The News Review:

- A million litres of water daily to airport
- With Olympics near, water is short
- ‘Conservation pricing’ is no way to allocate water
- Agriculture’s new ‘golden age’

A million litres of water daily to airport
Hindu – Mar 2, 2008
, to provide one million litres of potable water to the airport every day when it starts functioning. Although this falls sorely short of nine million litres that the BIAL asked for three years ago, it is nevertheless a major commitment for a public utility that must first serve the water needs of Bangalore’s residents. Thus, the water supply to the airport, which is located in Bangalore Rural district, will be contingent on whether the board receives adequate water from its river source. “In case we cannot pump water from Cauvery for some reason, then we will not be able to provide water to the airport. There is no penalty for this in the agreement,” Latha Krishna Rao, BWSSB chairperson, told The Hindu. All agreements that the BWSSB enters into with industries are subject to water availability and pressure. “We will not make an exception in the case of BIAL,” Ms…
This is in addition to the Rs. 1,20,000 that the BIAL will have to pay the water board every month as infrastructure maintenance charge. While insisting that water supply to BIAL will not affect supply to the northern or western parts of Bangalore, Ms. Rao said water would be supplied to BIAL from the 100 million litres of additional water that is being drawn from the Cauvery to cater to the 72 newly added wards in the city. The water is being supplied through a 22-km pipeline that the BWSSB laid from Hegganahalli near Nagarbhavi to the airport campus. The water will have to be additionally pumped at Hegganahalli and from the reservoir on the University of Agricultural Sciences campus.

With Olympics near, water is short
News & Observer – Mar 2, 2008
“Sitting on the northeast edge of the north China plain, near no major river and 90 miles from the sea, Beijing has had water problems for more than a millennium. Sui dynasty emperors built one of the world’s longest canals in the seventh century to bring rice from the fertile south to the capital. In recent decades, development, intensive agriculture and wealthier lifestyles have sapped and polluted the city’s water supply. “Very few people used toilets in the 1950s, but right now everyone uses toilets, uses showers, uses swimming pools, and fancy buildings use lots of water,” said Dai Qing, a former journalist who has become a prominent environmental campaigner. The last decade has seen the construction of water-guzzling projects across the city, from landscaped gardens and artificial lakes to golf courses and parks, many spurred by the Olympics. Nearly all venues and the Olympic Village will use treated wastewater for heating systems and toilets. Recycled wastewater will irrigate the Olympic Park.

‘Conservation pricing’ is no way to allocate water
Athens Banner-Herald (subscription) – Mar 2, 2008
Base charges are designed to cover the cost of meter reading and billing customer accounts. Consumption charges are designed to recover all other costs. Some of those costs vary with the volume of water and sewage treatment. But a majority are fixed – those troublesome capital costs relating to treatment structures, pipes, meters, pumps, storage facilities, billing offices and so on. When water supply and demand are stable and predictable, all is well. But under conditions of extreme variability, consumption prices also must vary in order both to allocate supply and to recover costs. During drought periods, for example, the price of water should be linked to its ultimate source – river flows – with an inventory adjustment determined by Bear Creek Reservoir…
Some of those costs vary with the volume of water and sewage treatment. But a majority are fixed – those troublesome capital costs relating to treatment structures, pipes, meters, pumps, storage facilities, billing offices and so on. When water supply and demand are stable and predictable, all is well. But under conditions of extreme variability, consumption prices also must vary in order both to allocate supply and to recover costs. During drought periods, for example, the price of water should be linked to its ultimate source – river flows – with an inventory adjustment determined by Bear Creek Reservoir. Accordingly, as flow rates decline relative to median annual rates, prices would rise sufficiently to allocate an increasingly scarce resource, and also (leveraged with sewage treatment) to recover those rising unit costs associated with fixed costs. Alternatively, during periods of ample river flow, prices would fall in order to allow for increased consumption and falling unit costs.

Agriculture’s new ‘golden age’
Toronto Star – Mar 2, 2008
" Arable-land acreage is indeed shrinking, even factoring out its conversion to production of fuel feedstock. Several million hectares of farmland disappear each year, as growing economies convert it into residential subdivisions and industrial parks. Declining fresh-water supplies further diminish the amount of land available for farming. Farmers, for their part, have endured rising fuel, fertilizer and equipment costs. Some farmers, anxious to increase crop yields with more efficient equipment, are finding showrooms bare of certain high-demand tractors, harvesters and other equipment, for which waiting lists have lengthened. While still coming out further ahead than in previous years, farmers’ own rising costs have cut into their bonanza. And livestock producers have been hit with the same price shock as food processors, enduring steep increases in corn and other animal feed.