Water

submitted by Albert Gomez

miamiherald.com - by Julie Dick - December 14, 2015

Miami-Dade County leaders have a number of decisions to make in the coming days, months and years that will define how we prepare for a changing Miami. If unsustainable developments are approved and move forward — be it a landfill expansion, a highway running through the Everglades ecosystem or new commercial and industrial development in currently undeveloped low-lying areas — they will create future liabilities and sprawling urban areas that will require expensive, though not necessarily effective, flood control. This will put the region’s water resources at risk.

On Tuesday, the County Commission is scheduled to consider whether to approve an application from the Neighborhood Planning Company for an industrial and commercial development on more than 60 acres of agricultural land and wetlands outside of the Urban Development Boundary (UDB).

The development would sit entirely on top of the West Wellfield Protection Area, in which certain land uses and activities are regulated or prohibited to protect the potable water supply from contamination and to provide recharge of the aquifer. Industrial development on this site puts our drinking-water supply at risk. This proposal should not move forward.

People kayak in the Animas River near Durango, Colorado, August 6, in water colored from a mine waste spill. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that a cleanup team was working with heavy equipment to secure an entrance to the Gold King Mine. Workers instead released an estimated one million gallons of mine waste into Cement Creek, which flows into the Animas River.  Jerry McBride/The Durango Herald/Press Association/AP

newsweek.com - by Zoe Schlanger - August 7, 2015

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was trying to protect the environment when it caused a major spill instead.

On Wednesday morning, the EPA said, it was using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine when it accidentally released 1 million gallons of mining waste into a creek, local station KOB4 reports. The waste spewed from the creek into the Animas River north of Silverton, Colorado, turning the water an opaque orange color reminiscent of boxed mac and cheese.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

IRIN by Jennifer Lazuta                                 June 15, 2015

DAKAR, Senegal - It is a cruel irony that many of the top doctors and nurses in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will not be around to help rebuild their health systems in the wake of Ebola, having succumbed themselves to the virus.

Many families in Guinea still rely on streams and lakes for their water needs.Photo: Jennifer Lazuta/IRIN

 For those that are, the biggest challenges are likely to be electricity, sanitation, and, most of all, water.

“How is it possible to build, or rebuild, as you may call it, a health institution or hospital without [access to] water, which serves as a major catalyst to run the facility?” asked Moses Tamba, a spokesperson for Liberia’s Ministry of Public Works. “It is not possible. You need water....”