The News Review:

- Sporting News – Your expert source for MLB Baseball, NFL Football,…
- … blockade cuts Gaza’s water purification chlorine,…
- … turns central China river system red and foamy, as many as…
- Not a single drop to drink – This is Australia
- NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas’ News Source

Sporting News – Your expert source for MLB Baseball, NFL Football,…
SportingNews.com – Feb 27, 2008
Explosive growth combined with a persistent drought mean the city of 17 million people is fast running out of water. Meanwhile, rainfall has been below average since 1999. “To ensure the supply for a short period of time shouldn’t be a problem, but to keep the long-term sustainable use of resources is a challenge,” said Ma Jun, an environmentalist who has written about China’s water issues. In an attempt to ease the water woes, China has turned to a grand engineering feat. Workers are digging up the countryside south of Beijing for a canal that will bring water from China’s longest river, the Yangtze, and its tributaries to the arid north by 2010. The first part of the project is being accelerated to meet anticipated demand from Olympic visitors.

… blockade cuts Gaza’s water purification chlorine,…
International Herald Tribune – Feb 27, 2008
Officials said there have been no deliveries of chlorine, needed to purify the water, since Jan. More than one-third of Gaza's water supply is now untreated, said Maher Najjar, deputy director of the utility. Najjar said 52 of 140 wells used to supply water to Gaza residents were out of chlorine. “I expect by the week's end all the wells will run dry of chlorine,” he said. The authority said there is a “major concern over a health disaster due to possible contamination of the drinking water” and appealed to the international community for help. The Israeli military said the Palestinians did not make a request for chlorine until Wednesday, and it was urgently trying to arrange a new shipment into Gaza…
Many people already use filters or bottled water because the quality of tap water is generally poor. Israel imposed sanctions on Gaza after the Islamic militant Hamas seized power last June. Israel has tightened its blockade in recent weeks in response to repeated rocket attacks on southern Israel by Gaza militants. On Wednesday, an Israeli student was killed in a rocket barrage on a college just outside Gaza, after seven Palestinians, including five Hamas militants, were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

… turns central China river system red and foamy, as many as…
International Herald Tribune – Feb 27, 2008
Chinese leaders say the country faces a critical water shortage, partly due to chronic pollution and chemical accidents. In one of China's worst cases of river pollution, potentially cancer-causing chemicals, including benzene, spilled into the Songhua River in November 2005. The northeastern city of Harbin was forced to sever water supplies to 3. 8 million people for five days. The accident also strained relations with Russia, into which the poisoned waters flowed. A paper mill dumped waste water directly into the Han in September 2006, forcing authorities to cut water supplies for a week in some areas, the Xinhua and government reports said. They did not say how many people were affected.

Not a single drop to drink – This is Australia
The Age – Feb 27, 2008
“This water is no good, it’s never been any good, but nobodywants to do anything about it. But I don’t reckon that schoolshould be closed either. He said the water supply, pumped originally from old cattlebores, had always been dodgy. “But this is my land and we wanted tolive here,” he added. This week water stopped flowing through the school pipes. Therewas talk that the bore may have finally run dry, leaving thecommunity to survive on carted and bottled water. The school hasbeen shut for three weeks while authorities try to solve thecrisis…
The closestmedical service is in Alice Springs. Mulga Bore is a dry, generally peaceful community where 80 percent of children regularly attend school. According to the centre’s report, sent to the local AnmatjereCouncil, the body responsible for the water and power at MulgaBore, the best way to secure safe, reliable water would be with aspecial treatment plant that would be costly. Drilling more boreshas been ruled out. So who is responsible for the crisis at Mulga Bore, a crisisthat would make front page news in any major city in Australia?The acting CEO of Anmatjere Council, Bill Fisher, told theHerald the power shortages which had affected the pumping ofwater and the electricity supply at the school had been caused by ashortage of fuel. “But I am new here and I am just getting acrossthe problem of water quality. We are having a meeting to look atthat and the closure of the school on Friday.

NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas’ News Source
Arkansas Democrat Gazette – Feb 27, 2008
Two years ago, drought nearly caused Charleston to run out of water for its 2, 965 residents. “It finally rained,” said Mayor Sherman Hiatt. Charleston’s two water supply lakes are small and shallow, and the Arkansas Department of Health is pressuring the city to find a supplemental supply that will provide a higher quality of water to its residents, Hiatt said. But any alternative that involved developing a new supply or even deepening the town’s existing lakes would cost millions of dollars, which the town can’t afford, he said. The situation in Greenwood is less dire. The city recently revamped its water treatment plant and laid new distribution lines, Alderman Jim Newcomb said. Greenwood also might get a better deal buying water from the nearby James Fork Regional Water District than from Fort Smith, he said…
But any alternative that involved developing a new supply or even deepening the town’s existing lakes would cost millions of dollars, which the town can’t afford, he said. The situation in Greenwood is less dire. The city recently revamped its water treatment plant and laid new distribution lines, Alderman Jim Newcomb said. Greenwood also might get a better deal buying water from the nearby James Fork Regional Water District than from Fort Smith, he said. Breedlove said the communities would keep their current water supplies but want to supplement them with Fort Smith water. They are willing to pay a price on par with Fort Smith’s other wholesale water customers. Fort Smith sells water to 13 entities in Crawford and Sebastian counties and Oklahoma.