The News Review:

- California’s Water Bank Tapped to Fight Drought
- How water conservation measures in LA will work
- Rivers Worldwide Are Drying Up
- Membrane Filters Key to Future of Public Water Supply

California’s Water Bank Tapped to Fight Drought
Wall Street Journal
Arnold Schwarzenegger in February to declare a state of emergency. Under the declaration urban users in the nation’s most populous state are being asked to curtail water usage by 20%. Through the water bank — in which the state inks agreements with water-rights holders to supply designated volumes of water at future dates — as much as 600000 acre feet of additional water can be made available per year to augment supplies. That’s about how much is used annually in 1. The water is to be purchased by the state from such willing sellers as farmers who let some fields go idle rather than use all of their allotment. n Wednesday Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the Bureau of Reclamation had cleared the transfers after environmental assessments determined they would have no significant impact.

How water conservation measures in LA will work
Los Angeles Times
How do I reduce my water consumption by 15%?DWP anticipates that most people who cut their outdoor watering to two days a week will realize that 15% savings. How long will the new rates be in effect?Shortage-year rates are likely to be in effect for at least one year. During late winter and early spring 2010 the DWP will have a better idea of how this year’s snowpack and rainfall levels will affect the water supply. Are we likely to see more water restrictions?If everybody abides by the new rules the DWP does not anticipate any further restrictions. But if conservation goals are not met the agency could ask the City Council to restrict sprinkler usage to one day a week and then to ban it altogether.
Related from Z1067fm: Water providers’ ad campaign pumps up conservation

Rivers Worldwide Are Drying Up
FXNews
“Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world especially with more demand for water as population increases” said lead author of the study Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colo. “Freshwater being a vital resource the downward trends are a great concern.

Membrane Filters Key to Future of Public Water Supply
Water and Wastewater
embeddedMedia –>Houston TX — As municipalities across the United States reduce their dependence on groundwater sources to mitigate environmental impacts like subsidence and flooding there is a growing need for better purification processes to keep contaminants found in surface water sources out of the public tap. Without a drop of hesitation University of Houston environmental engineer Shankar Chellam says the answer is clear: super-thin membrane filters. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the future of water treatment looks like membranes” says Chellam. “Without that if you continue to build conventional treatment plants which we’ve been doing for 100 years you will not be able to sufficiently protect against emerging pathogens and chemicals. The particles in surface water sources come in a variety of sizes he explains. If they’re big enough they settle to the bottom and municipal intake systems are designed to collect the cleaner water away from the sediment. “But these viruses bacteria protozoa and other chemical contaminants are either very very small so that they don’t settle readily or they are dissolved in the water in the first place” Chellam explains.