The next in our series of episodes about water management, is a series of interviews with David Bristow, water engineer, expert witness and owner of the water services, training and engineering firm Simmonds & Bristow.
Two weeks ago Dave Whitfield interviewed Dr Aysin Dederkofut-Howes about Smart Urban Water, this week, Geoff Ebbs interviews David Bristow about some of the challenges to realising that ambition and how we overcome them.
The interview is in three parts:
the first part discusses the existing urban water system and the possibility of recycling,
the second part discusses current attempts to be smart about how we use water and what impact that has on our overall use and
the third part discusses mining the sewer for energy and nutrients.
You can catch the entire interview by visiting the playlist.
Regina Lopez is applying the heat to miners who pollute water
Philippines environment secretary, Regina Lopez, last week cancelled one third of new mining contracts on environmental grounds. She also rejected calls to reverse her earlier decision to close 23 of the existing 41 mines in the Philippines on the grounds they are polluting drinking water. “You kill the watershed, you kill life” she told media last week. Despite the threat of legal action from international business, the environment secretary has the full backing of President Duterte. This is the second time he has publicly supported her actions since appointing her last June.
Philippine Environment Minister Continues Mining Crackdown
The Philippines’ environment minister stepped up a crackdown on mining on Tuesday, cancelling almost a third of the country’s contracts for undeveloped mines and rejecting any challenges to earlier orders to shut more than half of all operating pits.
In this image provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department, law enforcement and protesters clash near the site of the Dakota Access pipeline on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Cannon Ball, N.D. The clash came as protesters sought to push past a bridge on a state highway that had been blockaded since late October, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Office. (Morton County Sheriff’s Department via AP)
Seventy six protesters were arrested at the Cannon Ball protest camp at Standing Rock in Dakota last week and the camp was razed to the ground. The police and National Guard acted with the US Army Corp of Engineers under direct orders from President Trump to waive a review of environmental impacts and expedite the pipeline. Trump has initiated a vast rollback of environmental legislation and has formally threatened to cut funding from organisations as diverse as University of California Berkeley and the Environmental Protection Authority.
Sierra Club on Trump’s Fire Sale on Clean Air and Water Safeguards
Trump signed an executive order this morning requiring that for every new federal regulation implemented, two must be rescinded. “This a pathetic marketing scheme by Donald Trump, not a way to run a country.”
Sixty percent of countries in the Asia Pacific region face water insecurity according to the Asia Water Development Outlook report released last week. The region currently has 1.7 billion people with no access to sanitation and includes 22 cities with populations that will exceed ten million by 2030. These numbers have improved compared to the last report three years ago, thanks to work on providing sanitation and drinking water in Pacific Islands and South East Asia. The dangerous hot spots include Afghanistan, and the densely populated Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Water scarcity is spreading into wealthier nations
Israel’s Ben Gurion University, this week released a report showing that half the world’s population will face chronic water shortages in the next two decades.
The report indicates that one billion people already deal with water shortages on a daily basis. Evidence of this trend was confirmed in independent reports this week from cities as diverse as London and Miami. Thames Water this week announced a plan to create water from treated sewage to meet the demand of an increasing population from a water supply already at its natural limit. Water shortages in Florida, Syria, Israel, Kenya and Spain are also the subject of news stories in the last week.
In many cases, cities are dependent on groundwater from aquifers that no longer meet demand.
