Peru's Alarming Water Truth

Peru's Alarming Water Truth

By James Painter In Peru
Oscar-winning Al Gore chose to call his film about global warming An Inconvenient Truth. But for Peru it is more like an alarming reality.

Government officials, water experts and environmentalists agree the rapid melting of the spectacular Andean glaciers featured in the film is threatening the long-term economic and human development of what is South America's most "water-stressed" country.

"Global warming for us is not just about the environment," warns Julio Garcia of Peru's National Council on the Environment, Conam. "It's more about how on earth we can develop Peru in a sustainable way over the coming years."

Peru's water problem lies in part in the peculiar geography of the country. Most of the Pacific coast would be desert if it were not for the water flowing down from the Andes.

Seventy per cent of the population live along the coast, where less than 2% of the country's water resources are found. In contrast, the Atlantic side of the Andes has 98% of the water and about a quarter of the population.

snip:

A lot of attention has been paid to the range known as Cordillera Blanca, home to Peru's largest mountain, Huascaran, at 6,768 metres (22,200ft). Water coming down from the range feeds an array of economic activities in the Rio Santa valley below it. This includes a hydro-electric plant providing 5% of Peru's electricity, drinking water for two cities, and commercial and small-scale agriculture.

"Water from glaciers is absolutely critical for the valley in the six or seven months of the dry season," says Gabriela Rosas, a researcher at the national weather institute, Senamhi. Glacial melt is calculated to provide 10 to 20% of the total annual water run-off in the valley, but it can reach 40% in the dry season. Ms Rosas is part of a team modelling future water availability in Peru. The models, based on moderate rises in temperature, predict annual water availability will increase slightly as more of the glaciers melt, but that there will be a dramatic decline after 2050 and possibly as early as 2030. Seasonal variations will become more intense, with less water available in the dry season.

Lima, Peru's capital, is a particular worry.

The government wants more people to have water connections (Photo: Peru Support Group) It is built on a desert, supports a population of more than eight million, and receives hardly any rainfall. The city gets most of its water from the Rio Rimac and two other rivers with sources high up in the Andes. The rivers are partly fed by glacial melt, although less than the Rio Santa valley.

"Lima already has a large deficit between supply and demand and official projections say it's going to get a lot larger in the future," says Juan Carlos Barandiaran, former head of projects for the municipal water company, Sedapal. Demand is set to increase as the city absorbs thousands of new arrivals every year. "We must have more reserves," says Mr Barandiaran.

The last major drought in 2004 pushed the city's water supplies to the limit. "If we had droughts two years running our current reserves would not support it," he says. President Alan Garcia's government wants to give water connections to nearly a million more people in Lima, but experts say this will increase demand even more. The project is known as "Agua para todos" or "Water for all". But, says Sedapal's former president, Carlos Silvestri: "It will be very little water for all." For several years, Mr Silvestri and other experts have been urging successive governments to build a range of multi-million-dollar infrastructure works, including a second tunnel through the Andes, in order to build up their reserves.

Such works have become even more urgent with the prospect of reduced water in the dry season. They could capture and store more water during the wet season. "We are only city in South America with so few reserves - less than a year's supply. We are very vulnerable," says Mr Silvestri. He also worries about the increased frequency and intensity of droughts due to El Nino, and Lima's current reliance on just one 60-km (37-mile) tunnel fetching water from the other side of the Andes. And now there's glacial melt.

"We really are on the edge of an abyss," he warns.

Scientists say it is hard to predict in how many years the effect of glacial melt will really bite. But it is remarkable how many experts in Peru take seriously the prediction that the time will come this century when a barrel of water will cost more than a barrel of oil.

Peru's Mountain Glaciers Are Melting Away

Peru May Lose Glaciers By 2015

Melting Glaciers Threaten Peru

The pictures in this last link are from 2003, and here we sit still watching them melt in 2007 as we continue to spew millions of tons of GHGs into our atmosphere everyday while the water supplies becomes endangered.

They will either have to find a way to bring the water over or move the people. But then, if the water is not being replenished to keep up with the pace of its exhaustion as is the case now, does it matter what side of the wall they live on? And where will they get it from?

This is the common tale of so many poor countries in our world today left to deal with the ramifications of climate change that rich countries are exacerbatng and refusing to take repsonsibility for because they seek to make a profit from it.

Water Privitization In Peru

People literally have died for clean water because they couldn't afford to pay for it. And now with climate change making it even more precious, look to the World Bank and private corporations like Bechtel to be licking their chops.

Water Privitization/Latin America/Peru

Today Is World Water Day

World Water Day

Since being designated as such by the UN in 1993, every March 22nd is World Water Day. This year's theme is water scarcity as we now see over a billion people in this world without potable water to sustain their needs with predictions of over 2.8 billion being without water within the next twenty years. With an ever thirsty world putting pressure on this precious resource through population growth, mismanagement, waste (primarily through agriculture) and most alarmingly, climate change which is ravaging Australia, Asia, and Africa with droughts, fires, and erratic weather patterns that harm the economy and the environment and cause deaths among humans and other species, this is not a crisis we can turn away from any longer.

For me this is the most important environmental issue we now face for our future sustainability, as we all know we cannot survive without water and with it dwindling more each year we not only open ourselves up to shortages and scarcity, but famine and war. Water sustainability is not only an environmental issue, it is also an economic and social issue but more importantly it is a moral and human rights issue.

NO ONE on this planet should have to go without the water they need to feed and sustain their needs and the sad thing about all of this is, is that we have enough water to sustain all life but it is being wasted by greed, gluttony, mismanagement, corruption and pollution by our own hand besides the climate change humans are contributing to that has led us to more severe and persistent droughts in Asia, Africa, and Australia that have seen farmers committing suicide because they have lost everything because of it.

That is why I was also very grateful to Al Gore for mentioning this in his tesitmony in the Senate yesterday. He talked about the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China that no longer reach the sea. The Yangtze is now evaporating to the point that in some areas you can actually walk on the river bed and step in puddles where there used to be a river. Lake Chad, Lake Victoria, the Danube, and even right in this country with rivers such as the Columbia, the Moreau, and the Great Lakes have also all been victims to diversion, dams, population, and climate change.

The question now is, does the world care enough to truly face this and work for solutions?

The link above will lead to information about World Water Day and events you can join. However, If you can't join an event you can still show your concern and caring in addressing and solving this crisis through a gift to many organizations that support water sustainability. The best organization I know of and am a sustaining donor of is Water Partners International Their missions bring pumps and water to those in lands that would never have it otherwise. They bring life.

And that is really what this day is about. Warning people of the dangerous road we travel on by continuing to dismiss the importance of water in our lives and how we use it especially in light of the spectre of global warming, but also celebrating the life we can create through working to see that day come when every person in this world regardless of race, creed, class, or location can share equally in this gift of life that is THEIR RIGHT to have.

Water Day: Key Development Goals Stagnating

WATER DAY:Key Development Goals Stagnating

Mithre J. Sandrasagra
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 (IPS) - Halfway to 2015, the year when the globally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are supposed to be reached, the crisis in water and sanitation as well as in water resources management remains among the great human development and environmental challenges.

In the run-up to World Water Day on Thursday, the United Nations is stressing the importance of good governance and proper management of water resources at both the international and local levels. The focus of World Water Day 2007, "Coping with Water Scarcity," will require addressing a range of issues, from protection of the environment and global warming to equitable distribution of water for irrigation, industry and household use.

"The state of the world's waters remains fragile," stressed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "Available supplies are under great duress as a result of high population growth, unsustainable consumption patterns, poor management practices, pollution, inadequate investment in infrastructure, and low efficiency in water-use." There is enough water in the world for everyone, but only if it is properly managed, according to the U.N.

Slightly more than a billion people do not have access to adequate clean water to meet their basic daily needs, and 2.6 billion do not have proper sanitation, according to the World Health Organisation and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stress conditions. Those affected are already among the world's poorest, over half of them living in China and India, according to U.N. estimates.

More at the link
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The key to this is agriculture, and again, moral will. This is one of the most important issues socially and environmentally that we now face as a civilization. I sure wish it got the attention it deserves in this country.

Kazakhstan, China, Lake Balkhash, And Moral Will

The more I read about this crucial issue the more incensed I become about this global crisis that is totally unnecessary because we have all we need to mitigate it. I also feel disillusioned about a global community that for the most part is not treating this with the urgency it deserves...Again, the URGENCY it deserves.

Do we have to see corpses of children who died as a result of our human behavior before we act? Do we have to actually suffer the consequences before we realize we waited too long? Even though we were warned and have what we need to fix it? If we completely waste the finite freshwater resource we have on this planet we will destroy our own species. The idea that we could actually continue to destroy ourselves by behavior we know is detrimental to our survival is to me the most frightening thought I have now.

Case in point.

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore makes reference to the Aral Sea (also noted in the first chapter of his bestseller, Earth In The Balance.) The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 60's when the Soviet Union diverted the Ana Darya and Syr Darya rivers for irrigation, which was not even successful. Today the Aral Sea has shrunk 60% in surface area, and 80% in volume. It is polluted beyond recognition because of weapons testing, fertilizer runoff, and other industrial projects that have left it a bowl of toxic dust... And HUMANS did this.

This is becoming a common tale around our world as our rapacious and wasteful behavior regarding this liquid of life is bringing us to the brink of global war over this "blue gold." There is no doubt if you look across Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and other parts of Africa, Asia, South and Central America, the Middle East (particularly Jordan, Syria, Iran, and including disputes over rights between Israel and the Palestinian territories) Mexico, and even between the U.S. and Canada and in our own country, that unless we become SERIOUS about facing this crisis which doesn't have to be a crisis, we will pass the point of no return. And regarding water we cannot and MUST not allow that to happen.

In my many entries on this issue, statistics regarding the current crisis, diseases suffered because of lack of sanitation or proper sanitation, desalinization, corporate privatization and its effects, and the need to declare water a human right globally without allowing it to become a commodity at the expense of the poor and sick have been discussed. I believe this issue goes to the core of who we are as human beings but so far I see that while many struggle to give hope, humanity as a whole is suffering in the moral will department and that baffles and saddens me.

The climate crisis is also contributing to the shortage of water in Africa as droughts are becoming more severe and prolonged with disease, famine, and war the repercussions. And this is just the beginning of something that the world has been getting warnings about for over twenty years. WHERE HAS OUR MORAL WILL GONE TO STOP IT? Or for that matter, to even CARE about it? Again, much like the truth Mr. Gore has been trying to get out all of these years regarding our rapacious consumption of fossil fuels that is bringing us to the brink and the concentration of CO2 and other gases that are exacerbating the droughts and other effects we are now seeing by own hand, so too have the warnings about what we will reap regarding a global water shortage by our own hand been viritually ignored by many governments and people who never believe it will reach the point where we will have to care. Well, we are THERE.

Most recently, the UN held a World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Canada from June 19-23 of last year. One of the predominant issues discussed was in regards to water, especially in urban areas where the population is expected to increase as it is projected that in the next fifty years two-thirds of the Earth's population will be living in towns and cities. TWO-THIRDS OF THE WORLD POPULATION. That is absolutely staggering based on current population trends. The question then is: how do we control population growth (regarding informing people in underdeveloped countries about birth control and family planning) in these areas and provide sustainable solutions to the water crisis in the future if our moral will is already gone?

Are efforts like desalinization truly then the answer? Or is it a bandaid rather than a solution? Desalinization is expensive and expends much in the way of greenhouse gases. Is it then a self defeating process only to once again be abused for profit? And what happens regarding the desalinization of ocean water that has a higher acidity level due to the consumption of higher amounts of CO2 and other gases that will be brought on by the very process we believe is saving us? The point to this then is, why can't anyone see the answer staring us all in the face? THE ANSWER IS US. It is the same answer regarding this global water crisis as it is regarding the climate crisis. It will not be solved by desalinization or any other process if we continue to waste any resource we turn to. It HAS to start with us.

It has to start with us getting in the face of these governments that refuse to give what people need to survive and collude to profit from their misery. It has to start with us standing up to corporations that would commoditize this resource that ALL must have as a human right. It has to start with us in our own lives becoming more responsible for what we use and how we use it. It has to come from our MORAL WILL to do our part in preserving the finite freshwater resources we have left on this Earth so that other drastic measures can be avoided. The cost of us continuing to think otherwise is far too great. The answer is simple. If we won't take it upon ourselves to care for our planet, we betray it. If we don't do all we can globally to face this water crisis, we will cease to exist. Drastic you say? Perhaps to some. But then, that is what they said about Mr. Gore's first book, and look where we are.

Wars over oil have already done enough to bring us to the point of nuclear conflagration. Wars over water will most certainly be the point in my view that tips that scale the longer we wait to allow our humanity to shine through.

The coming crisis: Water not oil

Potential for Water Wars

Water, Conflict and Cooperation

H2Ouse-Water Saver Tips

Water Partners International
A good site doing good things to help those who need this life sustaining force.

And this is but another example to prove that human behavior and the lack of moral will is what is also wasting a precious resource that we can no longer afford to dismiss.


Kazakhstan and China Deadlocked Over Depleted Major Lake Balkhash

Kazakhstan and China Deadlock Over Depletion of a Major Lake

By ILAN GREENBERG
Published: March 8, 2007

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, March 7 — A conference that convened here this week to address the fate of an ecologically threatened Central Asian basin the size of California has ended in stalemate between Kazakhstan and China, the two countries most reliant on its waters.

Lake Balkhash is imperiled after decades of water diversion.

The heart of the basin is Lake Balkhash, the third-largest freshwater lake on earth, tucked in the southeastern corner of Kazakhstan. More than 20 percent of the country’s population draws on the lake for its drinking water. Lumbering rivers flowing through neighboring Kyrgyzstan and China replenish the lake and adjacent wetlands.

After decades of water diversion to nearby factories and farms, Lake Balkhash is threatened with “the same fate as the notorious Aral Sea,” according to conference documents.

The Aral, in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is widely considered one of the worst human-created ecological disasters in history. Rivers feeding the lake were diverted over decades for water-intensive cotton cultivation across Central Asia. That caused the sea to shrink drastically and eventually split into two anemic parts, devastating a once thriving fishing industry and causing deadly cancer clusters in nearby villages.

Progress at this week’s conference, convened to introduce an environmentally sound economic development plan, stalled when China spurned Kazakhstan’s proposal to send China large stocks of free or heavily subsidized food for 10 years in exchange for a commitment from China to allow an unimpeded flow of river water into Lake Balkhash.

“The Chinese were cautious and wary, but they also were listening,” said Anna Bramwell, chief of operations for the European Union’s political office in Kazakhstan, who attended the meeting.

As part of its “Go West” policy, China has offered incentives to people to move to its resource-rich Xinjiang territory, which includes part of the basin area. Chinese authorities have said the now sparsely populated region may eventually have as many as 40 million new inhabitants.

On top of population pressures, the water system is fast draining into nearby rice and sugar farms that consume twice the water that European and American operations require, according to representatives of the European Commission.

According to several participants in the conference, Kazakhstan’s president, Nulsultan A Nazarbayev, strongly lobbied the other conference parties to urgently adopt preservation strategies.

But Mr. Nazarbayev has angered environmentalists in the past by appearing to endorse the building of a nuclear power plant in the basin, which yields more than 30,000 tons of fish a year and contains vast amounts of coal and building materials like marble.

Dr. Bramwell said, “We’re trying to move away from the classical environmental approach to a more win-win scenario where everyone has to pay for water and take responsibility for the damage” they create.

Lake Balkhash
Excerpt from Wikipedia:

As the population and degree of industrialisation in western China increase, and with traditionally poor political relations between Kazakhstan and the People's Republic, it is likely that conflict over the fate of the limited waters of the Ili will intensify. Similar international disputes over water use in the arid region led to the desiccation of the Aral Sea, and Balkhash appears to be following a similar path.

The water pollution of Balkhash is intensified as urbanisation and industrialisation in the area grow rapidly. Extinctions of species in the lake due to its decreasing area, as well as overfishing activities, are cause for alarm among conservationist organisations worldwide
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The second largest freshwater lake the size of California in Central Asia after the Aral Sea that has already been dessimated, and STILL we have not learned from the past. Just what will it take?

Middle East/Africa Need Water Reforms: World Bank

Middle East/Africa Need Water Reforms
EGYPT: March 12, 2007

CAIRO - The World Bank urged governments in the Middle East and North Africa on Sunday to speed up improvements to water resources and said water availability per person in the region was set to drop by half by 2050. The World Bank said in a report that many countries in the area already faced full-blown crises in meeting water demand, and that was likely to worsen without reform.

"Drinking water services will become more erratic than they already are," the report said. "Cities will come to rely more and more on expensive desalination, and during droughts will have to rely more frequently on emergency supplies brought by tanker or barge." The region is already the most water-scarce in the world, and uses more of its renewable water resources than anywhere else. "All of this will have short- and long-term effects on economic growth and poverty, will exacerbate social tensions within and between communities and will put increasing pressure on public budgets," the report said.

One in three people worldwide live in water-scarce regions. In the Middle East and Africa, leaders have regularly warned water shortages caused by surging populations and climate change could trigger future conflicts. "This all means the region is going to have to do much more in the water sector with less resources," World Bank resources specialist Julia Bucknall said at the launch of the report. The World Bank advised the countries to make a series of technical and policy changes to their water sectors.

Some of the changes include reducing water subsidies and reforming sanitation and irrigation policies. Water providers should become financially autonomous and environmental regulations should be enforced. Reform should equally be extended to the 'non-water' sector, the report said. "Increased trade in agricultural products ... reforms of banking and insurance, and development of telecommunications and information technology, could all have important effects on water outcomes," the report said. It also said there should be also greater accountability for government agencies and water service providers. "Transparency is essential so that the public knows why decisions are made ... and what is actually achieved," it said.

Story by Talal Malik
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World Bank Report On Water Scarcity

Ok, while I do not trust the World Bank, I do agree with the Ms. Bucknall regarding changes needing to be made in irrigation practices, crop growing, and about environmental standards being enforced. However, that isn't going to happen if corruption continues to run rampant in governments which was not addressed here, nor the mitigation of climate change. Nor will it be done if perpetual war continues to be the only answer to solving problems in the Middle East. I will have more on the "World Bank" and their plans to also privatize water systems to control them.

The Pictures Tell The Story

CHINA: March 2, 2007

A man collects stones on the dried riverbed of the Yangtze River in southwestern China's Chongqing municipality. A severe drought in southwestern China is threatening the water supplies of six million people in the crowded metropolis of Chongqing, Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.

Story by Stringer
Photo by STRINGER
REUTERS NEWS PICTURE

CHINA: March 8, 2007

A farmer digs a drain on a dried-up pond on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of southwestern China's Yunnan province. Global warming has taken its toll on China, causing sandstorms, heavy fog and severe drought and leading to its second warmest winter in 50 years, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Story by Stringer
Photo by STRINGER
REUTERS NEWS PICTURE SERVICE

AUSTRALIA: March 8, 2007

Cracks are seen in a dried-up dam near the western New South Wales town of Parkes, located over 400 kilometres west of Sydney. Australia's longest river has lost half its natural water and it is predicted to dry up by a further 20 percent due to climate change by 2030. Dams and other irrigation projects along the Darling River, the lifeblood for many of Australia's farmers, has dramatically reduced water flows as the country continues to be gripped by one of its worst droughts in a century.


Story by David Gray
Photo by DAVID GRAY
REUTERS NEWS PICTURE SERVICE

So All May Drink Wisely From The Colorado

So All May Drink Wisely From The Colorado


The Monitor's View Wed Feb 28, 3:00 AM ET
The seven thirsty states that drink from the Colorado River have learned a lot about conserving water, from desert landscaping to underground storage. But a credible new study shows that won't be enough to solve the region's water supply problem.
Tough choices lie ahead.

The study by the National Research Council used tree-ring differences to track the history of water flow in the river basin. It revealed that the years prior to a 1922 compact that set multistate sharing were exceptionally wet. That pact is still in effect. Extended droughts, such as the one the region has been experiencing since 2000, have been common. The seven states - Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming - should be prepared for extended and possibly more severe droughts, according to the study. Right now, the basin's two big reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are about half full.

Global warming also has to be taken into account. While scientists aren't sure how climate change will affect precipitation, rising temperatures are already having an impact on rain and snow once they hit the ground. The creeping thermometer has resulted in earlier snowmelt and higher human, plant, and animal demand - as well as higher rates of evaporation.

The other big factor is surging population growth. Las Vegas may be using less water per capita these days, but total water consumption in Clark County, which includes the desert-sprawling city, doubled between 1985 and 2000. Since 1990, Arizona's population increased by roughly 40 percent, Colorado's by about 30 percent.

Conservation, while helpful, is not the "panacea," the report concludes. That poses some difficult choices. Should the basin cut back on water for lettuce fields and ranches and pipe more of it to homes and offices in spreading urban areas? Agriculture accounts for about 80 percent of the basin's water use. Less water for food raises the question of food security - or not, depending on how one views America's increasing food imports.

Other tough issues: What about the price of water? Agricultural subsidies, for instance, mean farmers aren't paying for the real cost of water. And what of population growth? Should sunny Arizona pull the shades on folks who want to move there?

The challenge lies in figuring out a balance between the demands of unlimited population and a limited natural resource. That's certainly not unique to the basin, but it's exacerbated by the need to work collectively in a region that has always thrived on individualism.

Still, the seven states can take heart in this: They have already proven that they can work together on this issue. A year ago, top water officials from the seven states penned a preliminary agreement to address water shortages. What brought them together was the desire to work out a solution for themselves, rather than have one imposed by Washington.

At the same time, the string of dry years has made residents and officials alike much more attuned to the threat of drought. They may be facing a limited resource, but they shouldn't limit their efforts to lick this problem with fresh ideas.

Wiki: About the Colorado River

Twenty dams currently are positioned along the expansive Colorado River, with 90% of the water being diverted for agriculture and municipal water usage. With climate change, population, and other factors causing reservoirs at Lake Mead and Lake Powell to only be at half capacity at this time, it is imperative that tough choices be made in order to keep water levels consistent enough to be able to sustain the arid Southwest which has been in a drought since 2000.

And while conservation may not be the panacea, it is now most certainly the easiest solution for the short and long term, because diversion which has also hurt habitats in this area and climate change which is contributing to drought have caused the river to not be able to even reach the Gulf of Calfornia. People simply have to be aware of how much our activities affect other species and our own. I believe this is a lesson we will now be learning the hard way in the years to come especially should these reservoirs go lower, when working together does take on a whole new meaning the scarcer water becomes.

Colorado River Basin: Lifeline Of The Southwest