The News Review:

- Water crisis uproots Syrian farmers
- BC heat prompts worries about water air fires
- Think outside the pipes Aspen Institute urges
- Water managers must be good stewards of regional supply
- ‘Million boat’ protest planned over Delta canal

Water crisis uproots Syrian farmers
Reuters
These days the rontes’s 12th century norias enormous water wheels famous for their distinctive creak barely turn in the weak tides. Algae covers the river’s surface and the desert has been closing in. “The river has become so polluted. The quality of our produce has suffered and there is barely enough now to feed my family” said 80-year-old farmer Mohammad al-Hamdo. Syria’s worst drought in decades has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and raised calls for a coordinated water policy for the Middle East as the region faces a dryer climate and water supplies depleted by damming and water well drilling.
Related from Talloonne: Gunns gets cheap water

BC heat prompts worries about water air fires
CBC.ca
heat prompts worries about water air fires. is raising concerns about the water supply air quality and even more forest fires but it’s not an official heat wave yet according to CBC meteorologist Claire Martin.

Think outside the pipes Aspen Institute urges
Water Technology nline
Among the findings in the institute’s report:● “The sustainable functioning of these [manmade infrastructure] systems is dependent on the natural systems to which they are inexorably linked including lakes streams rivers and riparian areas groundwater aquifers forests and wetlands” the report says. ● Water wastewater and stormwater utility agencies should collaborate with others should conduct sustainable management of their natural watersheds appropriate to local conditions. ● Water utilities must be the leaders in partnerships to plan and manage natural water resources while meeting human and ecosystem water needs. ● Utilities should practice transparency in their operations public outreach and consultation asset management that adapts to climate change and innovation in their technical and managerial activities. ● Federal funding of water systems should target investments in such things as “green infrastructure” water and energy efficiency adaptation to climate change and projects that bring safe water to economically distressed households. To read the full Aspen Institute report click.

Water managers must be good stewards of regional supply
Longmont Daily Times-Call
Water managers will have to remain vigilant about basin diversions to places such as the Front Range and Southern California. Even more important the federal government will have to have all the facts about how much water would be used in the development of oil shale before signing off on grand schemes to tap the Western Slope’s vast reserves. The trade-off of petroleum energy for large outlays of water resources might not be beneficial. The Colorado River flows through a dry and dusty land; careful stewardship of the resource will ensure that future generations have what they need as well.

‘Million boat’ protest planned over Delta canal
Sacramento Bee
Connelley’s goal is a million boats but he acknowledged he probably won’t get there. “You ever seen a million boats on the Sacramento River before? I don’t think we ever will but it ought to be pretty impressive. “The protest is not likely to stall state Department of Water Resources plans to drill in the Delta in September. That work involves taking soil samples as deep as 200 feet in the river bottom at 16 locations from Sacramento’s Pocket neighborhood and the town of Walnut Grove on the Sacramento River to remote sloughs near Bethel Island and Stockton. With land-based sampling already under way testing is estimated to cost $4. 5 million paid for by water contractors that depend on the Delta. A yet-to-be-hired contractor will work from either a barge or a ship.