 | Mineral deposits on the canyon walls show where Lake Mead water levels used to touch. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
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| Far from being in the rearview, the upheaval of the last year will set the stage for the next 12 months and beyond. The pandemic’s economic dislocation continues to reverberate among those who lost work. Severe weather boosted by a warming climate is leaving its mark in the watersheds of the Southwest. And President-elect Biden will take office looking to undo much of his predecessor’s legacy of environmental deregulation while also writing his own narrative on issues of climate, infrastructure, and social justice. |
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 | Desraj Khai works paddies of rice and wheat that grow beneath stands of aspen in India’s northwestern state of Punjab. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue
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| Farming is where the water is in India, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the country’s water withdrawals. Farming is also where the labor is, employing more than two in five workers. Even with this arsenal, India’s farmers are some of the world’s least efficient users of water, and conflicts over water supplies are a frequent occurrence in a country beset by stifling heat, rampant groundwater depletion, diminishing reservoirs, and 1.4 billion people. |
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 | Community organizers in Flint, Michigan utilize a closed elementary school to distribute bottled water after the Flint water crisis. Photo: 2016 Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue
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The Flint crisis spurred a national conversation on the dangers of exposing children to lead. “It really alters the entire life-course trajectory of a child,” Mona Hanna-Attisha, a Flint pediatrician, told Circle of Blue.
Flint’s water is now being mended and its lead pipes are nearly all replaced. But the toxic metal still lingers elsewhere. A 2019 report from Environment America, a national network of environmental groups, showed elevated lead levels in the water systems of schools across the country.
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Two Minnesota Ojibwe communities and two environmental organizations filed a lawsuit against the Line 3 oil pipeline in order to halt construction in that state, alleging that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the project’s water quality permit without appropriate consideration of several environmental issues. |
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What's Up With Water - January 4, 2020
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud. This week’s episode of What’s Up With Water looks at positive water stories: - In Michigan, a settlement to compensate victims of the Flint water crisis is a step closer to completion.
- It was a year of progress toward cleaner water elsewhere, as well. The city of Newark is also close to replacing all of its lead service lines.
- In the Navajo Nation, tribal leaders in the desert southwest are celebrating federal approval of a water rights settlement that will fund drinking water infrastructure on reservation lands in Utah
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| From Circle of Blue's Archives: |
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 | | To irrigate their crops, in this case, rice, farmers near Muzaffarnagar pump putrid water from a nearby canal contaminated with raw sewage, industrial chemicals, and heavy metals. The contaminants are finding their way into India’s food supply. Photo © Jennifer Möller-Gulland |
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| Across India, and particularly in the nation’s big metropolitan regions, countless numbers of farmers raise their crops with untreated wastewater.
Medical specialists say farmers and their families risk serious disease from exposure to harmful sewage-borne microorganisms and metals. Scientists have measured unsafe levels of heavy metals and other toxic substances in Indian crops – posing a public health threat if consumed. |
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