Water Under Continued Stress

I like posting about water issues in the U.S. and around the world because it’s a dangerous problem that tends to fall under the radar. Few people realize how prevalent of an issue this is, and will continue to become. Frequently we hear talk of climate change affecting our futures, but current depletion of our most vital resource is proof to stop grieving for future generations. It’s happening now. 

1. Lake Cachuma, which supplies Southern California‘s Santa Barbara county with half of it’s drinking water supply, reached an all-time low of 7% capacity this summer and is predicted to be “too low to distribute” come this January. Southern California towns are in a panic of what will happen to their drinking water. There is talk of desalination efforts to convert Pacific Ocean saltwater.
2. New York‘s Rockland county is proposing to buy $5 million gallons of drinking water from New Jersey each day because water supplies are too low. New Jersey has harshly criticized the efforts worrying the effect it will have, especially considering New Jersey is experiencing its worse drought in 14 years.
3. A dangerous tidal salt front threatens drinking water in the Delaware River Basin. This salt front has reached the second closest point since Delaware’s severe drought of 1960. Talk is underway on how best to avoid contamination of the fresh water supply – declaring an emergency drought, seeking water from private reservoirs, or contacting the U.S. army to release more water into the basin.
4. The City of Muncie in Indiana was placed under a Boil Water Advisory after the city’s water supplies violated safe drinking standards. Any drinking or cooking with tap water is asked to be boiled for three minutes before use because of discovered contaminants.
5. Newburgh, New York is offering thousands of blood tests to its residents after discover a chemical reached dangerous levels in tap water supplies. This chemical “perfluorooctane sulfonate” has been linked to cancer and is used for firefighting foam. Come on people…. It’s worth noting Newburgh is a very poor city, which makes us question how environmental dangers disproportionately hurt the poor (Flint, Michigan for example!).
6. Lake Baikal in Russia has been historically known as the World’s cleanest lake. Recently the lake has been “buried under thick mats of reeking greenish-black goo” which turned out to be a very toxic algae cause by influx of untreated human sewage due to poor wastewater treatment.

Also, World Meteorological Organization Scientists have predicted that 2016 will likely be the world’s hottest year on record – breaking all of 2015’s records.

Again, I found all of this news from articles of either today or yesterday.

Attaching some pictures below…

Santa Barbara’s depleting Lake Cachuma.

Russia’s Lake Baikal toxic algae – once known as the world’s cleanest lake.