| Earlier this year, the Trump administration secured one of its signature environmental legacies when it completed a rule that reduced federal protections for wetlands as well as for streams that flow only following rainfall.
Environmental policy experts concluded that the administration’s narrow definition of the scope of the Clean Water Act was its most damaging decision for waterways. The rollback of the Obama-era ruling was a campaign promise of President Trump and a rallying cry for industrial lobby groups that supported him.
Now, the Army Corps of Engineers, with much less fanfare and in the final months of the Trump administration, is considering another rule change that would also shrink federal protection of small streams, ecologists and lawyers say. |
|
 | | A water meter cover in Los Angeles. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue |
|
| California regulators sent a survey on Monday to 150 of the state’s largest water providers in an attempt to shed light on the financial fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The State Water Resources Control Board wants to know how economic slowdowns related to the virus have affected utility finances and, at a household level, how many residents have overdue water bills. |
|
Following years of conflict between Ukraine and Russian separatist forces, frontline communities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia still lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation.
Much of the region’s water supply comes from the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal, which provides water to 300 communities. Since the conflict began in 2014, the six-decade-old canal has been surrounded by combat, taking a battering from shelling and equipment loss. |
|
What's Up With Water - November 9, 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 features coverage on Oregon, where the Statesman Journal reports that it could be months before the town of Detroit can provide clean drinking water once more.
Additional U.S. coverage looks at New Hampshire, where state officials say that over a thousand residential wells have gone dry or are slowing because of severe drought that began this summer.
And in Wisconsin, state health officials are recommending groundwater quality standards for 22 new contaminants, including pesticides and PFAS compounds.
This week Circle of Blue reports on the outcome of water-related ballot initiatives in the November election. |
|
| From Circle of Blue's Archives: |
|
 | | Rebecca Fritz opens her past-due bill from the City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue |
|
| More than 1.5 million households in a dozen major U.S. cities with publicly operated water utilities owe $1.1 billion in past-due water bills, according to a Circle of Blue investigation. Businesses, industries, and other commercial operations in those cities owed another $416 million.
Most Americans give little thought to water bills, paying them on time and in full. But for a subset of homeowners and renters, water debt is constant and menacing. |
|
|
|
