Water Recyling: Maximizing Your Flush

On November 30th, Orange County Water District will open the world's largest plant devoted to purifying sewer water to enhance water supplies. The purified wastewater will not go directly to people's taps--that's against the law--but the treated water, which experts say is as pure as distilled water, will replenish the underground aquifers that supply water to 2.3 million people in Orange County. Water officials in Florida and Texas are also considering wastewater recycling, known as indirect potable water reuse.

Great Lakes residents should be thrilled with this project. Every water district that responsibly recycles its own water is one less threat for diversion from the Great Lakes. States with water shortages in the Southeast and West should conserve and reuse their own resources to the maximum extent possible before looking to states that are "awash in water," as Governor Bill Richardson said of Wisconsin.

My First Riverwatch Captain Inspection

Hi, all...

I'm just writing to share about my first Riverwatch Captain Inspection. I just completed it a couple of days ago at my site on Cayuga Creek in Lancaster. After serving as site captain at both clean-ups this year, I quickly realized that this site needs a bit more help... and I was correct. Even though it was just cleaned in September, the stream is very littered again already. Along with the garbage and trash, the stream is full of tires. It was actually dirtier than before we did the last clean-up!

Below you will find some photos from this inspection and hopefully I'll be able to keep you all posted on any progress/happenings with this site as things progress...

Southtowns Connector?

ACT NOW!

The New York State Department of Transportation is advocating a $55 million construction project for a high speed highway on the Outer Harbor that will consume 325 acres of land and make access to the Outer Harbor even more difficult.

Riverkeeper supports a different version of the plan known as the "Boulevard Alternative." While not perfect, it will preserve more green space and better access to our waterfront.

Please visit www.buffalorising.com to sign an online petition to protest the current construction alternative and let politicians know that we want access to our waterfront!

Gubernatorial Gas

Photo: New York Times

Three Western governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, are launching an advertising campaign sponsored by Environmental Defense to increase public support for climate change legislation. The 30-second ads will feature the governors in rugged outdoor clothing in scenic spots threatened by global warming. On Wednesday, 9 Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba signed an agreement to lower carbon emissions. Read the New York Times article here.

Well, television commercials and signed agreements are all very well, but Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is employing another tactic to deal with Georgia's chronic drought: a prayer vigil. Hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the capitol building to pray for rain to alleviate Georgia's extreme water shortage.

"Oh father, we acknowledge our wastefulness," Perdue said. "But we're doing better. And I thought it was time to acknowledge that to the creator, the provider of water and land, and to tell him that we will do better."

Perhaps they should have thought of that before allowing an explosion of unchecked urban development with insufficient conservation measures in the scorching Southeast. As one protester of the event said, "I'm praying for a NEW GOVERNOR!"

Click here to read the Los Angeles Times article.

Great Lakes Basin Bulletin

Veto Victory
Congress fulfilled its threat last week and overturned President Bush's veto of a $23 billion water bill. Bush claimed the bill had too many "pork projects" ballooning costs. The price of the Iraq war so far: $1.2 trillion. Read what Michigan's reps said about the bill here.

The Good and the Bad in Illinois
Illinois just passed a law requiring rain sensor technology on all new irrigation systems that will cease to operate when they sense there is sufficient moisture in the soil. (Golf courses and agricultural lands are exempted.) Read more here.

But once again Illinois shows they are a law unto themselves regarding Lake Michigan water diversions. Most Chicago suburbs out of the Great Lakes Basin already receive Lake Michigan water. Now a handful of other inland communities are seeking approval from the Department of Natural Resources to divert Lake Michigan water because their groundwater is an "unreliable source." Click here to read the article.

Barrel Believers
Ann Arbor, Michigan is encouraging residents to install rain barrels to capture stormwater runoff from their homes. The water department will give a modest discount on their new stormwater rates to all homeowners who install a rain barrel. The city now charges four different stormwater rates depending on the amount of impervious surface and the roof size of houses. Read more here!

The power of cheese
Joe Van Groll, a Wisconsin entrepreneur, has developed a technique to refine permeate, a by-product of cheese making, into pure alcohol ethanol at a quarter of the cost needed to make corn ethanol. He also blends raw canola oil with the ethanol to make biodiesel. The biodiesel runs a generator that powers his plant and enables him to sell excess energy to the power company. What do you know? Read more here.

What about Water?

The 2008 Presidential Election is a year away, and we're hearing a lot from all the candidates.

They talk about oil, they talk about national security and Iraq, they talk about universal health care and Social Security, they talk about their opponents.

But what do they say about water? About the Great Lakes? What do they say about our most precious, and threatened, natural resource?

So I did a little research. I visited the websites of all the major Democratic and Republican candidates and surveyed their "issues."

Some candidates didn't mention the environment at all. Others addressed climate change and the need for alternative fuels but said nothing about the looming water crisis in our country and the world.

One candidate addressed water use and availability--that candidate was Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio. In 2002, he opposed the nuclear industry's attempt to transport nuclear waste over the Great Lakes, the drinking supply of 42 million people. Kucinich has also developed ten principles called "Water Marks" to serve as a basis for water policy.

These are:
1. All water shall be considered to be forever in the public domain.
2. It shall be the duty of each nation to provide accessible, affordable drinking water.
3. There shall be public ownership of drinking water.
4. Wealthy nations shall provide poor nations with the means to obtain water for survival.
5. Water shall be protected from commodification and exempted from all trade agreements.
6. Water privatization shall not be a condition of debt restructuring, loan renewl, or loan forgiveness.
7. Governments shall use their powers to prevent private aggregation of water rights.
8. Water shall be conserved through sustainable agriculture and encouraging plant-based diets.
9. Water resources shall be protected from pollution.
10. Our children shall be educated about the essential nature of water for maintaining "life."

We should be asking all of the candidates how they plan to protect our water supply and restore the Great Lakes for future generations.

PLANT TREES!

Join Riverkeeper in planting 80 trees donated by Re-Tree WNY in two locations along the Buffalo on Tuesday, November 13, from 9am to 5pm! Volunteers are meeting at Seneca Bluffs near Seneca and Elk.

Also, this Saturday, volunteers are needed for a major tree planting on Squaw Island in Buffalo from 9am to noon. Click here to visit Re-Tree's website.

Great Lakes Updates

"The presence of the foam itself is a violation of the permit," acknowledged Maureen Wren, the spokesperson of CWM, last week. In October, Riverkeeper reported that CWM was issuing acrid foam into the river. The DEC maintains that the substance was created by a high volume of wastewater dropping down a long vertical pipe. Just air bubbles, really. Hmm. Read the Buffalo News story here.

On Friday, Nov. 2, Bush followed through with his threat and vetoed a bill calling for $23 billion in water projects, including coastal restoration in Louisiana and $2 billion for Florida Everglades restoration, mentioned in yesterday's blog. Overwhelming support for the bill in Congress, however, will probably override the veto of a bill Bush calls "fiscally irresponsible." Who needs wetlands anyway? Click here for the full article.

In Minneapolis, after twelve years of studies, the EPA is finally removing soil from four neighborhoods contaminated by arsenic from a nearby pesticide plant that operated in the 1960's. Minneapolis residents are upset that cleanup has taken so long to begin after agencies discovered dangerous levels of arsenic in the early 1990's. The contaminated soil is scooped up, wrapped in a plastic liner and deposited in a landfill. (Unfortunately, who's to say that the arsenic burritos won't eventually leak into the landfill, which in turn leaks into local waterways and groundwater?) Click here for the article.

Is Lake Superior the canary in the coal mine for climate change? Superior, the largest, coldest, and cleanest of the Great Lakes, has lost 50 percent of its ice cover in the last 100 years and warmed by 2 degrees a decade since the 1980's. Less ice cover also allows more evaporation, which we've seen in falling lake levels. Read the article by clicking here.

Does Everglades paralysis bode ill for Great Lakes Restoration?

Picture: Palm Beach County, Florida, New York Times

A four-decade, $8 billion project to restore the Everglades has virtually ground to a halt, and thousands of acres of land in the targeted restoration area have succumbed to development.

Originally passed before the 2000 presidential election, the plan has been buried under an avalanche of other national concerns, like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Iraq. And President Bush is expected to veto a bill for long-delayed federal funding for water infrastructure projects in the area.

For environmentalists in the Great Lakes area, the federal government's willingness and dollars to restore the Everglades has been an encouraging sign that a similar project could succeed to restore the Great Lakes. But with no federal leadership from the Bush administration, it seems that these large-scale restoration projects play second fiddle to a much more expensive war in Iraq.

Just think--the price tag of being in Iraq for just a couple weeks could do much to reverse some of the ecological damages in the Great Lakes that are reaching the point of no return.

Click here to read the full article in New York Times.

Step It Up 2007

This Saturday, join climate-concerned Buffalonians for a rally to demonstrate concern over global warming and demand a drastic reduction in carbon emissions. The Step if Up movement is a national event, with rallies occurring all over the country on November 3rd.

Meet at 641 Delaware at the Theodore Roosevelt monument at 11am. Click here to learn more about the event.