The News Review:

- … drought exposes how rapid growth is straining water…
- Lester Snow: Water plan would boost ailing system
- Marsh Arabs take technology to homelands
- Water grab would be theft, pure and simple

… drought exposes how rapid growth is straining water…
Free with registration – News & Observer – AccessMyLibrary.com – Sep 30, 2007
“We lost a lot of money in 2002 because of the drought, and I’m going to lose a lot of money this year because of the drought,” said Andrews, 39, a third-generation Harnett County farmer. Another failed crop of sun-blasted corn and soybeans too sorry to harvest is Andrews’ wide-awake reminder of the murderous effect this drought has had on North Carolina agriculture, the first battle zone of any deep dry spell. But this natural-born enemy is already grinding through its next assault — a direct attack on the water supplies of North Carolina’s cities, towns and satellite subdivisions. Like scarred defenders from a long war’s opening firefight, Andrews and other farmers can only count up losses caused by a foe that has vanquished them and marched to another front. Unbroken by recent rains, this year’s relentlessly dry offensive grips all of North Carolina and most of the Southeast, and exposes the limits of a resource once seen as virtually infinite. Drought also exposes the fault lines of North Carolina’s seemingly endless urban and suburban expansion. And that rivets attention on a crucial question — does North Carolina need.

Lester Snow: Water plan would boost ailing system
Sacramento Bee – Sep 30, 2007
Lester Snow: Water plan would boost ailing systemBy Lester Snow – Special To The BeePublished 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 30, 2007Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources, is responding to the Sept. 25 editorial “A Pat Brown-wannabe needs broader support. “The Bee fundamentally got it wrong in comparing the historic investment in water management by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed plan to modernize our state’s water system…
Together, these projects provide Delta water to 25 million Californians and irrigate millions of acres of farmland. They also directly support more than $400 billion of our state’s economy. However, today those water supplies are much less reliable than they were just a year ago. In that context, the governor’s $9 billion plan is a modest investment to modernize our state’s water systems and prepare for the future. At the time it was built, the State Water Project system was not cheap. Brown initiated the project with a $1. 75 billion general obligation bond approved by voters in 1960.

Marsh Arabs take technology to homelands
Telegraph.co.uk – Sep 30, 2007
Experts feared that the entire marshes, home to a people considered the heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians and an entire way of life, could have disappeared entirely by 2008. Now, an estimated fifth of the marshes have been re-flooded and it is hoped they will be able to return the area, referred to by many as the ‘real Garden of Eden’- to 80 per cent of its former glory along with its endangered wildlife. Fuller marsh restoration currently hinges on talks with Turkey and Syria over water supplies and ice melt flows and damming elsewhere in Iraq. “Marsh restoration is technically feasible and economically viable. Several options for marsh restoration are available and can be tailored to meet changing societal demands,” the study says. Researchers said when they asked people if they wished to return home, they said ‘yes’ – but wanted their TVs, telephones and lights, schools and hospitals too. In conjunction with Iraq architects, designers have designed reed houses which use the traditional materials but now have partitioned rooms, kitchens and bathrooms and use sewage collections systems instead of waste being dumped into the marsh…
Researchers said when they asked people if they wished to return home, they said ‘yes’ – but wanted their TVs, telephones and lights, schools and hospitals too. In conjunction with Iraq architects, designers have designed reed houses which use the traditional materials but now have partitioned rooms, kitchens and bathrooms and use sewage collections systems instead of waste being dumped into the marsh. Some settlements will include small-scale solar-powered water treatment systems, others will rely on the reed beds and other marshland habitats that act as huge natural filters once they are restored – also providing new habitats for birds and other wildlife. Solar cells have been included with enough energy to run fans and some villages now have a community generator to power air-conditioning. “I have pictures of huts in the marshes with satellite dishes on top. This is beautiful, this is great!” Director of Nature Iraq Azzam Alwash said in a radio interview this summer. “I mean, it’s an ugly dish, but the fact is that a village in the middle of the marshes is no longer an isolated place from the global village.

Water grab would be theft, pure and simple
St. Petersburg Times – Sep 30, 2007
Not only is the St. Johns district endangering the ecologies and economies of those municipalities' most prized waterways, it also threatens their ability to tap those resources for their own use. This proposal deliberately violates the intent of "local sources first" legislation that requires cities and counties to deplete their own water resources before looking elsewhere. Johns water district is exploiting a 2005 change that broadened the definitions of groundwater and alternate supplies. According to a lawyer for one conservation group, that change "gives (water management districts) the power to make an alternative supply out of a traditional supply. That's how they get to the rivers, and that's a bastardization of the process.