The News Review:

- Early Climate Change Victim: Andes Water
- Critics raise red flag over fluoride in tap water
- Yolo city engineers want to tap river

Early Climate Change Victim: Andes Water
Washington Post – Nov 23, 2007
correction {margin-top:8px;padding-top:10px;margin-bottom:8px;border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC;padding-bottom:10px;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px;color:#333333;}. correction strong {color:#CC0000;text-transform:uppercase;}Early Climate Change Victim: Andes WaterBy FRANK BAJAKThe Associated PressFriday, November 23, 2007; 1:04 PMEL ALTO, Bolivia — Twice a day, Elena Quispe draws water from a spigot on the dusty fringe of this city, fills three grimy plastic containers and pushes them in a rickety wheelbarrow to the adobe home she shares with her husband and eight children. But the water supply is in peril. El Alto and its sister city of La Paz, the world’s highest capital, depend on glaciers for at least a third of their water _ more than any other urban sprawl. And those glaciers are rapidly melting because of global warming. Informed of the threat, Quispe, a 37-year-old Aymara Indian, shows alarm on her weathered face. “Where are we going to get water? Without water how can we live?”Scientists predict that all the glaciers in the tropical Andes will disappear by mid-century…
Rico has secured a $5. 5 million Venezuelan loan and said he has promises of a $5 million grant from the European Union, the possibility of $8 million in mixed Canadian financing, and possibly some Japanese and InterAmerican Development Bank money. A land use dispute in El Alto has already killed a $2 million Swiss-funded initiative in March that would have built two waste water treatment plants in El Alto, said Thomas Hentschel, the project manager. “It really hurt me, there was such need,” he said. “Everything there was left up in the air. “___AP writers Dan Keane in El Alto, Bolivia, and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report. © 2007 The Associated Press.

Critics raise red flag over fluoride in tap water
Globe and Mail – Nov 23, 2007
"We took a look at the science and it was really apparent to us that the current levels of fluoride exposure were unsafe," he said. The view on fluoride’s potential downside is rejected out of hand by Health Canada, as well as the Canadian Dental Association. "The fluoridation of drinking water supplies is a well-accepted measure to protect public health that is strongly supported by scientific evidence," Health Canada said in an e-mailed statement. Nonetheless, the department said it is currently studying the recent scientific findings and may adjust the amount it recommends for water. The Canadian Dental Association also endorses fluoridation. "It’s among the greatest public-health measures that has ever been put in place, right up there with vaccination," said Darryl Smith, president of the association…
Fluoride primerResearchers hit upon adding traces of fluoride to water after observing that people living in areas with drinking water naturally rich in the element had lower cavity rates. Fluoridation is primarily done in Canada, the United States and Australia, but almost nowhere else in the world. Western Europe and Japan have almost no fluoridated water supplies. Small amounts of fluoride make teeth stronger so they resist decay better. Too much fluoride causes teeth to be mottled. A typical big city that fluoridates will spend about $1 per resident each year to add the chem- ical to drinking water supplies. Although fluoridation has been practised for nearly half a century, it has always been controversial.

Yolo city engineers want to tap river
Sacramento Bee – Nov 23, 2007
City engineers in Davis and Woodland are on a mission to pipe in surface water from the Sacramento River. The plan could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and has raised concern among elected officials. But the river water is soft and pure compared with the current supply, the engineers insist. “It’s all about the water quality,” said Doug Baxter, chief water engineer for the city of Woodland. “People from other places know what they’re missing. People from here might not understand. “Sacramento and West Sacramento already rely on river water…
Having to install reverse osmosis systems to filter out the salt could cost a great deal more than piping in river water, they say. “If we get rid of salts at the drinking-water end, then we also solve the problem at the wastewater end,” said Jacques DeBra, utilities manager for the city of Davis. The proposed project would include an intake upriver from West Sacramento north of Interstate 5, a central treatment plant near Woodland and a pipeline system supplying water to Woodland, Davis and UC Davis. The plant would pump out 52 million gallons of treated water a day, according to city engineers. Under the current proposal, Woodland would use about 52 percent of the river water, Davis would get 44. 5 percent and UC Davis would take 3.