Latest news with #watercrisis
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Vandiver residents say Alabama Power drilling project spilled thousands of gallons of grout into woods
VANDIVER, Ala. (WIAT) — A group of homeowners who say Alabama Power is responsible for leaving them without running water for six months have a new reason to be concerned. Tommy Fish owns property about a quarter mile above the site of the Alabama Power fiber optic drilling project that he says struck an aquafer, draining his well. He wasn't the only one impacted by the drilling project. Almost everyone on the street he lives on has also lost water in their wells. Fish and his neighbors have taken Alabama power to court over the loss of water. Earlier this year, lawyers for Alabama Power stated in court that the only possible solution was to finish the drilling project and backfill the hole with grout. Last week, Fish discovered something that he says is a direct result of this solution. 'We have discovered that there have been three eruptions, and thousands of pounds of grout have spilled out, creating yet another environmental catastrophe,' Fish said. Fish says he's worried about the environmental impacts that could be caused by the grout spilling, but he says there's also another concern. 'This is the grout material the subcontractor used. Also, after this was completed, we also lost two more residents on Lakeview Circle. Their water went dry after they completed their grout filling,' he explained. 1 killed in Birmingham crash Bruce Romeo, a lawyer representing Fish and his neighbors, says the latest he's heard from Alabama power about a solution to the ongoing problem is drilling new wells. He says, with the discovery of the grout spilling, he's not confident that the proposed solution will work. 'We know that, even after there was a quote unquote fix on this, there were additional depletions. So, even after, if they dig new wells, are they just depleting as well even if they go deeper,' Romeo said. Alabama Power says they currently have no comment on the situation. This group of residents will see Alabama Power in court on Tuesday at 11 a.m. CBS 42 will continue to follow this story and bring you updates on air and online. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Daily Mail
21 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
England's yellow and parched land: How soaring immigration and a 30-year failure to build reservoirs could trigger drinking water crisis
Just over 200 years ago, William Blake wrote of England's 'great and pleasant land' in the poem that would later be set to music as the hymn Jerusalem. Fast forward to the 21st century and the green and pleasant land, and its people, are in danger of becoming parched. This week ministers admitted that the country could run out of drinking water within 10 years as they unveiled plans to fast-track the building of two new reservoirs. Astonishingly, they will be the first new man-made bodies of water created for human consumption in more than three decades. There are fears that, without action, demand for drinking water could outstrip supply by the mid-2030s due to rapid population growth, crumbling assets, Nimby opposition and a warming climate. And that population growth is set to be fuelled by immigration. The UK population is projected to reach 72.5 million by mid-2032, up 4.9 million from 67.6 million in mid-2022, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The jump of 4.9 million is projected to be driven almost entirely by net migration, with natural change – the difference between births and deaths – projected to be around zero due to the aging population. Beyond 2032, the population is projected to continue to grow and pass 75 million in 2041. Writing for Mail Online today, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: 'Water doesn't lie. It's a basic test of whether a country can support the people in it, and Britain is failing that test because Labour refuses to confront reality. 'The only serious solution is to tackle immigration head-on. 'We cannot keep adding the pressure and pretending the system will hold. We cannot build our way out of a problem we refuse to name. Until we slash migration numbers, the shortages will only get worse.' Last week, official figures showed net migration to the UK had halved to 431,000 last year compared with 860,000 across January to December 2023. This was after reaching a record high of 906,000 in the 12 months to June 2023. But although net migration is predicted to continue to fall in the years to come, the home-grown population is predicted to also shrink, as deaths outweigh births. It means that while the rate of population growth may slow, it is expected to inexorably climb. While politicians have long claimed immigration will have an impact on services such as housing, schools and the NHS, where everyone will get their drinking water has remained largely out of the spotlight until now. In England this year, the North West and North East both saw their driest start to a calendar year since 1929, while the country as a whole endured its driest February to April period since 1956. On Thursday The Environment Agency (EA) said Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire, and Cumbria and Lancashire, moved from 'prolonged dry weather' to 'drought' status. Water companies in England have committed to bringing new reservoirs online, in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Kent, East Sussex and the West Midlands, with the potential to supply 670 million litres of extra water per day. But they are not expected to be ready until 2050. The Fen Reservoir project between Chatteris and March in Cambridgeshire is set to supply 87 million litres a day to 250,000 homes, and to be completed in 2036. The Lincolnshire reservoir south of Sleaford would provide up to 166 million litres a day for up to 500,000 homes, operational by 2040. It is the latter two that ministers have now designated as 'nationally significant', taking planning responsibility out of the hands of local politicians in order to streamline and fast-track them. Speaking to Times Radio Environment Minister Emma Hardy said: 'We've been in an infrastructure crisis because we haven't built the reservoirs that we need. 'In fact we built no reservoirs for the past 30 years. If we don't take action we are going to be running out of the drinking water that we need by the mid-2030s. 'This is why the Government's taking unprecedented action to make these reservoir projects... into projects that are nationally significant projects. 'This means the planning process is taken away from the local authority. The power is put into the hands of the Secretary of State... to make sure that we deliver them. 'It means that we can unlock tens of thousands of new homes and we can make sure that everybody has the drinking water that they desperately need.' A lack of water supplies is also holding back the construction of thousands of homes in parts of the country such as Cambridge, officials have warned. Labour has a target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2029. But demands from migrant-fueled population growth is not the only problem. Last year a report by the Environment Agency found that almost a fifth (19 per cent) of water supplies are lost by water companies before reaching customers' taps. This figure was down 10 percentage points since 2018 but the agency said By 2050, in order to support a growing population, the economy, food production and protect the environment, an extra five billion litres of water will be needed every day. Andy Brown, its water regulation manager, said: 'Drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon. As we see more impacts from climate change heavier rainfall and drier summers will become more frequent. This poses an enormous challenge over the next few decades. Prof Hayley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at the University of Newcastle, said the dry and drought conditions the UK was experiencing were consistent with what was expected from climate models, especially in the summer months. 'With global warming we expect more prolonged and intense droughts and heatwaves punctuated by more intense rainfall, possibly causing flash floods. 'In recent years, we have experienced more of these atmospheric blocks, causing record heat and persistent drought,' she said. 'We are a northern European nation not short of rain ... this should be a wake-up call for the government, says Chris Philp This week, ministers admitted that parts of Britain could run out of drinking water within a decade. Let that sink in. We are a northern European nation not short of rain. We are certainly not an arid and sandy desert land. Yet apparently we can't guarantee water will come out of the tap. This should be a wake-up call for the government. And we know what drives demand for water: people do. So it is very relevant that for decades the British people have demanded, and politicians have promised, dramatically lower immigration. But for decades, successive governments, including the last one, have failed to deliver that. That failure has undermined faith and trust in democracy itself. It is now time to actually deliver what the public want. Under new leadership, the Conservative Party has recently brought forward a number of serious, credible and detailed plans to tackle immigration - all of which Labour voted against in Parliament in the past few weeks. While homes go unbuilt, schools burst at the seams, and A&Es overflow, Labour's answer is to import more people and deny there's even a problem. The Home Secretary admitted Labour's plans will only bring down net migration by microscopic 50,000 a year - nowhere near enough of a reduction. It is no surprise the Labour Government is failing to take action – Starmer once absurdly claimed immigration puts no strain on public services. Tell that to the families in waiting for a doctor's appointment, to the councillors facing impossible housing targets, or to the water companies now forced to warn that we may not have enough to go round. The government's target of building 300,000 homes per year would only cover net migration at 170,000 per year. Instead, Labour's housebuilding target could result in five out of seven new homes going to migrants. What about the British people who want to get on the housing ladder? Naturally, more people means more demand for water. Every person who arrives needs showers, sinks, sanitation. The more pressure we put on the network, the faster it fails, and the harder it becomes to plan or build for the future. And Labour's solution has not been to tackle the influx but rather to crush any local objections and build two giant reservoirs for 10 and 15 years' time. When the Conservatives recently brought forward a plan to slash immigration Labour torpedoed it using their huge Parliamentary majority. We put forward measures to implement automatic deportations of foreign criminals and illegal migrants; to end the human rights madness that stops us controlling our borders; and to create a binding annual cap on migration which is much, much lower than the numbers we have seen in recent years. Water doesn't lie. It's a basic test of whether a country can support the people in it, and Britain is failing that test because Labour refuses to confront reality. The only serious solution is to tackle immigration head-on. We cannot keep adding the pressure and pretending the system will hold. We cannot build our way out of a problem we refuse to name. Until we slash migration numbers, the shortages will only get worse.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Colorado River Basin has lost as much groundwater as the entire volume of Lake Mead
Deep below the surface of the ground in one of the driest parts of the country, there is a looming problem: The water is running out — but not the kind that fills lakes, streams and reservoirs. The amount of groundwater that has been pumped out of the Colorado River Basin since 2003 is enough to fill Lake Mead, researchers report in a study published earlier this week. Most of that water was used to irrigate fields of alfalfa and vegetables grown in the desert Southwest. No one knows exactly how much is left, but the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows an alarming rate of withdrawal of a vital water source for a region that could also see its supply of Colorado River water shrink. 'We're using it faster and faster,' said Jay Famiglietti, an Arizona State University professor and the study's senior author. In the past two decades, groundwater basins – or large, underground aquifers – lost more than twice the amount of water that was taken out of major surface reservoirs, Famiglietti's team found, like Mead and Lake Powell, which themselves have seen water levels crash. The Arizona State University research team measured more than two decades of NASA satellite observations and used land modeling to trace how groundwater tables in the Colorado River basin were dwindling. The team focused mostly on Arizona, a state that is particularly vulnerable to future cutbacks on the Colorado River. Groundwater makes up about 35% of the total water supply for Arizona, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, who was not directly involved in the study. The study found groundwater tables in the Lower Colorado River basin, and Arizona in particular, have declined significantly in the last decade. The problem is especially pronounced in Arizona's rural areas, many of which don't have groundwater regulations, and little backup supply from rivers. With wells in rural Arizona increasingly running dry, farmers and homeowners now drill thousands of feet into the ground to access water. Scientists don't know exactly how much groundwater is left in Arizona, Famiglietti added, but the signs are troubling. 'We have seen dry stream beds for decades,' he said. 'That's an indication that the connection between groundwater and rivers has been lost.' Some land has also begun to cave in, with deep fissures forming in parts of the state as ground water has been pumped out. This is not unique to Arizona, Famiglietti said, with similar signs of disappearing groundwater happening in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley in California. Porter said the results illuminate the magnitude of the groundwater crisis in the Southwest, which is particularly helpful for state officials and lawmakers. 'There are a lot of people who aren't sure if we have a serious situation with respect to groundwater, because groundwater is hidden,' Porter said. 'The value of the study is that it really adds a lot of information to the picture.' Groundwater may be hidden, but scientists know with relative certainty that once it is pumped out, it won't be able to recharge within our lifetimes. Much of it was deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. 'It takes geologic time' to refill these deep aquifers — meaning thousands of years — 'and we as humans have more or less been burning through it in the last over the last century,' Famiglietti said. Famiglietti warned the groundwater situation could worsen if the state's allocation of Colorado River water is further decreased, a decision that could be made in the next two years. If Arizona's Colorado River water allocation was cut to zero, 'we could burn through the available groundwater in 50 years,' Famiglietti said. 'We're talking about decades. That's scary. No one wants that to happen.' But Porter pushed back on that characterization, pointing out that Arizona cities have another stable water supply—the Salt River. Porter added cities like Phoenix and Tucson are storing groundwater and have regulations designed to keep it from running out. Arizona has had a groundwater management law in place since 1980. 'We're not expecting that the whole state would turn to groundwater,' Porter said. Famiglietti said he hopes the study will prompt discussions over how to more effectively manage groundwater use in the region, especially from agriculture, which uses the lion's share of water. Much of Arizona's crops are exported, either to other states or, as is the case with alfalfa, internationally. Famiglietti called it the 'absolutely biggest' choice that policymakers will have to decide. 'Agriculture just uses so much water,' Famiglietti said. 'Are we going to plan to continue to grow as much food? Are we losing food that's important for the state, that's important for the country, or is it alfalfa that's being shipped to Saudi Arabia?'
CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
The Colorado River Basin has lost as much groundwater as the entire volume of Lake Mead
Deep below the surface of the ground in one of the driest parts of the country, there is a looming problem: The water is running out — but not the kind that fills lakes, streams and reservoirs. The amount of groundwater that has been pumped out of the Colorado River Basin since 2003 is enough to fill Lake Mead, researchers report in a study published earlier this week. Most of that water was used to irrigate fields of alfalfa and vegetables grown in the desert Southwest. No one knows exactly how much is left, but the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, shows an alarming rate of withdrawal of a vital water source for a region that could also see its supply of Colorado River water shrink. 'We're using it faster and faster,' said Jay Famiglietti, an Arizona State University professor and the study's senior author. In the past two decades, groundwater basins – or large, underground aquifers – lost more than twice the amount of water that was taken out of major surface reservoirs, Famiglietti's team found, like Mead and Lake Powell, which themselves have seen water levels crash. The Arizona State University research team measured more than two decades of NASA satellite observations and used land modeling to trace how groundwater tables in the Colorado River basin were dwindling. The team focused mostly on Arizona, a state that is particularly vulnerable to future cutbacks on the Colorado River. Groundwater makes up about 35% of the total water supply for Arizona, said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, who was not directly involved in the study. The study found groundwater tables in the Lower Colorado River basin, and Arizona in particular, have declined significantly in the last decade. The problem is especially pronounced in Arizona's rural areas, many of which don't have groundwater regulations, and little backup supply from rivers. With wells in rural Arizona increasingly running dry, farmers and homeowners now drill thousands of feet into the ground to access water. Scientists don't know exactly how much groundwater is left in Arizona, Famiglietti added, but the signs are troubling. 'We have seen dry stream beds for decades,' he said. 'That's an indication that the connection between groundwater and rivers has been lost.' Some land has also begun to cave in, with deep fissures forming in parts of the state as ground water has been pumped out. This is not unique to Arizona, Famiglietti said, with similar signs of disappearing groundwater happening in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley in California. Porter said the results illuminate the magnitude of the groundwater crisis in the Southwest, which is particularly helpful for state officials and lawmakers. 'There are a lot of people who aren't sure if we have a serious situation with respect to groundwater, because groundwater is hidden,' Porter said. 'The value of the study is that it really adds a lot of information to the picture.' Groundwater may be hidden, but scientists know with relative certainty that once it is pumped out, it won't be able to recharge within our lifetimes. Much of it was deposited tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago. 'It takes geologic time' to refill these deep aquifers — meaning thousands of years — 'and we as humans have more or less been burning through it in the last over the last century,' Famiglietti said. Famiglietti warned the groundwater situation could worsen if the state's allocation of Colorado River water is further decreased, a decision that could be made in the next two years. If Arizona's Colorado River water allocation was cut to zero, 'we could burn through the available groundwater in 50 years,' Famiglietti said. 'We're talking about decades. That's scary. No one wants that to happen.' But Porter pushed back on that characterization, pointing out that Arizona cities have another stable water supply—the Salt River. Porter added cities like Phoenix and Tucson are storing groundwater and have regulations designed to keep it from running out. Arizona has had a groundwater management law in place since 1980. 'We're not expecting that the whole state would turn to groundwater,' Porter said. Famiglietti said he hopes the study will prompt discussions over how to more effectively manage groundwater use in the region, especially from agriculture, which uses the lion's share of water. Much of Arizona's crops are exported, either to other states or, as is the case with alfalfa, internationally. Famiglietti called it the 'absolutely biggest' choice that policymakers will have to decide. 'Agriculture just uses so much water,' Famiglietti said. 'Are we going to plan to continue to grow as much food? Are we losing food that's important for the state, that's important for the country, or is it alfalfa that's being shipped to Saudi Arabia?'
RNZ News
3 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
'Going to take some time': Dargaville water supply still not fixed
The council said the line into the water treatment plant was still full of air, preventing crews from safely refilling the lines. Photo: Luigi Bertello / 123rf Some residents in Dargaville are still without water and others are being asked to use as little as possible. The Kaipara District Council repaired multiple line breaks on Friday, which had drained the town's reservoirs to critical levels . But on Saturday morning the council said the line into the water treatment plant was still full of air, preventing crews from safely refilling the lines. "The team are working to bleed it out so that water can flow smoothly and we can start treating water again," the council said in a post on its Facebook page . "The line is around 40km long and it must be done slowly to avoid pressure blowouts and damage so this is going to take some time." Meanwhile, the council asked residents to keep conserving water and reassured them the remaining water was safe to drink. "We know a few people are experiencing the water coming through the tap being a bit cloudy or murky," it said. "We are replenishing the reservoir from registered water suppliers and the movement in the tanks is stirring up the water." Some residents told RNZ their water had been cut off and the local supermarket was running out of bottled water. "We're sorry this has happened," the council said. "We have crews working nonstop and doing everything they can to get this sorted." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
