The Great Lakes Water Resources Compact was signed last December by the governors of the eight states that border the lakes — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York — and the premiers of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The agreement requires approval of state legislatures before it is sent […]

The LA Times reports on one way to deal with a shortage of drinking water: As a hedge against water shortages and population growth, Orange County has begun operating the world’s largest, most modern reclamation plant — a facility that can turn 70 million gallons of treated sewage into drinking water every day.The new purification […]

The Albuquerque Tribune editorializes: In oil drilling, the question is always who suffers and who benefits – not in the abstract but in the details of daily lives. Sure, the American economy needs more American oil. But mining and property laws are often ruinous to ranchers, farmers and homeowners who are beset by drillers, their […]

Ecuador’s experiment in private water markets is not ending well. It is a well kept secret that Bechtel won a contract to privatize the water in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, just months after the massive citizen protests that threw Bechtel out of Bolivia.In October 2000, a local Bechtel subsidiary, Interagua, signed a 30-year concession contract […]

OMB Watch has posted a notice on something we rarely think about, and take for granted. The Raw Sewage Overflow Right-to-Know Act (H.R. 2452), introduced by Reps. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) on May 23, requires sewage treatment facilities to notify the public, public health officials and any other downstream “affected entities” when […]