Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

UN: Forget Foreign Aid, Nepal Needs a Good Plumber

January 3, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Via IRIN: The United Nations reports that hundred of millions of dollars invested to provide clean water and sewage in Nepal haven't budged disease rates for water-related illness in children one bit. What went wrong? Citing statistics from Nepal's water authority, the world body claims that the number of kids with serious water-related illness remains exactly the same as it was ten years ago: 14 percent. That sounds low, but intestinal problems and dehydration are among the most serious threats to children under five in Nepal, as is true in most countries with sketchy water ... Read More

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Gaza’s Other War

November 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Of all the things the governments of Israel and Gaza have against each other, the fate of a water treatment plant would seem like the least of the problem. A little-noted UN report released in August argued the opposite: that the rockets flying between the two sides may be less destructive than long-standing wrangles over water. Gaza in 2020 is sober reading even as government resource reports go. Being a desert, sources of water are few, straining an aquifer that feeds the tiny strip as well as parts of Israel and Egypt. According to the U.N. Environment Program, only ten percent of the ... Read More

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Two Border Collies Conduct an EPA Cleanup

September 5, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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Via Science Now, the EPA has found that letting two dogs run around a beach improved the quality of the accompanying water. The environmental agency looked at a Lake Michigan beachfront in Racine, Wisconsin, where bacteria from shoreboards -- specifically, their droppings -- raised the water's toxicity to dangerous levels. First they tried "oiling" the bird's eggs, which is exactly what you think it is -- they find the seagull nests and coat the eggs with oil, which keeps them from hatching. (An aside: if you're that close to the nest, why not just drop the eggs on the sidewalk? Too ... Read More

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California Farms Get Testy Over Water Quality

March 15, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

The world’s most pervasive groundwater pollution problem – nitrate in drinking water – is under scrutiny in the richest farming region of the United States. This week, a report for the California Legislature revealed that 250,000 people living in Central California, including four of the top five agricultural counties in the U.S., are currently at risk for nitrate contamination in their drinking water. Many of them are among the poorest Californians. Nitrate, in this instance, is a byproduct of nitrogen fertilizer. In drinking water, high concentrations of it can interfere with the ... Read More

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The World Water Crisis: High Cost, Low Priority

May 22, 2009 • By • 12 Comments

Despite promises made by world leaders nearly a decade ago, a new United Nations report has concluded it is still "business as usual" for 5 billion people — about two-thirds of the world population — who do not have access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation or enough food to eat. That's the grim assessment of "Water in a Changing World", the U.N.'s third triennial water development report since 2000. It was presented this spring at the World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, as several hundred protesters demonstrated against large dam construction and the privatization of water ... Read More

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