PST — Her light-green umbrella wind-twisted into uselessness, Alexis Alexander ducked into a Powell Street storefront to buy a dour black replacement as cold water spattered the sidewalk outside.
“I really don’t do the rain. It is not a good look,” said Alexander, 21, in San Francisco from Antioch to pick up supplies for her upcoming birthday celebration. “I’m having a party on Saturday. It’s ruining my barbecue.”
But her friend, Che Coleman, 21, defended the precipitation.
“It’s good, we need the rain. It’s filling up the reservoirs,” she said. “We’re in a drought. We need the water.”
Alexander and Coleman probably summed up the mixed feelings of many Bay Area residents Tuesday: The past week of cold, wet weather hasn’t been fun, but at least it’s helped ease the state’s drought problem. Right?
“Not even close,” said Elissa Lynn, a senior meteorologist with the state Department of Water Resources. “In spite of the fact we had all this precipitation, we’re still very, very dry.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/18/MNPM15VN67.DTL&type=printable
We are in NEED of H2o infrastructure.
PST Sausalito — A southern Marin County sanitation district under federal orders to replace aging infrastructure will have spilled 300,000 gallons of bacteria-laden sewage into San Francisco Bay by noon today after a rupture in a sewage treatment plant pipeline.
The Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District said it appears the leak, which began at 1 p.m. Tuesday, sprang from a potentially defective backup pipe at the agency’s Fort Baker treatment plant. Because the pipe is under several feet of water, repairs could not begin until low tide this morning, said Bob Simmons, general manager of the district.
Simmons said rough surf could have contributed to the break.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/17/BADQ1600MK.DTL&type=printable
The severe drought that plagued northern China during the past four months may breed worse sandstorms, which is sometimes seen during the coming spring as a result of rainfall shortage, a climate expert said on Tuesday.
Li Weijing, Deputy Director-General of the National Climate Center, said during an exclusive interview with chinadaily.com.cn that the country’s recent dry weather would result in the formation of sandstorms, which are sometimes seen in northern China in spring.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/17/content_7485759.htm
Investigate this space. H2o prices are going to be on the rise.
Miami-Dade County, worried about running out of water only two years ago, is suddenly using a lot less of it.
The unprecedented decline — nearly 10 percent — comes just two years after growing demands — and population projections — forced the county to pledge to build some $2 billion in new water supply projects in the coming two decades.
The water and sewer department already has suspended plans for two new $20 million wells into a deep underground supply and other projects could be postponed or altered as well.
What’s behind the decline isn’t exactly clear, but it is likely some combination of tough water restrictions and a tougher economy, which has left hotel rooms empty and put the deep freeze on the once red-hot housing market.
South Florida water managers will talk about making those twice-a-week watering restrictions permanent on Thursday, a move that has drawn objections from some utilities that have seen revenues shrink. But in Miami-Dade, the drop in revenues is a drop in the bucket compared to the savings from delaying or canceling future projects.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/898622.html
Lots of talk going on with what can be done with the availability of potable H2o. The ramifications are going to cause a massive readjustment in the pricing and use of H2o.
BEIJING — China declared an emergency Thursday in eight provinces suffering a serious drought that has left nearly four million people without proper drinking water and is threatening millions of acres of crops.
The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief posted a notice on its Web site declaring the situation a level-two emergency on the country’s four-level scale. It called it a drought “rarely seen in history.”
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had ordered all-out efforts to fight the drought at a cabinet meeting Thursday. It said the government had allocated 400 million yuan ($58.5 million) for relief work.
Water Water Everywhere..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7859590.stm
Water is the ultimate in natural resource.
BEIJING — Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered all-out efforts to combat the severe drought in the country’s vast wheat-growing area to ensure a good summer harvest, a State Council meeting was told Thursday.
The central government on Thursday decided to earmark another 300 million yuan (US$44 million) as drought relief fund in additional to 100 million yuan already allocated. The fund will be used to buy agricultural machinery and other production materials.
Lack of rainfall has led to severe drought in northern China, leaving about 141 million mu (9.3 million hectares) wheat or 43 percent of the country’s total affected, according to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA).
About 145 million mu crops have been affected by the drought nationwide, or 40 million mu more than the same period last winter.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-02/05/content_7449492.htm
When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water.
- Benjamin Franklin
You can own oil, but you can’t own water. You can invest in oil and the industrial complex that finds, produces, refines and distributes it. You can invest in the industrial complex that finds, produces, treats and distributes water, but you can’t invest in water itself. Oil and its byproducts are toxic to life whereas water is essential to all life. Perhaps therein lies the origins of the difference to investors. Fresh water is, for the most part, not owned by anyone but is (in most cases) managed and distributed for the public good. The price you pay for public water is essentially the cost to transport, manage, treat, and distribute it to the tap in your home.
You can’t – at least not yet – buy water on any exchange in the world. As water supplies get tighter across the world, this could change. Water is the new oil – a precious commodity, increasingly harder to find, manage and distribute; and that supply is often subject to the whims of Mother Nature. Control of available water is subject to the whims of government. In some parts of the country, the availability of water is restricting the building of housing.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/117760-water-the-new-oil?source=from_friend
Focus on the beneficiaries of the recent boom. Natural resources are going to play a vital role in the coming decades. As private investors we are able to take the long view.
Despite several cold fronts that have chilled South Florida, very little rain has fallen in recent months, leading to a moderate drought and an increased risk of wildfires.
The National Weather Service said Monday that January was the driest month on record in West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale received less rainfall from November through January than ever before.
About three-quarter inches of rain have fallen in Fort Lauderdale since Nov. 1, about 9 ½ inches less than normal for that three-month period. Miami saw about 1 ½ inches of rain in the same period, almost six inches less than normal.
The lack of rain has resulted in moderate drought conditions in most of South Florida, from eastern Miami-Dade County to southeastern Palm Beach County. The status for the rest of the region is considered abnormally dry, according to the weather service.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/884090.html
Uncategorized | MacroMan | 
February 18, 2009 10:08 am | 
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