New Berlin Pact With Milwaukee Should Help Solve Radium Problem
Aug. 27--NEW BERLIN -- The cities of New Berlin and Milwaukee are now in agreement over extending Lake Michigan water to another chunk of New Berlin, as the New Berlin Common Council voted unanimously late Tuesday to approve the deal. Aldermen expressed unhappiness about paying $1.5 million to Milwaukee and at the prospect of raising local utility rates to cover infrastructure costs. But they agreed that it is the most cost-effective solution to the radium problem in the city's well water.
Source:
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
More Water to Go Around
Aug. 27--Underneath our feet, Culpeper County has an abundant and valuable resource -- water. According to Jamie Emery, a geologist with New Hampshire-based Emery & Garrett Groundwater Inc., Culpeper County also has reliable groundwater resources that are not being taxed beyond their means. Emery made his remarks to about 40 people at the Daniel Technology Center on Monday at the county's request.
Source:
Culpeper Star-Exponent
Crown Point, Ind., Mayor Proposes Stormwater Fee
Aug. 26--CROWN POINT -- To be proactive about flooding, Mayor David Uran will ask the City Council in September to consider a monthly stormwater fee of $6 per household and the creation of a stormwater utility. Uran made the announcement Monday night at a Stormwater Advisory Board meeting, where the board unanimously passed a resolution in favor of the proposed fee. Businesses will pay a fee toward the stormwater utility that is determined by a formula, Uran said.
Source:
The Times
Mumbai Looks at Recycling to Fix Water Woes
Mumbai: The state government will soon come out with a policy on recycling waste water in a bid to tackle the growing shortage of water in cities and towns across Maharashtra . The state wants all civic bodies, including Mumbai, to reuse at least ten percent of it's waste water for nonpotable purposes. The state has formed an expert committee headed by A K Jain, principal secretary (water resources), to explore ways of recycling water going down the drains, literally.
Source:
The Times of India
Georgia: Emergency Workers Mindful of Heavy Rain
Aug. 26--DALTON, Ga. -- As the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay brought rain into the Northwest Georgia mountains Monday, the National Weather Service was predicting up to 6 inches for the area through today. Mike Griesinger, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Peachtree City, Ga., said the downpours should ease North Georgia's "exceptional" drought, but local emergency officials also were anticipating any negative effects of the storm.
Source:
Chattanooga Times/Free Press
New Storm Could Be Too Much, Too Soon for Soggy South Florida
Aug. 26--Newly formed Tropical Storm Gustav, following so closely after Tropical Storm Fay's drenching, threatens to push South Florida's brimming drainage system past its limits. Water managers on Monday continued to drain water left from Fay into the ocean to get South Florida's 1,800 miles of drainage canals ready for Gustav and any other storm that follows. "The system is saturated," said Randy Smith, spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.
Source:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Federal Funding Ensures Water Quality
Aug. 25--Southern Iowa Rural Water Association will get more than $3.6 million in loans for expansions and upgrades to the Creston Water Treatment Plant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S.D.A. has released $81 million in grants and $274.8 million in loans under a provision of the recently-enacted farm bill that U. S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, fought to include a boost to rural water and waste water assistance across the country. In a press release, Harkin said Iowa will received $22 million in loans and grants for rural water projects.
Source:
Creston News Advertiser
Amherst Probes Its Water Supply
Aug. 25--The day a James River intake valve on an emergency pipeline opened in fall 2002, Amherst County's reservoir had about a 30-day supply of usable water. It also taught Amherst County Service Authority utilities director Dan French an unexpected lesson -- his locality could not depend on existing state data used to project how much water would be available during severe droughts. "One of the things we found was the analysis that (the Department of Environmental Quality) had done, used the 1950s as the worst drought of record and that gave us some very different results", French said.
Source:
The News & Advance
Sewage, Sunlight Aid Slum's Health
People in Nairobi's Kibera slum are surviving soaring food and fuel prices and poor sanitation by harnessing the power of two things they have in plenty: sewage and sunshine. Some have helped construct a network of public latrines that recycle human waste into gas for cooking and light. "Before the biogas came, the kids were just having cold washes in the winter, and now they have hot water at school they don't have so many colds," said Bernard Asanya, the school director.
Source:
Virginian - Pilot
Despite Fla. floods, some hoping for Fay's rain
MIAMI - Tropical Storm Fay may be gone but the rain remains. Flooding forced residents in parts of northern Florida out of their homes Sunday. In Huntsville, Ala., National Weather Service senior forecaster Andy Kula said the five-day rainfall projection through Friday - 6 to 7 inches south of the Tennessee River and 3 to 4 inches north of the river - would spread out and was not expected to create a flood problem.
Source:
Associated Press/AP Online
U.S. Student Takes Top Honors at International Stockholm Junior Water Prize Competition
Joyce Chai of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., received $5,000 and a crystal sculpture from HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden during a royal ceremony in Stockholm.
Source:
Water Environment Federation
Water War Spills Across State Line: 'Oklahoma's Future'
Aug. 25--OKLAHOMA CITY -- More than 30 years ago, then-Gov. Well, welcome to 2008 and the water patch, where Oklahomans are suing each other over who gets to cap the gusher and where deep-pocketed Texans are elbowing one another to see who gets to jump the claim and take the water before the state completes its latest comprehensive water study. For now, the water speculators are concentrating on the Kiamichi River Basin, Choctaw County and the town of Hugo, which has never been confused with any boomtown.
Source:
Tulsa World
Orange County to Drop Lawsuit Against South Florida Water Management District
Aug. 22--Orange County officials will drop a controversial lawsuit against the water agency that turned down its application to take 7 million gallons of water a day from lakes in the southern end of the county, officials confirmed Thursday. In an agreement reached this week with the South Florida Water Management District, Orange officials will walk away from the legal fight, in return for assurances that no other area utility can tap lakes in the Kissimmee River basin for water before them. "It was a lot of give and take," said Commissioner Bill Segal, who helped negotiate the deal.
Source:
The Orlando Sentinel
Untreated Wastewater Used in Agriculture
A survey released in Stockholm, Sweden, suggests many cities around the world use raw, untreated wastewater for agricultural purposes. The 53-city International Water Management Institute survey showed 80 percent of those cities regularly use untreated or partially treated waste water for urban agriculture. "Irrigating with wastewater isn't a rare practice limited to a few of the poorest countries," said IWMI researcher Liqa Raschid-Sally, lead author of a report on the survey.
Source:
United Press International
Huge MWD Water Tunnel Could Be Completed Today
BENEATH THE SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS - Engineers, water managers and miners expect a massive tunneling machine to finally emerge into the daylight this morning. The machine, a $9 million piece of German technology, has employed an array of steel discs to crush rocks and bore its way through the earth below the San Bernardino Mountains for more than four years. To the east, another machine was used to dig a 5.8-mile tunnel from Strawberry Canyon north of San Bernardino to City Creek near Highland.
Source:
The Sun, San Bernardino, Calif.
Infrastructure:
Aug. 19--Editor's note: This is the first installment of an occasional series examining the impact of growth on local infrastructure. FORT MILL TOWNSHIP -- Underneath every new home and business lies a system of pipes that are seldom considered, but often used and frequently needed. The planned improvements include upgrading the Catawba River treatment plant to increase its capacity from 36 million gallons per day to 54 MGD, more improvements to both the wastewater treatment plant and technical improvements to the Catawba River treatment plant.
Source:
Fort Mill Times
Flood waters in South Texas recede after torrent
ESCOBARES, Texas - The Rio Grande Valley's main highway was reopened and flood waters receded Tuesday after up to 13 inches of rain swamped southern Texas. "The water's going down; the main highways are open," Natividad Gonzalez, with the Starr County Sheriff's Department, said early Tuesday. Emergency officials on Monday had to use boats to pluck people from their flooded houses.
Source:
Associated Press/AP Online
Water Sale's Chain Reaction Drains New Berlin's Utility Reserves
New Berlin will set off a string of borrowing when it taps its water utility's cash reserve to pay Milwaukee $1.5 million in a water sale agreement. Those projects must be completed before Jan. 1 so the water utility can pump Milwaukee water to the west side of New Berlin. But using the money for Milwaukee's $1.5 million in economic development payoffs won't hamper long-term capital projects, said Rick Johnson, New Berlin Water Utility manager.
Source:
Daily Reporter (Milwaukee)
City Wants to Reallocate Sewer Payments to Water Fund
Aug. 18--LOCKPORT -- The city is planning to reshuffle the use of money from its combined water and sewer bills to make more funds available for water line repairs. W. Tucker said will not change the size of anyone's bill. Alderman Patrick W. Schrader, D- 4th Ward, said the city plans to shift $3 per quarter from every property owner's combined water and sewer bill from the sewer fund to the water fund.
Source:
The Buffalo News
Three Gorges Facing Flood Peak, Posing No Threat to Operation
Three Gorges facing flood peak, posing no threat to operation YICHANG, Hubei, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Three Gorges reservoir on Sunday saw its highest flood peak this year, but without disrupting the shipping service on the Yangtze River. Located in central China's Hubei Province, the Three Gorges project, the world's largest hydroelectric project, had a water flow of 41,000 cubic meters per second at its maximum on Saturday night.
Source:
Xinhua News Agency - CEIS
Rural Penn. Residents Wary of Upgrade to Sewers
Aug. 18--Nearly a decade ago, Pouran Esrafily bought her renovated farmhouse in Limeport, a village in Lower Milford Township, a community she liked for its working-class roots and rural flavor. Esrafily, her neighbors, and the rest of the township rely on septic systems to handle their sewage -- as do many small and pastoral communities in the Lehigh Valley. Next year, that will change in Limeport, where a $1.5 million sewer system is planned to address the many failing on-lot systems that are harming the water.
Source:
The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Lack of Rain Drops Water Even Further
Lack of rainfall in the area has prompted Appalachian Power Co. to again reduce the amount of water it releases at Smith Mountain Lake, where the water level has dropped another foot in just two weeks. And the town of Rocky Mount may soon institute mandatory water restrictions. The lake, as well as other areas generally south of Roanoke -- such as Rocky Mount and the greater Franklin County area -- are experiencing more severe drought conditions than the rest of the region.
Source:
Roanoke Times & World News
Sewer System Top Revenue Generator in City
Aug. 14--COLUMBUS -- The $17 million municipal water and sewer system requires continual monitoring and maintenance, and the proposed City of Columbus budget for 2008-09 allocates $7.2 million to maintain, enhance and operate those systems. Of that $7.2 million: sewer system operation costs account for $933,000, wastewater treatment for $929,000 and $1.2 million for the water system. Chuck Thomerson, public works/environmental services director, said operating and improving the water and sewer systems is paid for with utility revenues and user fees.
Source:
Columbus Telegram
Emergency State Allows Pumping Of Flood-Prone North Tampa Ponds
Aug. 18--TAMPA -- Tampa and Hillsborough County public works crews are "pumping like crazy" to lower pond levels in north Tampa and avoid the kind of flooding that hit the area after Hurricane Frances in 2004. "We're not just sitting back with our fingers crossed; we're working out there," Tampa stormwater director Chuck Walter said. The city's Donut Pond and the county's Duck Pond system, near University Mall, often flood during heavy summer downpours.
Source:
Tampa Tribune
Drought Hangs on, but More Conserving
Aug. 14--Drought conditions persist particularly in parched western North Carolina, but more local governments are conserving water than a year ago. Of the 660 public water systems in the state, 54 percent had water restrictions in place as of July, said Wayne Munden of the Public Water Supply Section of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources. A year ago, only 12 percent of the systems had conservation measures in place, Munden said today at a meeting of the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council.
Source:
The News & Observer
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