Together with partners, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) joins in the establishment of a Heads of State Panel on Water, a global undertaking aimed at mobilizing support for implementing the water-related Sustainable Development Goals. The panel was launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
To mobilise global support for implementing the water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim have announced a Heads of State Panel on Water.
The panel shows the importance of working in partnership in order to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“The new panel can help motivate the action we need to turn ideas into reality,” said Ban Ki-moon as the announcement to form the panel was made in Davos on Thursday, 21 January.
The Heads of State Panel on Water will be the first global effort at Heads of State level that mobilises an integrated agenda for strengthening economic resilience to ensure growth and sustainable development in a climate-change exposed and water-insecure world. The panel will be supported by a partnership between the World Bank, World Economic Forum, World Water Council, Stockholm International Water Institute, and the World Resources Institute with support from the Government of the Netherlands.
The World Bank’s Jim Young Kim said: “Achieving the water global goal would have multiple benefits, including laying the foundations for food and energy security, sustainable urbanisation, and ultimately climate security. My hope is that this panel accelerates action in many countries so that we can make water more accessible to all.”
“We need to use our scarce and finite water resources more efficiently. It is encouraging to see that CEOs, city mayors and government leaders around the world are becoming more aware of the water challenges we all face, because we are all essential to the solution. SIWI is honoured to be part of this important undertaking with world leaders to help navigate the way forward,” said SIWI’s Executive Director, Torgny Holmgren.
Greenpeace Africa is alarmed by the judicial harassment against a prominent environmental activist and human rights defender. On Thursday, Nasako Besingi was sentenced to pay 344400 FCFA (575 USD) in fines or face one year in prison.
“This is Besingi’s second conviction within three months and is a serious attack on freedom of expression and a clear intimidation message for the communities fighting for their land and livelihoods.” Said Irene Wabiwa, Senior Campaign Manager for Greenpeace Africa.
Besingi was convicted for unlawful assembly, after a number of court adjournments. The charges pertain to peaceful meetings he organised to protest the plans of agribusiness company Herakles Farms to establish a huge palm oil plantation on forested land near his home village of Mundemba, South West Region.
This judgment is part of a series of court cases against him by the company seeking to silence any voice denouncing this destructive project. Last November, he was found guilty of several charges including defamation and was threatened with three years in jail if he did not pay a huge fine and legal costs. An appeal was filed by his lawyer.
“No matter the threats and the intimidation against me, I will continue my peaceful struggle for the rights of my community who fight for our forests,” Said Besingi.
Besingi is the director of the Cameroon SEFE local association based in the city of Mundemba. He has long campaigned against the establishment of a large industrial palm oil plantation in the area by Herakles Farms’ local subsidiary SGSOC. The project has been pushed through despite the opposition of local communities and civil society, and the evidence that it will destroy tracts of dense rainforest that are home to endangered wildlife including the chimpanzee.
“These series of convictions are worrying. Without the courage of Besingi and local NGOs such as SEFE, the rights of local communities will continue to be flouted,” said Wabiwa. “The Cameroonian government needs to take concrete measures in order to ensure the protection of community rights, the independence of the judiciary and freedom of expression. “
Snow began falling on Friday afternoon in Washington, which could get more than 2½ feet of snow before the storm ends at the weekend. Observers predict it could be the biggest winter storm in recorded history in the nation’s capital, and almost certainly in the top five.
A massive Winter storm featuring bitterly cold temperatures and blizzard conditions has sparked a full shut down of government offices in Washington D.C
Similarly, over 6,200 U.S. flights – about 2,900 on Friday and another 3,300 on Saturday – have been canceled, the flight tracking website FlightAware reported around 2:20 p.m. on Friday.
Nearly 30,000 customers of Duke Energy, the power utility for much of North Carolina, were without power early Friday afternoon. Dominion Virginia reported about 900 such outages, though Dominion official Kevin Curtis warned that “widespread, multi-day outages” are possible.
It might be a month late, but winter reintroduced itself to the East Coast in a big way on Friday.
A monster storm lashed parts of the South and the Mid-Atlantic on Friday as it barreled north toward some of the nation’s biggest cities. Roughly a quarter of the U.S. population is in its path, about 30 million of whom are under blizzard warnings.
“This is not a near miss,” CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said. “This is a direct hit.”
Tennessee and North Carolina got hit first early Friday, with snow covering the ground in cities like Asheville, Charlotte and Greensboro. Ice is also a problem in those areas, which have slick roads and well over 20,000 power outages.
The US capital is not alone in expecting blizzard conditions. On Friday morning, the National Weather Service extended its blizzard warning to include Philadelphia and New York City. Upwards of 10 million people live in those three areas; and millions more in parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey are under the same advisory.
“It has life and death implications, and (people) should treat it that way,” Bowser warned Washington residents. “People should hunker down, shelter in place and stay off the roads.”
The massive storm already has dumped an icy blotch of freezing rain, sleet or snow from Oklahoma through Tennessee. And while the focus is on points north, it has caused lots of trouble in the South as well.
That includes severe thunderstorms in Florida; up to 7 inches of snow in Nashville, Tennessee; and even a winter storm warning Friday afternoon into Saturday night for parts of North Georgia and South Carolina. The system also slammed Kentucky and West Virginia, and parts of both could see over a foot — and as much as 3 feet — of snow.
Across the Southeast on Friday, there were no classes, or students headed home early, just in time for the weekend. Places like Charlotte, North Carolina, looked like ghost towns, as people heeded warnings to stay off the roads.
“I’m glad people are staying in, because it’s very treacherous here,” Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts said.
That’s a good thing because, according to North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, there’s only so much authorities can do, given the slick mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain blanketing the state.
He said the bad weather already has caused at least three deaths. It has also forced the postponement of hundreds of events – including NBA games in Philadelphia and Washington, plus an NHL contest in the nation’s capital, as well as a rally for the Carolina Panthers ahead of their NFC professional football championship in Charlotte. Some fans from Arizona, the home of the Panthers’ foe, flew out early to make Sunday’s title contest, AZ Central reported.
But McCrory predicted a good outcome for his home team, which practiced Friday in the snow: “I don’t anticipate anything stopping the Carolina Panthers from getting to the Super Bowl,” the governor said.
‘Hardest snowstorm’ in memory in Virginia
As the winter storm moves north, snow becomes more and more of a concern.
In Virginia, state government offices and schools shut down ahead of the storm. Gov. Terry McAuliffe told CNN on Friday morning that some 25,000 personnel with 13,000 pieces of equipment, 650,000 tons of salt and 2 million gallons of liquid salt are positioned strategically around the state.
“I’m very concerned about Northern Virginia,” said McAuliffe, who indicated he could shut down Interstate 81, which runs through the middle of the state. “We’re looking at anywhere from 1 to 3 feet of snow.”
The governor also expressed concerns about people in rural areas and the elderly, saying helping them will be part of the mission for the 500 National Guard members he’s activated for the storm.
From her home just outside of Lynchburg, Tracy Batwinas said the storm, coming after what’s been a mild winter, has jostled many people. Her husband had to circle many times to get a parking spot outside a local Kroger grocery store, and once he got inside, he found that staples like eggs, bread, milk and more had been cleared off the shelves.
By 9 a.m., snow was coming down fast – “the hardest snowstorm that I can remember ever seeing,” said Batwinas, 53, who was born and raised in Virginia. Still, while many are worried, she’s looking forward to “a play date” with her husband of four years and their two golden retrievers.
The good news – besides whatever fun those not in harm’s way can have on a snow day – is that things should get better soon.
“Next week, it’s going to be in the high 40s,” McAuliffe told CNN’s “New Day.” “… We can get back to normalcy very quickly. … But please don’t get out on the roads (now) if you don’t have to.”
D.C. official: ‘Predictions going off the map’
That’s the line of the day from authorities: Stay off the roads, stay home, stay safe.
CNN’s Myers said Washington and Baltimore should see 20 to 30 inches of snow, Philadelphia could get 18 to 20 inches, and New York is looking at 8 to 10 inches. And it’ll be a double whammy when combined with the powerful winds. None of it will pile up evenly, though, given all the wind.
Because of all this, federal agencies closed Friday. More than 6,000 flights were canceled nationwide Friday and Saturday, with United suspending flights around Washington and the Mid-Atlantic on Friday afternoon and Philadelphia International Airport nixing all flights in and out Saturday. Amtrak also announced a modified schedule in the Northeast because of the storm, and Washington said its Metrorail system would close all day Saturday and Sunday.
“We just want to go,” Andrea Levine told CNN affiliate WRIC after trying and failing to fly out early from Richmond, Virginia, to the Virgin Islands. “We just want to be on vacation.”
One saving grace, New York City emergency spokesman Frank McCarton said, is that the worst of this will happen on the weekend when there will be fewer people out.
But wherever they are, people still need power in the middle of winter. And with the weight of so much snow and ice falling at once over the weekend, “we’re concerned that we will perhaps get some collapsed roofs,” Washington, D.C., emergency management spokesman Chris Geldart told CNN.
Washington could very well break its all-time snow record. Twenty-eight inches fell in the “Knickerbocker Storm” of 1922, named after a theater that collapsed under the weight of snow, killing 100 people.
Said Geldart, “There are predictions going off the map for it.”
By Greg Botelho, Ben Brumfield, Ed Payne, Dave Hennen, Tina Burnside, Jason Hanna and Phil Gast (CNN)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners predict a major global increase in health consequences of emergencies this year due to El Niño
A young Filipino buys food from a vendor on a flooded street in Malabon, north of Manila, Philippines, 08 July 2015. According to the Philippines State weather forecast, heavy rainfall is expected in Metro Manila and nearby provinces due to an enhanced Southwest Monsoon and Tropical Storm Linfa, Typhoon Chan-hom and Typhoon Nangka which are lining up across the Pacific Ocean. Photo credit: EPA/FRANCIS R MALASIG
El Niño is a warming of the central to eastern tropical Pacific Ocean which affects rainfall patterns and temperatures in many parts of the world but most intensely in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America which are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards. Typically, some places receive much more rain than normal while others receive much less.
“From Ethiopia to Haiti to Papua New Guinea, we are seeing the damage from El Niño, and we believe the impact on public health is likely to continue throughout 2016, even after El Niño winds down,” said Dr Richard Brennan, Director of WHO’s Emergency Risk Management & Humanitarian Response Department. “To prevent unnecessary deaths and illnesses, governments must invest now in strengthening their preparedness and response efforts.”
According to a new report by WHO, severe drought, flooding, heavy rains and temperature rises are all known effects of El Niño that can lead to food insecurity and malnutrition, disease outbreaks, acute water shortages, and disruption of health services. The health implications are usually more intense in developing countries with fewer capacities to reduce the health consequences. The current El Niño from 2015 to 2016 is predicted to be the worst in recent years, and comparable to the El Niño in 1997-1998 which had major health consequences worldwide. In Eastern Africa, as a result of the El Niño in 1997-1998, WHO found that rainfall patterns were unusually heavy and led to serious flooding and major outbreaks of malaria, cholera and Rift Valley Fever.
Based on the latest UN figures, the report estimates 60 million people will be impacted by El Niño this year with many suffering health consequences. Thus far, requests for financial support by seven high-risk countries (Ethiopia, Lesotho, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda) facing the health costs of El Niño have reached US$ 76 million. WHO expects more countries will seek financial support to respond to El Niño effectively. Part of the response will be to provide additional health services to those in need, such as increased surveillance and emergency vaccination. Immediate needs also require funds to provide treatments for severely malnourished children in many countries, such as Ethiopia.
Different impacts across the world
While adverse weather effects of El Niño are expected to peak in January 2016 and wind down by April, the health impacts will last throughout 2016.
“It could take years to recover without an adequate, efficient and timely preparedness and response to El Niño,” said Dr Brennan.
El Niño is causing heavy rains and flooding in Eastern Africa with an associated risk that a recent cholera epidemic of more than 12 000 reported cases in Tanzania will spread and other countries will experience disease outbreaks. The Tanzanian cholera outbreak is the largest since 1997-1998, which had over 40 000 reported cases.
In the Horn of Africa, the devastating drought which has affected 22 million people has been followed by unusually heavy rains with a higher risk of vector borne-disease such as malaria, and outbreaks of other communicable diseases including measles and cholera. Populations with high rates of malnutrition are more susceptible to these types of diseases.
Extreme drought and acute water shortages affecting millions of people in south western Pacific, Central America and southern Africa will extend into the first half of 2016 leading to increased malnutrition and diarrheal diseases. For example, in Central America 4.2 million people are currently affected by drought. The poorest, most affected households may be severely food insecure with increased malnutrition until the next harvest in August 2016.
Following the severe flooding in Paraguay in December which led to evacuations of more than 100 000 people, wetter conditions in South America are expected to cause intense flooding in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia with increased incidence of vector-borne diseases, respiratory infections and damage to health facilities with impacts to last well into 2016.
Health effects can be prevented
WHO’s report notes that important steps can be taken to prevent and reduce the health effects of El Niño, including: disease surveillance; controlling the transmission of diseases (e.g. vaccinations) and the vectors that spread diseases; mobilizing communities to promote health and hygiene practices; improving water and sanitation services; strengthening logistics and medical supply chains; providing emergency medical care and maintaining access to health services; and effective coordination of preparedness and response measures.
WHO and partners supporting countries in their preparedness and response to El Niño
WHO and partners are working closely to support governments and the health sector in their preparedness and response for El Niño. To support national emergency measures in many countries, WHO has deployed specialised health emergency and technical personnel to Ethiopia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Tanzania and several Pacific Islands. WHO and health sector partners have provided inputs to government and UN interagency planning and coordination for El Niño at national level, including in Ecuador, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
In addition, WHO has actively worked with countries and donors in other ways, including, information management and health risk assessments, as well as engagement with national meteorological agencies for detailed updates on rainfall observed as well as more localised predictions.
UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on Thursday (January 21, 2016) at a Plenary Session (titled: “The New Climate and Development Imperative”) of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, invited world leaders to endorse the Paris Agreement, an agreement within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) governing carbon dioxide reduction measures from 2020
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
Thank you, President Kim, Distinguished panelists, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to join you today. I thank Professor Klaus Schwab and his team for bringing us together.
Last year, I came to Davos seeking your support for an ambitious agenda to transform the global economy, bring new opportunities to billions of people, and leave a healthier planet for future generations.
Now I can say: we have delivered with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
The only challenge greater than agreement on these plans is what we have to do next: namely carry them out. That’s why we are here today.
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Four days ago, I was in Abu Dhabi for the World Future Energy Summit, where they showcased young innovators.
One group of high school students in Somalia is working on solar panels. By video, one of the young women pointed to a grassy area. She said, “This is where I will put the solar panels – and it is where my future begins.”
On that patch of grass, you see the link between climate and development.
We need to scale up sustainable energy sources, especially in the developing world.
The SDGs and climate change must go together.
The Paris Agreement will reinforce climate action and make important contributions to realising the Sustainable Development Goals.
Climate change undermines development gains.
Traditional development models exacerbated the problem.
Now, we have a holistic approach.
The SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) commit countries to moving towards development models that are more sustainable, protecting the environment and addressing climate change.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Another nexus between climate and development is disaster risk reduction.
All countries have to be concerned about natural disasters. A few years ago, the UN Headquarters in New York was flooded by Hurricane Sandy.
Right near this Forum, snow and avalanche experts work are developing new flood prediction models that reflect the changing climate.
Around the world, more and more people understand that climate resilience supports progress.
Trillions of dollars will be invested in infrastructure in the coming years.
Governments and the private sector must to align their investment and infrastructure decisions with the goal to limit temperature rise well below 2 degrees, even 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Paris Agreement gives the private sector an unprecedented opportunity to create clean energy, climate resilient economies.
Governments have agreed on transparent rules of the road to monitor progress, enhance accountability and foster a race to the top of climate ambition.
They also endorsed the use of market mechanisms to spur the growth of carbon pricing.
The direction of travel is clear. Five steps will move us forward.
First, national climate plans must urgently be converted into bankable investment strategies and projects.
Second, we must generate sufficient financing for developing countries to bypass fossil fuels and meet high energy demands with low-carbon sources.
Third, we need greater attention and resources for climate resilience.
That is why I launched a new Climate Resilience Initiative in Paris called A2R – to anticipate risks, absorb shocks and adapt development approaches.
Fourth, we need to rapidly increase climate actions at every level.
I will work to help strengthen the action agenda and public-private partnerships.
Fifth, governments must quickly ratify the Paris Agreement. I am inviting all world leaders to a signing ceremony at United Nations Headquarters on April 22nd. That will be the best possible way to celebrate Mother Earth Day.
Everyone here can take at least one of these steps – and so can billions of other people.
Let us do our part – and empower them for our common future.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has assured that the Federal Government will not regulate online publications in the country, saying the publishers are responsible enough to regulate themselves.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
The Minister gave the assurance on Friday (January 22, 2016) in Lagos when he met with members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP), in continuation of his ongoing consultation with key stakeholders in the information and culture sector.
He, however, told the publishers to ensure that they maintain their credibility, saying: ”If the online publications suffer credibility problems, they stand the risk of losing the confidence of their readers and the advertisers who provide the lifeblood for the publications’ survival.”
Alhaji Mohammed said while the number of online publications is bound to grow in the days ahead, only the credible ones will continue to enjoy patronage, either from the readers or from the advertisers.
He said it was in the interest of government that online publications continue to grow in number ”because the more the number of such online publications, the easier it becomes to bridge the information gap between the government and the governed, and the easier it becomes for the government to carry the citizens along in the formulation and implementation of policies that touch on their lives”.
The Minister promised that the Federal Government would patronise the online publications through advertisement placements, saying: ”All we ask for, in return, is that you provide accurate information to the people, and avoid sensationalism and partisanship.”
He sought the publishers’ support to ensure the success of the various campaigns that have either been launched or are about to be launched by the Federal Government.
”The National Security Awareness Campaign, aimed at rallying the support of Nigerians for the war on terror, is ongoing. Also, the National Sensitisation Campaign against Corruption was formally launched in Abuja on Monday, and it is aimed at rallying Nigerians against the cankerworm of corruption which has eaten deep into the fabric of our society. We are also preparing to launch a National Re-orientation Campaign, which is tagged ‘Change Begins With Me’, to achieve a paradigm shift in the way we do things,” Alhaji Mohammed said.
Describing the war against corruption as one of the cardinal programmes of the Buhari Administration, he said: ”Some have said the government is dwelling too much on the war against corruption to the detriment of other areas of governance. Our response to that is that, indeed, there is nothing like dwelling too much on this war, which is a war of survival for our nation.
”The situation is grim, very grim indeed, as far as corruption is concerned. That is why the Federal Government is embarking on this sensitisation campaign. Our approach is not to vilify anyone but to use facts and figures to give Nigerians a sense of the cost of corruption.”
The Minister blamed corruption for the fact that while the country’s budget had grown consistently from just over N900 billion in 1999 to over N6 trillion in 2016, poverty has also grown almost in direct proportion.
”The simple reason is that appropriated funds have ended up in the pockets of a few,” he said.
Giving a comparative analysis of the number of those who benefitted from the funds allegedly collected from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and funds allocated for the 2015 Zonal Intervention Projects, Alhaji Mohammed said ”The amount received by 21 individuals and companies from ONSA is more than the 2015 Zonal Intervention Project budget by N2.829 billion!
”Whereas the sum of N51.829 billion was appropriated for 1,278 projects in the Zonal Intervention Projects for 2015, a total of 21 individuals and companies benefited from the Dasukigate to the tune of N54.659 billion as we know so far.
”The implication, therefore, is that the amount received by 21 individuals and companies is more than the 2015 Zonal Intervention Project budget by N2.829 billion! Furthermore, the value of what beneficiaries of Dasukigate contributed to development is zero, compared to how the lives of Nigerians would have been transformed, poverty reduced and livelihoods improved by the Zonal Intervention Projects which would have cost N2.829 billion less than Dasukigate.”
He appealed to GOCOP to support the war against corruption by ensuring that Nigerians are well informed about the evils of corruption, saying: ”This is not Buhari’s war. This is not APC’s war. This is Nigeria’s war and failure is not an option.”
To date, over 25,000 children in Flint, Michigan, have been exposed to lead contamination from the city’s water supply. How did the water get that way?
Protesters hold up jugs of discolored water outside the Farmers Market in Flint, marking the one-year anniversary of the city switching from using Detroit water to Flint River water. Photo credit: Sam Owens/AP
Lee-Anne Walters and her family in Flint, Michigan, drank water laced with hazardous levels of lead contamination for nearly eight months, beginning in the spring of 2014.
The water was brown. Her three-year-old son Gavin broke out in a rash every time he had any contact with the water in their home. He would have clear water lines on his body after getting out of the bath. He stopped growing. The whole family broke out in rashes five times, and doctors treated them for scabies.
On April 2, 2015, Gavin was diagnosed with lead poisoning. Today he is one of at least 27,000 children in the city who have been exposed to lead contamination, according to local news sources.
Even though the Walters had installed plastic plumbing in their home, lead from the city’s aging potable water distribution system was seeping into the drinking water. And cities all across the US are equally vulnerable.
In an attempt to save money, Flint stopped sourcing drinking water from Detroit on April 25, 2014, switching instead to the Flint River. In December, Walters alerted city and state officials to the presence of lead in her home water supply. When they failed to take decisive action, she turned to Marc Edwards, a renowned expert on water treatment and corrosion at Virginia Tech, whose prior research forced the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to acknowledge publishing a “scientifically indefensible” report about Washington DC’s compromised municipal water supply.
“We coordinated a very thorough sampling of the water in her home,” Edwards told the Guardian. “And that data showed the worst example of lead and water contamination we’ve encountered in 25 years.”
Walters says she recorded an average lead concentration level of 2,000 ppb (parts per billion); the highest level she recorded was 13,200 ppb. These levels are more than 200-1,300 times higher than World Health Organisation (WHO) standards of 10ppb, and some exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criterion for “hazardous waste” of 5,000 ppb, according to Edwards.
Awarded $50,000 by the National Science Foundation to further investigate Flint’s water distribution system, Edwards found that chloride concentrations in the city’s drinking water had soared from 11.4 mg/l to 92 mg/l after switching to the Flint River. He said high chloride levels corrode plumbing infrastructure, causing lead particles to separate from the pipe and leach into the water.
This could have been prevented if, in accordance with the federal Lead and Copper Rule passed in July 1998, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) insisted on implementing a corrosion control system when they switched their water source.
The MDEQ never required Flint to install corrosion control systems, nor did it set water quality parameters for the new Flint River source water, according to a September post on the Flint Water Study website run by Edwards and others.
Edwards wrote that after the switch to the Flint River water, the corrosiveness level as measured by the Larson Iron Corrosion Index rose from “0.54 (low corrosion) to 2.3 (very high corrosion) and the chloride to sulphate mass ratio (CSMR) index for lead corrosion increased from 0.45 (low corrosion) to 1.6 (very high corrosion)”.
MDEQ’s failure to require a corrosion inhibitor is what created the Flint water crisis in the first place, according to Edwards. In an attempt to save even more money after the switch, he says, the city managers opted not to install one voluntarily.
In a statement released in October, MDEQ director Dan Wyant acknowledged the state’s error. “It recently has become clear that our drinking water program staff made a mistake while working with the City of Flint,” he said. “Simply stated, staff employed a federal protocol they believed was appropriate, and it was not. The water testing steps followed would have been correct for a city less than 50,000 people, but not for a city of nearly 100,000.”
The main contributor of the Flint River’s high chloride concentrations, according to Edwards, is road salt combined with the natural salt content of the river and the additional chloride the city uses to clean the water. “In US cities where ice is a problem in winter, the average road salt use per person per year is 135 pounds,” he says. “It’s incredible. In many northeastern cities because of road salt use, salt content in rivers has doubled in the last 20 years.”
Dr Carla Koretsky, professor of aqueous geochemistry and biochemistry at Western Michigan University, has spent the last six years studying the effects of road salt on urban lake biochemistry.
“There’s been a tremendous increase in the use of salt across the northern US and essentially globally as well. We’re building more roads and we’re salting more,” she says. “What happens when you put salt on the ground – it dissolves and goes into the surface water and eventually that gets channeled into Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes.”
It is partly for this reason, Koretsky notes, using sand is not necessarily an ideal alternative to road salt. Not only do sand particles cause respiratory problems in people, but it also causes turbidity as it moves through the water cycle.
Currently the US does not consider chloride to be a pollutant. Koretsky notes the EPA only monitors the ambient or aesthetic quality of chloride, because it is not considered dangerous to human health.
Canada, on the other hand, lists road salts on the second Priority Substances List (PSL2). Canada’s 1999 Environmental Protection Act deems road salts “toxic” based on available data: “[Road salts] may have an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity or that constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends.”
While Koretsky has not specifically studied the Flint River, she notes because rivers have a faster water flow than lakes, chloride concentrations are more easily diluted. “Especially if you stop putting salt in, the river is going to flush it out pretty quickly,” she says.
With plenty of precipitation and fresh water moving into shallow groundwater, Korestsky estimates salt concentrations could probably be cleared out in a matter of decades – if the source of the salt is cut off.
The executive director of the Flint River Watershed Coalition in Michigan, Rebecca Fedewa, says despite national furor over the city’s contaminated water, the Flint is a thriving, vibrant river system.
She maintains preliminary results of recent tests show the Flint River is well within healthy chloride concentrations, though that research is not yet complete. She says rather than look to the river for answers, we should be looking to the officials responsible for botching the water treatment process.
“Flint has been hit by one thing or another,” Fedewa says. “It’s a really resilient community and people love their city. This is just another tough thing for people to have to deal with, and they shouldn’t have to.
This is really (about) the local state agencies dropping the ball. It’s not fair for the locals who are having to deal with it, and it’s not fair for the river to take the brunt.”
Walters will be heading to Washington DC in late January to talk to the EPA’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water.
“What happened in Flint has the potential to happen throughout the US,” she says. “And it has to be stopped.”
Plastic litter in the world’s oceans is projected to outweigh fish by 2050, according to new documents released by the World Economic Forum. Because global use of plastic has increased twentyfold in the past 50 years – and that number will likely double again in the next 20 years – the current pace will put the tonnage of litter in the ocean ahead of marine life.
A water body littered with plastic and other waste product. Photo credit: Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters
There is a lot of plastic in the world’s oceans.
It coagulates into great floating “garbage patches” that cover large swaths of the Pacific. It washes up on urban beaches and remote islands, tossed about in the waves and transported across incredible distances before arriving, unwanted, back on land. It has wound up in the stomachs of more than half the world’s sea turtles and nearly all of its marine birds, studies say. And if it was bagged up and arranged across all of the world’s shorelines, we could build a veritable plastic barricade between ourselves and the sea.
But that quantity pales in comparison with the amount that the World Economic Forum expects will be floating into the oceans by the middle of the century.
If we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050, the nonprofit foundation said in a report Tuesday.
According to the report, worldwide use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past 50 years, and it is expected to double again in the next 20 years. By 2050, we’ll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014.
Meanwhile, humans do a terrible job of making sure those products are reused or otherwise disposed of: About a third of all plastics produced escape collection systems, only to wind up floating in the sea or the stomach of some unsuspecting bird. That amounts to about 8 million metric tons a year – or, as Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia put it to The Washington Post in February, “Five bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world.”
The report came a day before the start of the glitzy annual meeting arranged by the World Economic Forum to discuss the global economy. This year’s meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is centered on what the WEF terms “the fourth industrial revolution” – the boom in high-tech areas like robotics and biotechnology – and its effect on the widening gulf between the wealthy and the world’s poor.
But the plastic situation – fairly low-tech and more than a century old at this point – is a reminder that we still haven’t quite gotten the better of some of the problems left over from the first few “industrial revolutions.”
According to the report, more than 70 percent of the plastic we produce is either put in a landfill or lost to the world’s waterways and other infrastructure. Plastic production accounts for 6 percent of global oil consumption (a number that will hit 20 percent in 2050) and 1 percent of the global carbon budget (the maximum amount of emissions the world can produce to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius). In 2050, the report says, we’ll be spending 15 percent of our carbon budget on soda bottles, plastic grocery bags and the like.
Once it gets washed into waterways, the damage caused by plastics’ presence costs about $13 billion annually in losses for the tourism, shipping and fishing industries. It disrupts marine ecosystems and threatens food security for people who depend on subsistence fishing.
Besides which, all that plastic in the water isn’t too great for the animals trying to live there.
The data in the report comes from interviews with more than 180 experts and analysis of some 200 studies on “the plastic economy.”
California state officials will look into whether or not Exxon Mobil Corp. repeatedly lied to the public about what it knew about global warming and what it told investors. California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris says she will investigate whether the dishonesty amounts to securities fraud or the violation of environmental law.
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris is investigating whether Exxon Mobil Corp. repeatedly lied to the public and its shareholders about the risk to its business from climate change — and whether such actions could amount to securities fraud and violations of environmental laws.
Harris’ office is reviewing what Exxon Mobil knew about global warming and what the company told investors, a person close to the investigation said.
The move follows published reports, based on internal company documents, suggesting that during the 1980s and 1990s the company, then known as Exxon, used climate research as part of its planning and other business practices but simultaneously argued publicly that climate-change science was not clear cut.
Shortly after the news reports, Harris’ office launched the investigation in response to the findings, the person said. New York’s attorney general also is investigating the oil company as a result of the published reports.
Exxon Mobil did not respond to several requests for comment made by telephone and email.
A spokesman for Harris declined to confirm the investigation.
U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who has called on federal authorities to investigate Exxon Mobil, praised Harris’ decision.
Lieu said the investigation means that any damages won from Exxon Mobil could benefit Californians.
“I commend … Harris for taking this action,” he said.
Lieu said he has sent letters to U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission calling for federal investigations of securities fraud and violations of racketeering, consumer protection, truth in advertising, public health, shareholder protection or other laws.
Lieu said he hopes the decision by Harris, representing a state with the eighth-largest economy in the world, will prompt other states and the Justice Department to investigate.
“I think this action will be taken very seriously by Exxon Mobil,” Lieu said.
Richard Keil, an Exxon Mobil spokesman, previously said that the company denies any wrongdoing in regard to the climate-change reports.
“We unequivocally reject allegations that Exxon Mobil suppressed climate change research contained in media reports,” Keil said in a statement issued in response to the letters sent in October by Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord). Keil issued a statement with the same quote in early November when the New York investigation became public.
Exxon Mobil continues to face calls from several current and former U.S. lawmakers for criminal investigations based on the media reports. They include Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Al Gore.
It is unclear what approach Harris intends to take in California’s investigation.
Harris’ office is casting a wide net and looking at a variety of issues, according to the person familiar with the matter.
Legal experts say the SEC requires that companies disclose the risks of climate change to their business operations but that the agency has taken almost no action to enforce it.
The moves by California and New York are seen as a step to fill that void.
Exxon Mobil already has received a subpoena for documents dating from 1977 from the office of Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general.
Schneiderman has at his disposal New York’s Martin Act, a law that gives the state’s attorney general broad power to prosecute companies for financial fraud.
Unlike federal securities law, the New York statute does not require the state to prove that a company intended to defraud — only that it misrepresented relevant information or withheld it from investors.
The law applies to any company doing business in the state.
The Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on the Army, Funke Adedoyin, has described the Jebba-Mokwa Road as a national disaster. She said the road needed urgent reconstruction.
Funke Adedoyin
Adedoyin disclosed this in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on Wednesday when she led a delegation of the Committee on the Army on a courtesy call on the Kwara State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed, at the Government House.
The federal lawmaker said the deplorable state of the road had caused loss of lives and properties as it is a major link road between the Northern and Southern parts of the country.
Princess Adedoyin promised to liaise with the House of Representatives Committee on Works on how to ensure that the road receives urgent Federal Government attention to halt carnage on it.
The House Committee Deputy Chair commended the state government for what she called the excellent relationship between it and the Army and other security forces.
She said the 22 Armoured Brigade Cantonment at Sobi in Ilorin occupies a strategic position in its operations, which covers Kwara State and parts of the neighbouring state of Niger.
Responding, Ahmed said he had made several presentations at the National Economic Council and other fora of the Federal Government on the need for reconstruction of the Jebba-Mokwa Road.
Ahmed promised greater partnership with the Nigeria Army and other security agencies on security in the state.
He said the nation must tackle its security challenges in parts of the country.
The governor commended the members of the House of Representatives on the Army for their active disposition to the promotion of the welfare of the Nigerian Army.
