occurred around the nation. In Philadelphia, officials are set to start collecting $1.6 billion for programs to prevent rain water from overwhelming the sewer system, amid loud complaints. Communities surrounding Cleveland threatened to sue when the regional utility proposed charging homeowners for the water pollution running off their property. In central Florida, a $1.8 billion proposal to build a network of drinking water pipes has drawn organized protests.
“We’re relying on water systems built by our great-grandparents, and no one wants to pay for the decades we’ve spent ignoring them,” said Jeffrey K. Griffiths, a professor at Tufts University and a member of the E.P.A.’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council.
“There’s a lot of evidence that people are getting sick,” he added. “But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become.”
To bring those lapses into the light, Mr. Hawkins has become a cheerleader for rate increases. He has begun a media assault highlighting the city’s water woes. He has created a blog and a Facebook page that explain why pipes break. He regularly appears on newscasts and radio shows, and has filled a personal Web site with video clips of his appearances.
It’s an all-consuming job. Mr. Hawkins tries to show up at every major pipe break, no matter the hour. He often works late into the night, and for three years he has not lived with his wife and two teenage children, who remained in New Jersey.
“The kids really miss their father,” said his wife, Tamara. “When we take him to the train station after a visit, my daughter in particular will sometimes cry. He’s missing out on his kids’ childhoods.”
And even if Mr. Hawkins succeeds, the public might not realize it, or particularly care. Last month, the utility’s board approved Mr. Hawkins’s budget and started the process for raising rates. But even if the bigger budget reduces the frequency of water pipe breaks by half — a major accomplishment — many residents probably won’t notice. People tend to pay attention to water and sewer systems only when things go wrong.
“But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mr. Hawkins said recently, in between a meeting with local environmentalists and rushing home to do paperwork in his small, spartan apartment, near a place where he was once mugged at gunpoint.
“This is the fight of our lifetimes,” he added. “Water is tied into everything we should care about. Someday, people are going to talk about our sewers with a real sense of pride.”
by Charles Duhigg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/us/15water.html
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U.S. Bolsters Chemical Restrictions for Water
Posted on 05/13/2010 at 08:50PM +AddThis
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it would overhaul drinking water regulations so that officials could police dozens of contaminants simultaneously and tighten rules on the chemicals used by industries.
“There are a range of chemicals that have become more prevalent in our products, our water and our bodies in the last 50 years,” the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in a speech on Monday. Regulations have not kept pace with scientific discoveries, and so the agency is issuing “a new vision for providing clean, safe drinking water.”
Along with its other steps, Ms. Jackson said the E.P.A. was readying stricter regulations on four carcinogens often detected in drinking water, including a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning.
The announcements come amid growing complaints that systems across the nation are delivering tap water that poses health risks to residents. Government and other scientists have identified hundreds of chemicals that are linked to diseases in small concentrations and that are unregulated in drinking water, or policed at limits that still pose serious risks.
In some instances, laws are sufficient, but they have been ignored: More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. And the other major water law — the Clean Water Act — has been violated more than half a million times, though few polluters were ever punished.
To correct such lapses, the E.P.A. intends to reform agency policies that essentially require regulators to examine pollutants one at a time. Those adjustments will allow government scientists to evaluate large groups of similar contaminants at the same time and to issue new rules that apply to dozens of chemicals.
“This is a dramatic change in how we think about regulation,” said Cynthia C. Dougherty, the director of the agency’s office of ground water and drinking water. “We’ll be able to move much faster and issue stronger rules.” The agency previously announced it was developing plans to crack down on polluters and force water systems to abide by cleanliness laws.
“We lost the public over the past decade by moving slowly and focusing on solitary contaminants that most people have never heard of,” said Dr. Pankaj Parekh, director of the water quality division for Los Angeles. “This will help us talk about health impacts, rather than long, complicated chemical names.”
As part of its announcement, the agency said efforts were continuing on 14 drinking water standards, including rules regarding lead, copper, arsenic, atrazine — a popular herbicide — and possibly perchlorate, an unregulated rocket fuel additive that has generated controversy in the past.
“We’re happy to see this,” said Brian Ramaley, director of the Newport News Waterworks in Virginia, and a former president of the Association of Metropolitan Water Authorities. “There has been a reluctance to get tough in the past, and hopefully this signals that things have changed.”
Until new policies and rules are unveiled, it is difficult to say precisely how these shifts will affect Americans. Some within the E.P.A. and Congress remain skeptical.
“There is a history of this agency making big announcements, and then changing very little,” said an agency regulator who was not authorized to speak to the media. “The real test will be to see how many new chemicals have been regulated six months from now.”
Currently, only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, though more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States. No chemicals have been added to that list since 2000.
Any new policies will most likely force water systems to use more advanced technologies, which are often costlier.
“It is always difficult to find the resources we need,” said Mr. Parekh. “But these new policies will make it a little easier to justify rate increases, because they will help us give the public a more realistic picture of what is in their water.”
To that end, the agency said on Monday that it also planned to collect more state data. There is no central government database that allows officials to monitor water tests by local systems. As a result, it has often been difficult to detect national trends, or for residents to know what is flowing through their taps.
Officials said the agency would develop the new rules over the next six months by consulting with outside experts and other members of the public.
by Charles Duhigg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/23water.html
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Know your Soap (Synthetic Surfactants)
Posted on 05/14/2009 at 05:33PM +AddThis
A large U.S. soap manufacturer recently won a landmark legal case, the lawsuit was filed against multiple companies who improperly and deceptively claimed that their products were “Organic” (Jason, Avalon, Giovanni, Aveda, Juice, Nature’s Gate, Kiss my Face, etc.) Two large Organic certifying bodies were also named as defendants in the suit (EcoCert, Oasis). Their claims were substantiated by evidence that the main components of the products were;
1.Made from petro-chemical derived ingredients or conventional non-organic agriculture material.
2.Surfactants that are preserved with synthetic petrochemical preservatives.
3.Use surfactants that are made from petrochemicals such as Cocamidopropyl betaine, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. Olfein Sulfonate, etc.
It is important to shed light on synthetically derived surfactants so that we are all more aware about what we are using in our homes and on our bodies. This is a list of the most common synthetic surfactants that are used in organic and natural soaps. These surfactant and soap agents are generally derived from the fatty acids of coconut oil but this information can be very misleading, buyer beware!!
Cocamidopropyl betaine (CAPB) A synthetic surfactant (detergent) made with petrochemical amines and fatty acids and is a zwitterionic surfactant with a quaternary ammonium cation in its molecule. It is a viscous pale yellow transparent liquid and is used as a surfactant in bath products like shampoos and hand soaps. In cosmetics it is used as an emulsifying agent and thickener and it is also used to reduce irritation purely ionic surfactants would cause. CAPB also serves as an antistatic agent in hair conditioners. It is important to note that Cocamidopropyl betaine was voted 2004 Allergen of the Year by the American Contact Dermatitis Society (1).
Cocamidopropyl betaine is a derivate of cocamide and glycine betaine. Glycine betaine was discovered in sugar beets in the 19th century. Glycine betaine is a small N-trimethylated amino acid and is a by-product of the sugar industry. Cocamidopropyl betaine is a medium strength surfactant that has antiseptic properties and anti-static properties. It is compatible with other cationic, anionic, and nonionic surfactants.Cocamidopropyl betaine to a significant degree has replaced cocamide DEA. Cocamidopropyl betaine is the active ingredient in soaps that market themselves as Natural and Organic (1).
Cocamide DEA, or cocamide diethanolamine, is a diethanolamide made by reacting fatty acids in coconut oils with diethanolamine. Diethanolamine, often abbreviated as DEA, is an organic chemical compound which is both a secondary amine and a dialcohol. A dialcohol has two hydroxyl groups in its molecule. Like other amines, diethanolamine acts as a weak base. DEA and its chemical variants are common ingredients in cosmetics and shampoos, where they are used as to create a creamy texture and foaming action. Variants of DEA include lauramide diethanolamine, coco diethanolamide, cocoamide diethanolamine or coconut oil amide of diethanolamine, lauramide DEA, lauric diethanolamide, lauroyl diethanolamide, and lauryl diethanolamide. Cocamide DEA is a viscous liquid and is used as a foaming agent in bath products like shampoos and hand soaps, and in cosmetics as an emulsifying agent(2).
Cocamide MEA, or cocamide monoethanolamine, is a pale yellow viscous clear to amber liquid, or solid flakes. It can be made from fatty acids in coconut oils, reacted with ethanolamine. Ethanolamine, also called 2-aminoethanol or monoethanolamine (often abbreviated as ETA or MEA), is an organic chemical compound that is both a primary amine (due to an amino group in its molecule) and a primary alcohol (due to a hydroxyl group). Like other amines, monoethanolamine acts as a weak base. Ethanolamine is a toxic, flammable, corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid with an odor similar to that of ammonia. Ethanolamine is commonly called monoethanolamine or MEA in order to be distinguished from diethanolamine (DEA) and triethanolamine (TEA). Cocamide ethanolamines are used as foaming agents and cationic surfactants in shampoos and bath products, and as emulsifying agents in cosmetics(3).
Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) or sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS or NaDS), (C12H25SO4Na) is an anionic surfactant used in many cleaning and hygiene products. The molecule has a tail of 12 carbon atoms, attached to a sulfate group, giving the molecule the amphiphilic properties required of a detergent. Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is synthesized by reacting lauryl alcohol with sulphuric acid to produce hydrogen lauryl sulfate which is then neutralized through the addition of sodium carbonate. Lauryl alcohol is usually derived from either coconut or palm kernel oil by esterification of their fatty acids followed by reduction of the acid group to an alcohol.
SLS is a highly effective surfactant used in any task requiring the removal of oily stains and residues. As such the compound is found in high concentrations in industrial products including engine degreasers, floor cleaners, and car wash soaps. In household products, SLS is used in lower concentrations with toothpastes, shampoos, shaving foams, some dissolvable aspirins, fiber therapy caplets. It is an important component in bubble bath formulations for its thickening effect and its ability to create a lather.
SLS has not been proven to be carcinogenic when either applied directly to skin or consumed. SLS however is a strong surfactant and a number of health concerns have been raised in published reports.
•SLS may worsen skin problems in individuals with chronic skin hypersensitivity, with some people being affected more than others.
•SLS in toothpaste may cause aphthous ulcers, commonly referred to in some countries as canker sores.
•SLS has also been show to irritate the skin of the face with prolonged and constant exposure (more than an hour) in young adults. In animal studies SLS appears to cause skin and eye irritation. (4).
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cocamidopropyl_betaine&oldid=281794923.
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cocamide_DEA&oldid=273616804
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cocamide_MEA&oldid=275153324
4.http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sodium_lauryl_sulfate&oldid=284320963
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Safety and Anti-Bacterial Soap
Posted on 04/16/2009 at 05:38PM +AddThis
The safety of anti-bacterial soap has been debated due to recent research suggesting that these soaps may do more harm than good. There is a lot at stake for the surfactant industry as the anti-bacterial soap market is a one-billion dollar industry and 76% of all liquid soap is anti-bacterial(1).
The environmental engineering department at UC Davis is currently conducting an in depth study of anti-bacterial soap. They say it is too early to know if anti-bacterial soap poses a serious risk to our health but they have concluded that anti-bacterial soap may not work any better than regular soap. In 2005 the FDA concluded that anti-bacterial soaps were no more effective in preventing illness than regular soaps, and they acknowledged that these soaps may contribute to the rise of resistant bacteria. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), anti-bacterial soaps are not necessary to prevent the spread of disease. They suggest that thorough scrubbing with ordinary soap and warm water is one of the best ways to ward off infection (2). Researchers from UC Davis plan to meet with the CDC, EPA, and large manufacturers in the soap industry this October to review their findings (1).
The active anti-bacterial agents in these soaps are Triclosan and Triclocarban. Both of these active ingredients can be found in soaps, deodorants, mouthwash, toothpaste, kitchen plasticware, fabrics and cosmetics (1). Tricolosan and Triclocarban were developed in the 1950s and 1960s and were use in hospitals as antiseptic agents. Industry growth and demand for anti-bacterial products promoted the application and introduction of these agents into the surfactant industry during the 1990s (1).
What did the UC Davis researchers find in their studies?
It is important to note that the research from UC Davis does not contradict industry studies sugesting Triclosan Triclocarban are safe for most people. The researchers did conclude that there are sensitive periods in development when these chemicals could have subtle detrimental effects (during pregnancy, early childhood, adolescence)(1). The UC Davis team concluded that there are potential risks associated with the use of anti-bacterial soaps. They also concluded that the benefits attributed to anti-bacterial soap are negligible and that the risks associated with their use far outweigh any benefits afforded to these products(1).
In the March 2008 issue of Endocrinology, the researchers published results of studies in animals showing that triclocarban appears to amplify the effects of hormones, telling cells to keep doing something after they normally would have stopped. Researchers tested triclocarban on human cells grown in the lab. When exposed to estrogen and triclocarban together, the cells produced more of an enzyme than with estrogen alone.In a separate test published in the Endocrinology study, the prostate glands of rats exposed to triclocarban and testosterone grew bigger than those given testosterone alone.Such studies cannot be repeated in humans for ethical reasons, so researchers must infer that triclocarban could have the same effect in humans (1).
Lathering up for a single bath with soap containing triclocarban gives a person the same dose and exposure to triclocarban that rats received in the study. “We do know that people, after a shower, or after an acute exposure, can have levels that could have an effect on their hormones,” says Bill Lasley, PhD, a researcher in the department of population health and reproduction at U.C. Davis. “I have no doubt that it has a subtle effect, but I of course question whether it has a serious effect”(1).
Anti-Bacterial Soap And The Environment
The U.C. Davis researchers are the first to use cutting-edge molecular technology to study potential effects of triclosan and triclocarban on the human nervous system and hormones. Studies show that these chemicals are building up in the environment at an alarming rate. Americans dump more than 1 million pounds of triclosan and triclocarban into the environment every year.
Rolf Halden, PhD, a scientist at Arizona State University, found that sewage treatment captures only about 50% of the triclosan and less than 25% of the triclocarban that goes down people’s drains.Halden published a study this month in Environmental Science and Technology showing that the chemicals don’t quickly break down in the environment. He found these chemicals in sediment dating back 40-50 years (1).
A recent CDC study detected triclosan in the urine of 75% of Americans aged 6 and older.“The disappointing news is that we continue to use these chemicals against better knowledge,” Halden says. “They do not have an observable benefit. But we do know they persist in the environment, and now these more recent studies show that they are not as benign as we might have thought”(1).
1. (Downs, webmd.com), Safety of Anti-bacterial soap debated.
2.. (howstuffworks.com), Is anti-bacterial soap any better than regular soap.
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Castile Soap
Posted on 03/28/2009 at 02:08PM +AddThis
Castile is a name used in English-speaking countries for soap made exclusively from vegetable oil (as opposed to animal fat), although many traditional soap makers believe Castile soap must be made exclusively or predominantly from Olive oil. Examples of other oils that are commonly used in Castile soaps include Coconut, Hemp, and Jojoba. Castile soap is also sometimes called Seafarer’s soap because of its broad range of uses.
Castile soap originated in the Spanish kingdom of Castile, where it was made exclusively with Olive oil. Importations of “Castile soap” through Antwerp appear in the London port books of 1567–68 (Dietz 1972), although no references to “Castile soap” appear earlier than 1616. In Castile, barilla (an impure form of sodium carbonate obtained from plant ashes) was boiled with locally available olive oil, instead of tallow to produce soap. By adding brine (saltwater) to the boiled liquor, the soap was made to float to the surface, where it could be skimmed off by the soap-boiler, leaving the excess lye and impurities to settle out. This process produced what was probably the first white hard soap known as Jabón de Castilla, which eventually became the generic name (Castile Soap). To an apothecary it was known as sapo hispaniensis or sapo castilliensis.
The French were quick to adopt the superior Castile soap making tradition in the 17th century. The Castilian method and small regional adaptations lead to what is known as Marseille Soap in France. In the 17th century, southern France had an abundance of olive oil, soda ash, and salt and therefore became the premier center for soap production in the world. In 1688, Louis XIV laid further groundwork for the French soap industry by enacting laws which prohibited the use of tallow (animal fat) in French soap. Those who did not use Olive oil in their soap risked banishment from Provence. The groundwork was laid for French Marseille soap to thrive and it did the world over until the 1940s.
The 1940s brought an end to the booming soap industry in southern France. The creation of the washing machine and the invention of synthetic detergents were the leading cause of the decline in Marseille soap (Castile soap). Several other factors contributed to the decline in use of Marseille soap such as the creation of supermarkets and more competition from other soap manufacturers in the world market.
The industrialization of body care products and the substitution of petro-chemicals for natural ingredients have led to further degradation of the Natural and Organic soap market. This has pushed soap products like Marseille soap (Castile soap) into boutique markets. In the 1940s, large companies and corporations began looking for cheap and inexpensive ways to produce surfactants that could be distributed in a cost effective manner. Commercialization of the soap industry lead to high volume production and a keen interest in the reduction of unit costs, thus leaving traditional soap making methods in the dust. Soaps made with petro-chemicals could be produced for a fraction of the cost of traditional Castile soaps thus solidifying a new direction for the next forty-years of commercial soap making.
Fortunately, the recent Organic and Natural products movement has created renewed interest in Castile soap. Supporting soap makers who use Organic and Natural ingredients and traditional soap-making methods is helping to revitalize our industry. It is important that we continue to push the industry in this direction in order to move away from petroleum based surfactants. These goals can be reached with your continued support of companies who produce Organic soap in sustainable ways.
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castile_soap
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