WaterWired

Abby Brown: Two Weeks in India and New India Water Portal

Abby Brown, who's interning with Arghyam in Bangalore, has just updated her Water for the Ages blog with a post describing her first two weeks there. 

She also announced that there is a new India Water Portal. Take a look.

"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all." -- Will Durant

Wolf on Water and War

Here is an interview with my OSU colleague Aaron Wolf opining on water and peace.

Access the MP3 file or the WWW site.

Here's an earlier post on Aaron and another one on seven experts discussing water wars.

“I think water hits us at a profoundly different level than other resources. People are willing to do horrible things to each other. What they seem not willing to do is turn off each other’s water.” —Aaron Wolf

WQIN: Water Quality Knowledge and Information Network

I just received an email about the creation of the WQIN, a online community for exchanging water quality information. It sounds a lot like WaterSISWEB - a user-controlled site. There are both advantages and disadvantages to that kind of arrangement.

Here is the WQIN blurb:

WQIN is a collaborative community for the purpose of exchanging Water Quality Knowledge.

Since the World Wide Web became available as a fast way to disseminate information, online-accessible databases (like STORET, AQUASTAT and others) advanced the ways we electronically share data. The remaining body of knowledge on Water Resources, however, is limited to static pages and links to data sources. The material available is usually restricted to information from resources a few editors are able to collect, check and publish.

Besides discussion lists, there are still limited resources that allow water professionals, researchers, agencies and stakeholders to disseminate other kinds of information that could benefit Water Quality Projects, such as methods, experiences, models, metadata, water quality assessments, opinions and any other relevant knowledge related to the field. In order to promote collaboration, there is a need for more efficient communication tools that will enable information, while keeping it reliable, to be published faster.

The Water Quality Knowledge and Information Network proposes to do just that, hoping to have an impact on the way water professionals, at all levels, communicate and collaborate. An organically grown network have a great impact on how quickly the system can publish and manage the community's knowledge, since these would be grassroots contributions emanating from the community itself, as opposed to mandated or dictated information .

This Network is only as powerful as the information submitted by its users, so welcome aboard and start contributing!

It's worth a look, and contribute if you like - it'll only be as good as the active participation of its users.

"Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." -- Samuel Johnson

Jim Thebaut's 'Running Dry South Africa' Promotional Video

Jim Thebaut, the 'Running Dry' guy, just announced that a promotional video for his next project, Running Dry South Africa, is online at YouTube.

You'll not hear the dulcet tones of Jane Seymour, who narrated Jim's previous two films. The narrator for this one is Lebo Mashile, the poet, performer and actress (Hotel Rwanda) who is recognized as one of South Africa's most popular young artists and known to millions of international fans. [Thanks to Carol Eisner for correcting me.]

I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the full-length film.

"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb." -- Nelson Mandela

Washington Attorney General: Department of Ecology Can Limit Groundwater Withdrawals

About two months ago I posted a story about the Washington Department of Ecology banning additional unpermitted ('exempt') wells in a portion of Kittitas County. The graphic below is from David Lester's story in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

Well, we've had some new developments since then.

 

Yesterday, state Attorney General Rob McKenna's office issued an opinion stating that the Department of Ecology can halt new groundwater appropriations, upholding its temporary moratorium on new wells in upper Kittitas County.

The wells originally in question are unpermitted or so-called 'exempt' wells, often used to supply water to individual homes. The Department of Ecology issued the ban in July 2009, claiming the wells were impairing streamflows and senior water rights.

State and local officials had asked the AG's office to weigh in. It did, allowing the Department of Ecology to ban both new permitted and unpermitted wells. But the department cannot impose stricter limits on exempt well withdrawals than those already allowed under state law.

Read more from Associated Press writer Sharon Dininny's story in The Seattle Times.

I am curious to see if there are any ripple effects from this opinion. Exempt wells are hot topics throughout the Western USA and other areas as well.

Update on 30 July 2011: Here is a story about a recent State Supreme Court decision slamming the county over water and exempt wells.

“I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.” -- Frances Willard