PID News

(OILPRICE.COM) — In its 2000 “Global Patterns” report, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) predicted that, by the year 2015, “nearly half the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — will live in countries which are ‘water stressed.’” According to the report, that means their populations will have less than 1,700 cubic meters each of water per year, generally considered the minimal threshold for acceptable living standards.

via Water, Not Oil Could Soon Become the World’s Greatest catalyst for Conflict | Oil Price.com.

Think you ‘own’ the water that runs off your roof into that shiny new plastic barrel you just installed beneath your downspout? Think again. Water is the new gold. — PID

(PPJ GAZETTE) — /SNIP/ … reinterpretation by the BLM of “public use”, “adequate use” and “beneficial use” have rendered seniority use as a part of property rights, null and void.  This means you have no water rights to speak of; apportioned use is not even a consideration.  Profit is all that matters and many states no longer recognize water rights as belonging to individual land regardless of what the previous statutes and laws were.

via Water rights, rainwater, water contracts and the corrupt Bureau of Land Management « The PPJ Gazette.

While the headline attributes the fish kill to a heavy downpour, we’re wondering what might be brewing underground. Note the description of the water: “A sulfur-like smell….” Hat tip to Kim for sending us the link! — PID

(MINOT DAILY NEWS) — Normally the Fourth of July weekend at Short Creek Dam is a joyous and festive occassion. It wasn’t this year.

When local Columbus Sportsmen’s Club member Shannon Burau went to Short Creek last Friday morning to mow the campground in preparation for the big weekend, he discovered what he described as a sickening scene.”It just made me ill. The whole shoreline was pretty much solid with dead fish and it was stinking like a lagoon,” said Burau. “It was just a disaster, a disaster. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

via North Dakota: Deadly downpour at Columbus — Signs of the Times News.

(STANDARD TIMES) — The ongoing water problems on Jack Grace Hill have reached a dangerous new level, going from salty and undrinkable to flammable for one family.

For years, residents on this short road at the edge of the western Bowie city limits have battled bad tasting water, rust and other factors that have forced most to use outside water for drinking and cooking.

via Undrinkable water found to be flammable » Standard-Times.

(DAILY MAIL ONLINE) — It could hardly be said to be the most dignified of send-offs.

Undertakers in Belgium plan to eschew traditional burials and cremations and start dissolving corpses instead.

The move is intended to tackle a lack of burial space and environmental concerns as 573lbs of carbon dioxide are released by each cremated corpse.

via Belgium considers proposals to dissolve bodies and flush them into sewage systems | Mail Online.

(THE GUARDIAN) — Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP’s ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted “dead zones” where fish and other marine life cannot survive.

In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as “astonishingly high” levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.

via Biologists find ‘dead zones’ around BP oil spill in Gulf | Environment | The Guardian.

(THE RAMAGE REPORT) — /SNIP/ The teleconference was hosted by the University of Georgia, which has taken the lead in academic research on the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf. UGA marine scientist Samantha Joye repeatedly stressed that oxygen is rapidly being depleted in the Gulf thanks to “tremendous” amounts of gas—about 95 percent of which is methane. To break it down, tiny microbes eat it, but they require nutrients to do so. To eat up all the gases, the microbes would need nearly five times as much oxygen as there presently is in the water.

“Once the gas is dissolved in the water there isn’t much we can do about it,” says Joye, who adds that natural diffusing and spreading will help some.

/SNIP/And while Joye praises NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for putting so many of its resources into the Gulf, she notes “I have read the reports from NOAA and I have yet to see methane measurements.”

She says “the biggest hole [in research on the disaster] is the gas data.”

via UGA SCIENTIST: TOO LITTLE RESEARCH ON GASES AT OIL DISASTER SITE IN GULF > SundayPaper.com > The Ramage Report.