The News Review:

- VMC team returns from tour
- Water torture in uneven trading balance
- Water as Human Right: Providing clean water to the world’s poor
- Task force to provide estimate of water supply

VMC team returns from tour
Hindu – Nov 21, 2006
127 crores on drinking water supply every year while revenue from commercial connections has been only Rs. Kolkata Mayor Vikas Bhattacharya told a 13-member team of corporators from the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) during the latter’s recent visit that there was no possibility of continuing free supply of drinking water to households any longer and water meters would be included in the next budget of the KMC. Three-day visit The VMC team led by Mayor Mallika Begum returned to the city after a three-day visit to have first-hand knowledge about drinking water supply, sanitation, underground drainage and other basic amenities in Kolkata and surrounding municipalities from November 15 to 17…
The VMC did not have the problem of any revenue-related burden especially because of expenditure on drinking water supply. So, there would be no need to go for water meters for domestic connections in the city. In Kolkata, they were supplying water free of cost for eight hours a day and there was a very large treatment plant in 480 acres. The KMC was supplying 260 MGD of water. The team consisted of Deputy Mayor Ch. Krishna Kumar, TDP floor leader Y. Ramana Rao, CPM floor leader Ch.

Water torture in uneven trading balance
The Australian – Nov 21, 2006
In return, Queensland received from NSW last year just 67,166MWh of power worth $4 million, a quantity barely changed from 2004-05. The rise in power supplies from Queensland to NSW came as dam levels in Queensland’s parched southeast dropped dramatically. Leading water authority Peter Cullen said it was strange that Queensland was running down water supplies to help meet NSW power demand at a time of serious water shortages in Queensland. "They really need to be examining if they are using this water appropriately," Professor Cullen said. Much of the electricity ending up in NSW is generated by the Swanbank and Tarong power stations, which use cooling water from the Wivenhoe Dam, the main source of Brisbane’s drinking water. The dam is at a record low capacity of 24 per cent. Brisbane faces the prospect of the most severe restrictions – level-five – after Christmas.

Water as Human Right: Providing clean water to the world’s poor
Awareness Times – Nov 21, 2006
The remote provincial towns and the burgeoning mega cities of the developing world all need major investments in water utilities. This will be costly, and in many cases impossible without financial help. But the ultimate price of a failure to invest in clean water supplies in health care costs, lost productivity, and ultimately, human lives far outweighs the expense of spending what is necessary now. The emerging industrial powerhouses of the 19th Century faced the same problem. Infant mortality rates in New York and London were similar then to levels seen in the developing world today and for the same basic reasons. Those cities invested massively in public water utilities that rapidly reduced gastrointestinal disease and built a foundation for economic growth and a rising quality of life…
The 2006 Human Development Report urges every developing country to prepare a national plan to accelerate progress in water and sanitation, with ambitious targets backed with at least 1 per cent of GDP, and clear strategies for overcoming equalities. Currently, national public spending on public water supplies is typically less than 0. The Report also calls for a Global Action Plan under G8 leadership to put water and sanitation problems front and centre on the world development agenda. The authors make a persuasive case for an additional US$3. 4 to $4 billion in annual international aid for water and sanitationassistance that should be considered an overdue investment, with enormous long-term returns in health and productivity, and basic quality of life.

Task force to provide estimate of water supply
Payson Roundup – Nov 21, 2006
“The bad news is if we do one thing, Payson is in deep weeds waterwise,” he said. “The good news is, there are ways out…
That information, combined with figures derived from other sources, such as town, consultant and regional studies, could provide a framework for safe yield and water management policies. Godfrey prefaced his presentation with a disclaimer that the water task force report won’t be a matter of absolutes. “There will never come a time when you know all the answers,” he said. The breadth of information will attempt to identify a way to avoid regional water depletion while keeping costs down. To accomplish this task, Godfrey and his committee have set about defining variables and identifying worst- and best-case scenarios — and then determining answers that fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Those variables include reservoir size, population and precipitation.