WaterNews: June 26, 2020

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2020.06.26

The sewer system in Fair Bluff, a town in eastern North Carolina, has been plagued by financial problems that stem from a loss of population and high infiltration of groundwater that caused treatment bills to spike. Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

North Carolina, In Early Stages of Financial Review, Sees Potentially Large Number of Distressed Water Systems

North Carolina officials are working to develop a rating system that would identify public water and sewer providers at risk of financial failure. The ratings would allow state funding and technical assistance to target the most distressed communities.
The coronavirus pandemic has sent financial shock waves through many water utilities as businesses closed and manufacturers shut down. Nationally rural water systems expect to lose about $1 billion in revenue from declining water sales, according to an industry survey.
Even before the pandemic, small water systems were struggling. North Carolina took the historic step last summer of revoking the charter of Eureka, a tiny community whose chronically indebted sewer system had bankrupted the town.

Bangladesh Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp. Photo © Jennifer Gulland.

Coronavirus, After Delay, Arrives in Bangladesh’s Refugee Camps

Around one million Rohingya, an ethnic minority group that faced persecution in Myanmar, fled the country in the last three years, ending up across the border in Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh, where they live in refugee camps and in surrounding communities.
The new coronavirus was slow to arrive in the camps, but as Covid-19 cases gradually tick upward in the makeshift settlements, which are some of the world’s

Coronavirus – A Global Pandemic

The volume of Covid-19 news can be overwhelming. We've started a live blog, updated throughout the day, to help you sort through it. It's a library for how water, sanitation, and hygiene connect to the pandemic, both in the US and globally.
Featured Covid-19 + water coverage from this week include: Illinois Regulators Reach Utility Payments Agreement U.S. Rural Water Utilities Ask Congress for Financial Help

Hotspots H2O:
Aid Groups Airlift Water and Sanitation Supplies to Venezuela

The United Nations Children’s Fund last week shipped 90 tons of medicine, water, and sanitation supplies to Venezuela, the third such shipment to the country since the coronavirus crisis began.
The aid provided by UNICEF and other agencies is welcomed, but quite small compared to Venezuela’s wider, and worsening, humanitarian crisis.
Deteriorating conditions have led to chronic shortages of food, medicine, and running water, and the downward spiral is continuing amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

What's Up With Water - June 22, 2020
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on iTunes, Spotify, i Heart Radio, and SoundCloud.
This week's episode features coverage on Southeast Asia, where the organization that represents four countries in the lower Mekong River basin called on China for greater transparency about its dam operations in the upper reaches of the watershed.
Additional international coverage looks at Venezuela, where the expansion of an informal settlement on the outskirts of the capital Caracas is another sign of the country’s economic collapse.
For news in the United States, as society reopens following coronavirus lockdowns, insurers of commercial buildings are taking steps to prevent the spread of Legionnaires’ disease.
Finally, this week's featured Circle of Blue story reports on a remarkable drop in Colorado River water consumption. It’s an encouraging sign for the beleaguered river. You can listen to the latest edition of What's Up With Water, as well as all past editions, by downloading the podcasts on iTunes, following Circle of Blue on Spotify, following on i Heart Radio, and subscribing on SoundCloud.

From Circle of Blue's Archives:

North Carolina authorities took control of Eureka’s finances three months ago because the sewer system was bankrupting the town. Photo © Earl C. Leatherberry

Leaky Sewers Plunge Small North Carolina Towns into Financial Crisis

Rising sewer bills, a result of inadequate infrastructure and heavy rainfall, are driving small, rural communities in North Carolina toward bankruptcy.
Dozens of small towns are running chronic budget deficits in their sewer system operations. These towns are challenged by aging and declining populations, low incomes, and sewer rates that are already some of the highest in the state. State officials say that economic hardship, deficient infrastructure, and an inability to manage and maintain delicate engineering systems have contributed to the stirrings of a rural financial crisis rooted in public sewer system failures.