USA Water Filter Blog

While economic issues have far overshadowed environmental ones in the 2010 election cycle in the United States, the stakes on Tuesday for clean water, clean air, and protecting natural open spaces are high.

Environmental Implications of Election 2010

The Environment in Your Own Backyard
Local races will have immediate impacts on environmental quality of life issues as city and town councils decide priorities for open space use, recycling programs, public transit and more. With everything frombottled water bans and plastic bag taxes and bike lanes and Cool Cities initiatives, local government leaders can enhance or hinder environmental issue that affect citizen’s daily lives.

Find out which Candidates are Most Green in Your State
The League of Conservation Voters, Environment America, and the Sierra Club all have state affiliates or chapters which have endorsed candidates and ballot measures in the 2010 election. LCV and the Sierra Club have posted summaries of endorsements for federal offices, but for state and local races, you’ll have to check your state program’s web site. Because the groups priorities vary, do check all three for endorsements, especially on ballot initiatives.

http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/environmental-voters-needed-for-election-2010-support-green-candidates-climate-policy-funding-for-nature/

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Colorado alone faces more than $1.4 billion in wastewater-treatment needs. And unfortunately, the state expects to have only $52 million to $68 million available for 2011 in its Water Pollution Control Revolving Loan Fund, which is designed to help with the construction of wastewater-treatment facilities. Growing the fund is something Colorado will be hard-pressed to do as it struggles with the effects of TABOR, a sagging economy, and enormous unmet needs for education, transportation and a variety of other state services.

There appear to be only two realistic options. One is to lower drinking-water standards. Unfortunately, that could increase the risk of a widespread public health crisis, as happened in 1998 in Alamosa, when water was contaminated with two parasites, cryptosporidium and giardia, and 389 people became ill.

Another option, unpopular as it would be, is to increase wastewater fees or other taxes to be able to afford upgrades to water-treatment plants.

Americans pay bargain prices for clean water, less than they pay for cable TV, telephone service or electricity. The cost of clean water nationally averages about a penny per gallon, the lowest rate in the developed world. (Bottled water costs $21 per gallon, while beer is $12 a gallon.) Still, while paying more for clean water may be inevitable, it is not a popular option.

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_16461626

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It is in the exploratory stages and has established test wells along one of the 13 known springs in the upper stretch of the Wacissa River. The international food giant, headquartered in Switzerland, wants to remove approximately 450,000 gallons of water per day. This water pulled from the aquifer would travel by way of tanker trucks traveling from Jefferson County’s small rural community of Wacissa to the current Deer Park bottling plant in nearby Madison County. Nestle has estimated 50 to 60 tanker trucks per day would travel this route.

The majority of Wacissa residents oppose this. Residents want to preserve their quiet community and rural lifestyle. Wacissa neighbors are collectively standing tall to protect their river. Likewise, the regional community of outdoor enthusiasts, kayak paddlers, air boaters, hunters and hikers alike are aghast at such an idea — an international corporation sucking water from the aquifer to sell for millions in profit.

There are countless reasons to oppose Nestle’s bid for Wacissa’s water. Saying “no” to plastic bottled water is chief among them.

The nature-based tourism industry has long been a partner in the movement to reduce plastic water bottle consumption, citing the numerous growing environmental challenges caused by the production and disposal processes.

We cannot simultaneously trash the planet and sell people hiking, biking, bird-watching and kayaking trips. We cannot admire a river’s magnificent wildlife, majestic trees, and vast wilderness while concurrently packing landfills around us with endless dumpster loads of plastic, Styrofoam and wasteful disposable products. This is bad business sense.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20101031/OPINION05/10310309/Georgia-Ackerman–Bottled-water-is-bad-for-Wacissa-and-the-Earth

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Dr. Peter Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and an international water expert, gave a speech titled “Water as a Human Right” on Oct. 25 as part of a series on sustainability to continue throughout the next three weeks.

The du Bois Center was filled with students, professors, Flagstaff citizens and students from Prescott College who were curious about the topic.

Jodi Norris, a Flagstaff resident, said she heard about the speech in the Arizona Daily Sun.

“I’m hoping [the speech] is about the water crisis and the lack of water in the world, and how we might solve this crisis,” Norris said.

Gleick said he was proud to announce that just three months ago, the United Nations officially passed a resolution that makes access to sanitary drinking water a human right. Gleick said the world needs to change its thinking about water usage from the old, 20th-century ways.

“It’s a time of new challenges and new thinking, new technologies and ideas,” Gleick said.

In the 20th century, according to Gleick, the goal was to just meet the water demand. However, with an increase in that demand due to population swelling and a decrease in supply, that goal is now insufficient.

“The failure to meet basic human needs for water is the biggest failure of the 20th century,” Gleick said. “Populations are growing very rapidly, and despite our best efforts, we have failed to meet water needs for everyone.”

According to Gleick, 40 percent of the world’s population does not have access to sanitary drinking water. He also said 80 percent of our water goes to agriculture. However, the amount of irrigated land per person is also declining due to the rise in population. Gleick said as climate change continues to warm the planet, the demand for water will only get bigger as people need more water to stay hydrated and keep crops alive in the heat.

http://jackcentral.com/news/2010/10/water-expert-talks-about-effect-of-rising-population-on-water/

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A new environmentally friendly water vending machine has been installed in the Pappajohn Business Building ( PBB ) at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Ia. The machine, called the Thirst Station, dispenses filtered, chilled water directly into a customer’s own water bottle or cup.

The idea for the Thirst Station came from Solon resident Gretchen Swan, who attended the FastTrac entrepreneurial training program at the UI. Swan was concerned about the proliferation of single-use plastic water bottles and worked to find a vending machine that would fill water bottles and cups. The machine will be tested on a pilot basis in PBB to see if people find value in the service.

“My aim is to educate and motivate people who are choosing bottled water on a regular basis as to why changing how they drink water can make a difference. It’s my hope that more people will use reusable bottles,” Swan said in a prepared statement. “With the Thirst Station, your thirst is quenched and there’s no trash hangover.”

http://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/web/online/VendingMarketWatch-News/University-Of-Iowa-Student-Develops-Environmentally-Friendly-Water-Vending-Machine/1$28459

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You remember water fountains, right? If your grade school experience was anything like mine (Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Class of ’93!), you’ll recall getting your water not from a plastic Evian bottle, but straight from the ceramic fountain—usually kid-sized. The same went for parks, museums and public buildings—water fountains were common, and they were well used. The idea of buying a bottle of water because I was thirsty would have seemed very strange to eight year-old me (and his mind would have been totally blown by my PlayStation 3).

Obviously that’s changed in the years since. Today bottled water is a multi-billion dollar industry, and in 2008 Americans drank nearly 29 gallons of bottled water a year per person, more than twice the amount from a decade before. (See stats here.) Certainly that shift is a triumph for advertising that Don Draper would be proud to call his own, getting Americans to pay for a product that they can get for free. While the bottled water industry often trumpets the superior quality and purity of its product, independent tests have found little evidence to support those claims—and note that some of the most widely sold brands of bottled water, like Dasani and Aquafina, are little more than filtered tap water with fancy names.

But the reality is that there has been a shift away from sodas and other carbonated beverages towards water. And on health grounds, that makes sense—while there’s a wide disparity of opinion on the exact role that sugary beverages like soda can play in promoting obesity (a lot or a little), making clean water more available makes public health sense. Greens rightly worry about the environmental impact of bottled water, but let’s face it—it’s tough to depend on your BPA-free, stainless steel Klean Kanteen if there’s nowhere to fill it up. In New York, where I live, all commercial buildings are required to have water fountains—but good luck fitting your bottle into the nozzle.

http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/10/29/water-new-york-city-wants-to-make-water-fountains-the-norm/

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Oct. 28, 2010 — Three years after its launch at K-Fair in 2007, Borealis, a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions and its joint-venture in the Middle East and Asia, Borouge, draw a first successful balance of their corporate social responsibility programme Water for the World™. Since its launch, Water for the World has directly reached around 260,000 people all over the world and has built a platform for partnerships with stakeholders from the plastics industry, renowned organisations and agencies.

As the first global programme in the plastics industry to address the water challenge, Water for the World achieved significant project milestones in four areas:

Supporting water access projects
More than one-third of the world population is currently lacking access to safe drinking water or sanitation. Providing water access has therefore been one of the key focus areas of the programme. Borealis and Borouge developed a number of projects in close partnership with the local plastic pipe industry and local and international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).

Borouge partnered with the local Sushma Koirala Memorial Trust to provide the continuous supply of piped fresh water to a school and 2000 residents in a district of the historic town of Bakhtapur in Nepal.

In Sichuan, China, which was struck by an earthquake in May 2008, Borouge joined NGO Lien Aid and the Singapore Water Association to alleviate the water problem for the 10,000 inhabitants of Shengli, a village and resettlement camp near Beichuan County. Borouge supplied the polyethylene material to its customer, Szechuan Chinaust, who produced the pipes and delivered them to the village, 300km away, and supported them with the installation.

http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display/4656326158/articles/waterworld/world-regions/2010/10/Water-for-the-World-turns-three.html

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Sam Schleich wants to show students drinking water doesn’t need to come in little plastic bottles.

The Illinois senior is president of Take Back the Tap, a new registered student organization started on campus after an internship she had with Food and Water Watch in Chicago. Schleich wanted to stay involved in the company’s efforts to providing safe and affordable water for everyone.

With two Nestle nearby, both of which distribute bottled water, Central Michigan University was the perfect place to begin, she said.

“It is important to bring the fight to where it’s happening, and college campuses are where change begins,” Schleich said.

The ultimate goal of the RSO, which is part of a nationwide movement, is to eliminate the sale of bottled water at CMU. Schleich said they are not only harmful to the environment and people’s health, but they also take away sources of water from those who need it.

“If anything, we want to educate CMU students of the benefits of tap water and the risks behind bottled water,” Scleich said. “There is no good reason to have bottled water on campus.”

Krista Testolin, an Iron Mountain freshman, is a member of Take Back and feels passionately about helping the environment. She said water bottle production lacks regulation, which leads to issues in health and various ecosystems.

http://www.cm-life.com/2010/10/29/registered-student-organization-aims-to-end-bottled-water-sales/

NSA Water Filters

Almost every living thing on this planet needs water, including the more than six and a half billion humans. The only problem is that we use and waste water at such a high rate that our surface and groundwater sources can’t replenish themselves. Out of all the water on Earth only 2.5 percent is fresh potable water. And less than 1 percent of the world’s fresh water is accessible, leaving a mere 0.5 percent as fresh water we can use. This leaves us with a resource that is perceived as unlimited but is quickly decreasing by greed and misuse.

There are one billion people on the planet that don’t have access to safe clean drinking water. Thousands of people in developing and underdeveloped countries die each week because of dirty-water-related illness. What would you do if there weren’t drinkable water coming out of your sink or stocked in your grocery store? You have access to as much clean water as you could ever possibly want just gushing out of your sinks tap. This is a luxury and people treat it as commodity they deserve.

When people think and act as if water is an unlimited resource they end up wasting more than they should. Eventually we are going to run our aquifers and surface waters dry, and there will be nothing anyone can do to find new sources of potable water. If people think gasoline is expensive, they’re in a world of surprise when a gallon of water starts to cost more than $20. This isn’t an “Oh, this will only happen thousands of years from now, I don’t need to worry about it” issue. This will affect your grandchildren and their children. The depletion of water is happening right now, and it is not stopping.

http://www.dailytargum.com/opinions/take-small-steps-to-conserve-water-1.2386480

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Dr. Peter Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute and an international water expert, gave a speech titled “Water as a Human Right” on Oct. 25 as part of a series on sustainability to continue throughout the next three weeks.

The du Bois Center was filled with students, professors, Flagstaff citizens and students from Prescott College who were curious about the topic.

Jodi Norris, a Flagstaff resident, said she heard about the speech in the Arizona Daily Sun.

“I’m hoping [the speech] is about the water crisis and the lack of water in the world, and how we might solve this crisis,” Norris said.

Gleick said he was proud to announce that just three months ago, the United Nations officially passed a resolution that makes access to sanitary drinking water a human right. Gleick said the world needs to change its thinking about water usage from the old, 20th-century ways.

“It’s a time of new challenges and new thinking, new technologies and ideas,” Gleick said.

In the 20th century, according to Gleick, the goal was to just meet the water demand. However, with an increase in that demand due to population swelling and a decrease in supply, that goal is now insufficient.

“The failure to meet basic human needs for water is the biggest failure of the 20th century,” Gleick said. “Populations are growing very rapidly, and despite our best efforts, we have failed to meet water needs for everyone.”

According to Gleick, 40 percent of the world’s population does not have access to sanitary drinking water. He also said 80 percent of our water goes to agriculture. However, the amount of irrigated land per person is also declining due to the rise in population. Gleick said as climate change continues to warm the planet, the demand for water will only get bigger as people need more water to stay hydrated and keep crops alive in the heat.

“Forty percent of the world’s food production comes from water that comes from unsustainable water sources,” Gleick said.

http://jackcentral.com/news/2010/10/water-expert-talks-about-effect-of-rising-population-on-water/

NSA Water Filters