WaterWired

Got Excess Money and No Illicit Drug Habit? Buy Apple Bottled Water!

Got this from Aguanomics, who got it from John Burke...

Apple products are overpriced? Really?

 

 "What's a soup kitchen?" - Paris Hilton

Water, Conflict, and Human Rights: Emerging Challenges and Solutions Conference

I will be heading to the Water, Conflict, and Human Rights: Emerging Challenges and Solutions Conference at the University of Utah tomorrow.

Peter Gleick and Maude Barlow will be keynoting. I hope to meet both (yes, that's right - both). I've met Gleick before at a  meeting in November 2002 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Download Peter Gleick Poster

Download Maude Barlow Poster

Here is the conference program: Download 2011brochure

On the last day I will participating in a panel discussion: Water Conflict Case Studies: Stakeholder Mediation, Dialogue, and Lessons Learned. on the last day:

Here are my abstract and PDF of my Power Point, "What Would Elvis Say? Mississippi v. Memphis and the Curious Case of the Memphis Sand Aquifer":

Download Campana_UUtah_Conference_Abstract

Download Campana_Tanner_Conference

The presentation is very similar to the one I gave in Paris last December. It is shorter and contains a bit of new information.

 Should be a real good meeting.

"As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world."-- Kofi Annan, 2001

Has '1000 Wells for Darfur' Dried Up?

That's what reader Rod Downing wanted to know in a recent comment. I had been  thinking that same thought about a week ago. His comment spurred me to investigate.

Remember all the fuss several years ago about an 'ancient mega-lake' discovered beneath the desert of north Darfur, and how its entrapped groundwater might alleviate the suffering of the Darfur people?

Yes, from that discovery, which garnered a lot of publicity for discoverer Dr. Farouk El-Baz and his group at Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing, arose a project to drill 1000 wells for Darfur.  El-Baz met with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. it looked like something positive was going to happen.

I last posted about this on 24 January 2008; in this post you will find links to my previous five posts, one of which expressed skepticism about the as-yet undiscovered groundwater (but the potential was there).

So what is the project's status?

There is a item about the BU students' well on the Center's WWW site and access to a slew of news items, most of which are several years old.

The GSA Foundation announced the launching of the '1000 Wells for Darfur' initiative on its WWW site. The following was included in the announcement:

“Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur,” said El-Baz.

“Any person, organization or county can contribute to this humanitarian effort. Those who provide $10 million or drill 10 wells will have their names on the wells forever,” El-Baz added. “New water resources will provide hope to the people of northwestern Sudan and will also allow for the migration of the labor force closer to the wells, where economic development is suitable and environmentally sustainable.”

It does appear that 1000 Wells for Darfur has now become 1001 Wells for Darfur - one for good luck, perhaps. Or maybe that is the BU students' well. The WWW site doesn't look like much is happening, and the blog contains personals and job postings. There is no way to make a donation even though it says you can. In short, it looks like someone set up this site a few years ago and then promptly forgot about it. I just sent them an email ([email protected]) inquiring about the project's status.

From my admittedly brief search, it looks like nothing substantive has happened. If something were happening, you can bet it would be all over the place - would it ever!

That 1000 Wells for Darfur seems to have died is a real shame; the demise of the hope it engendered is even sadder.

Let's hope I'm wrong. If I'm right, can we get this going again?

"The Darfur initiative will bring hope to the people of northwestern Sudan; it will allow the migration of the labour force to locations where economic development is suitable and environmentally sustainable. This initiative can be a starting point for ameliorating the human suffering in the region and raising the quality of life and capacity of its people." -- Dr. Farouk El-Baz, 25 June 2007

APLV Final Report: Drinking Water and Sanitation, Los Pinares, Telpaneca, Nicaragua

Agua Para La Vida just sent me the final report of this project that was supported by the Ann Campana Judge Foundation, the Laird Norton Family Foundation, the Rotary Club of Colorado, the municipality of Telpaneca, and the community of Los Pinares.

Download FinalReport_Los Pinares

 Sixty families (310 individuals) benefited from this effort.

Los Pinares is located in the municipality of Telpaneca, in the department of Madriz, near the Honduras border, shown in dark  on the small map.

Excellent job!

"Many things are too bad to be blessed, and too good to be cursed." -- Nicaraguan proverb

Emily Green: Fracking Update

Lest you think fracking has fallen off the face of Earth, read a recent post by Emily Green in which she provides an update on the fracking issue.

Why, she's even got T. Boone Pickens, who appeared on The Daily Show and claimed that he had fracked 3,000 wells in his career and never seen a case of aquifer contamination.

Maybe those fracked wells were very deep oil and gas wells that were isolated from drinking-water aquifers. Or maybe Pickens didn''t look for aquifer contamination.

Lots of good information about an issue that is not going away any time soon.

“I’ve heard people say their water was contaminated. But I don’t believe it’s caused by fracking.” -- Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and now consultant to a gas drilling industry lobby, the Marcellus Shale Coalition