All posts tagged "Water"

This article was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter.

Texas’ most populous cities lost roughly 88 billion gallons of water last year because of aging water infrastructure and extreme heat, costing them millions of dollars and straining the state’s water supply, according to self-reported water loss audits.

The documents show that bigger municipalities are not immune to water issues often seen in smaller, less-resourced communities around the state. All but one big city saw increased water loss from last year's audits....

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

In Mexico City, more and more residents are watching their taps go dry for hours a day. Even when water does flow, it often comes out dark brown and smells noxious. A former political leader is asking the public to “prioritize essential actions for survival” as the city’s key reservoirs run dry. Meanwhile, 2,000 miles south in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, reservoir levels are falling just as fast, and the city government has implemented rotating water shutoffs. The mayor has begged families to shower together and leave the city on weekends to cut down on water usage.

The measures come as a so-called heat dome sitting atop Mexico is shattering temperature records in Central America, and both Central and South America are wasting beneath a drought driven by the climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which periodically brings exceptionally dry weather to the Southern Hemisphere. Droughts in the region have grown more intense thanks to warmer winter temperatures and long-term aridification fueled by climate change. The present dry spell has shriveled river systems in Mexico and Colombia and lowered water levels in the reservoirs that supply their growing cities. Officials in both cities have warned that, in June, their water systems might reach a “Day Zero” in which they fail altogether unless residents cut usage. ...

Former President Donald Trump's determination to eradicate abortion could threaten all Americans' access to fresh air and clean water, a legal expert said Tuesday.

Georgetown Law Professor Michelle Goodwin appeared on MSNBC to warn of the havoc Trump could wreak if he steamrolled various government agencies, removed career agency leaders, and replaced them with deputized loyalists, as he reportedly plans.

"It's incredibly alarming," Goodwin said. "They help us making sure we have clean air, fresh water, making sure that we can live a healthy sustainable life." ...

Water scarcity and species extinction can lead to irreversible and life-threatening impacts if humanity does not change course, according to a new report by the United Nations University in Bonn published on Wednesday. "As we indiscriminately extract our water resources, damage nature and biodiversity, and pollute both Earth and space, we are moving dangerously close to the brink of multiple risk tipping points that could destroy the very systems that our life depends on," lead author Zita Sebesvari told dpa. Such a tipping point is reached when a system is no longer able to cushion risks and ......

Los Angeles (AFP) - New houses that rely on dwindling groundwater supplies around one of the United States' biggest cities are to be banned, officials said Thursday, in a sign of the strains that drought and climate change are causing across the US west. Water managers in Arizona say there is a significant shortfall in the Phoenix area, and that any more development in the fast-growing city must rely on other sources of water -- such as under-strain rivers. "Over a period of 100 years, the Phoenix (area) will experience 4.86 million acre-feet of unmet demand for groundwater supplies," the Ariz......

Las Vegas (AFP) - Known around the world as an oasis of overindulgence, the desert city of Las Vegas has emerged as a surprising model of austerity and prudence when it comes to water. Some 2.3 million people live in the arid Las Vegas Valley, and 40 million tourists are drawn each year to its giant casinos and hotels. Yet because Nevada is allowed to use less than two percent of the drought-hit Colorado River's total water, it has taken drastic action, from banning lawns to capping the size of swimming pools. Even as the region's population has exploded by more than half in the past two decad......