Green Options

Legal skirmishes in Ohio and Michigan are reviving debates over whether those who own Great Lakes shoreline properties exclusively control their waterfront land or whether the public can access and travel along the coast.  The same legal doctrine at issue in these battles is a central focus in current debates about n a time of potential c ommercialization of Great Lakes water.

Just 30 years ago, the Karnali River was home to approximately 100 Ganges River Dolphins. But according to conservationists, there are only six of them left.

Time is running out for Nepal’s population of Gange River Dolphins (Platanista gangetica gangetica), a rare freshwater species. Currently classified as endangered by the IUCN, several threats have forced this freshwater dolphin to the verge of regional extinction in the Karnali River:

• Water development projects: The construction of dams and barrages has fragmented dolphin populations, and degraded downstream habitats and food supplies. Dolphins also become stranded in canals, with no way to return. For example, when dolphins come down to Girijapuri, they cannot return once they cross the dam, just 15 kilometers from Nepal’s border.
• Hunting: Tribal people in the upper Brahmaputra kill the dolphins for their meat, and fishermen in the middle reaches of the Ganges use the dolphin’s oil as a fish attractant.
• Pollution: The rivers are at capacity for pollution and can no longer dilute the agricultural poisons that are dumped in them, and this is compounded by upstream water development projects.
• Overfishing: In the border areas, both Nepalis and Indian fishermen have reduced the number of small fish to the point where many dolphins have starved to death.

In the Obama Administration’s proposed 2010 budget, it’s $475 million in new money in the first year for Great Lakes restoration. The five lakes hold about 6 quadrillion gallons of water and provide drinking water for 40 million North Americans but are afflicted with aquatic invasive species, habitat destruction, lingering and new chemicals, and animal and human waste.

Long sought by the region’s advocates, the money would be divided up [...]

The world’s freshwater is under attack. Privatization, pollution, damming, and drought will change the way we view our freshwater in the coming years.

According to Charity Water, one in six people on the planet do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.

Researchers at Khon Kaen University (KKU) in Thailand have discovered a new species of algae, which could be used for the commercial production of biodiesel as early as April 2009.

The species, unimaginatively labelled KKU-S2, was found on the surface of a freshwater pond at the university, and was quickly identified as a promising source of alternative fuel. Speaking about the discovery, team-leader Dr Ratanaporn Leesing said, “We can extract oil from this species. Its properties are fit for biodiesel production. Within two days, the number of this alga can double, and within a week or two we can extract oil from it”

We do. 

In the Great Lakes region that includes the upper Midwest and parts of southern Canada, we have the largest fresh water system on earth.  Did you want to start siphoning off our water and selling it to China?  Not so fast…

As populations grow and the amount of clean, fresh water decreases, we are increasingly motivated to find new ways of creating/capturing and using fresh water. Of course, we could all begin by using less water (see footnote). According to the United Nations Development Program in a chart I found on www.data360.org, as of 2006, the average American uses approximately 151 gallons of water/day. That includes, drinking, showering, flushing, cleaning, cooking, irrigating, etc. I propose that if we were each given 25 gallons of water to use per day we’d be OK. But, water isn’t dropped off at your doorstep by the water man, so we are not inclined to think much about our consumption (until something drastic occurs, like the droughts the Atlanta area faced this past summer). Then, how can people get more of what they are all using way too much of without drawing from other overused freshwater sources? An increasingly viable option is to take the salt out of the ocean’s roughly 315 million trillion gallons of saltwater. I posted last month on a low-energy solar desalination plant, so it’d be neglectful of me not to point out this no energy windmill desalination system as well.

In the Netherlands, at the Delft University of Technology, a traditional windmill is being tested to drive seawater through a reverse-osmosis membrane, thus directly producing freshwater from seawater. On their website, www.drinkingwiththewind.nl they share the following:

On the basis of the windmill’s capacity at varying wind speeds, it is estimated that it will produce 5 to 10 m3 (1,321-2,642 U.S. gallons) of fresh water per day: enough drinking water for a small village of 500 inhabitants. A water reservoir will have to ensure that enough water is available for a calm period lasting up to five days.