To detox the Ganga, has PM Modi considered bananas?

For more than 30 years environmentalists, factory owners, and city and religious leaders have been squabbling about how to clean up the sacred Ganga (Ganges).  Various ambitious cleanup plans, expensive ones, were launched during that period. Meanwhile, the river got more and polluted, to the point where its waters are now literally toxic -- unsafe for drinking, bathing, and agriculture -- according to The Diplomat, and holds the distinction of being the world's second most polluted river. 

India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has fielded an incredibly ambitious and costly Ganga cleanup plan, which strikes the factions that have been squabbling for decades as just more of the same old ambitious plans, which center around sewage treatment plants that have never budged the pollution in the river. 

From The Diplomat article, I am not entirely sure Modi's plan is much more than hot air.  But ever the cockeyed optimist, I present the  following 10-year old news report on what was a pretty new approach at that time to processing sewage; there are more recent reports but I like this one because it details how the method works for entire towns.  

One of the beauties of the method is that it could mollify factions in India that have complaints about Modi's plan; at the same time it would give Modi's administration some elbow room.  The halt to all construction along the river recommended by an environmentalist quoted in The Diplomat is simply not practical and won't fly with Modi's administration.

Bananas, however, and rocks, could fly, on the theory it's best to detox the river first and foremost of its massive amount of sewage -- and do it in a way that doesn't cause the various factions conniptions.  

Moreover, the method, applied to the restoration of Ganga, would attract the interest -- and donations -- of every eco-tourist on the planet. As with 'stacked' silvopasturing, it's a melding of the ancient approach and cutting-edge science and engineering.  As such it's in tune with the spirit of Ganga, and the image of India that PM Modi wants to project to the world.  

To top it off, the sewage treatment method produces gorgeous effects ...

... Which a standard sewage treatment plant just can't do.  

With no further build-up:

Breaking down sewage with bananas and rocks

By Tim Wacker, Globe Correspondent
December 4, 2005
The Boston Globe

IPSWICH -- This New England town's very first winter banana harvest is facing an ignominious demise.

The bunches of beautiful, bright green bananas growing in a greenhouse off Old County Road will ripen into an appetizing offering by mid-January, only to be thrown into a compost heap with dead leaves and assorted vines. The problem with eating these bananas, those tending the crop say, is what the bananas are eating.

''Basically, it's raw sewage," said David Del Porto, president of Ecological Engineering Group, a Concord-based company that builds alternative sewage treatment systems. ''The nutrients in raw sewage make these things grow like crazy."

The banana trees and a host of other out-of-place plants serve as the sewer system for New England Biolabs' brand new 140,000-square-foot headquarters.

Every day, about 6,000 gallons of human and industrial waste water is being pumped into the open air vats and huge underground garden boxes built into the greenhouse.

The real cash crop is not what's inside the greenhouse, Del Porto said, but what's coming out of it: water nearly clean enough to drink, produced by a high-intensity septic system that uses plants, snails, and a lot of bacteria and algae to eat hundreds of pounds of pollution a day.

The system is called Solar Aquatics, and Del Porto's company is installing them across the state and country. Solar Aquatics breaks down sewage much like conventional septic systems, only with a little more process and a lot less stink.

''It's a mini-rain forest in there," said New England Biolabs chief executive officer Jim Ellard, who has toured the greenhouse a number of times. ''It's a more natural approach to treating waste water. It's sound ecological practice and it's got the added bonus of being beautiful."

A key part of that process at the Ipswich plant are 24 1,100-gallon vats bubbling with sewage and brimming with swamp vines like watercress, willow, and water hyacinth. The 6-foot vats have clear sides that let in sunlight, which fuels waste-eating algae and makes the gray liquid inside ideal for growing gardens, said EEG engineer Mait Walker.

''Sunlight is providing the engine for this system," he said during a recent tour of the Ipswich plant. ''One of the reasons New England Biolabs could build their plant here is Solar Aquatics."

That's because the manufacturer of medical products is too big, too close to wetlands, and too far from the city's conventional sewage treatment plant to hook up. So Del Porto and company were brought in, and the sewage problems were solved, at a cost of $1 million. As a perk, a butterfly garden is being planned alongside the banana plants next spring.

''All we do is create a whole bunch of vessels in which life forms break down the waste in the waste water," Del Porto said. ''Then we string these [vessels] along in a sequence that provides an optimal growing environment for a variety of plants."

The details, however, are a bit more complicated. At the plant EEG built in Ipswich, the waste water leaves New England Biolabs through an 8-inch pipe that discharges it into underground tanks just outside the greenhouse.

There, the water is shot with air to blend the contents and provide oxygen needed to jump-start the bacteria that is key to just about every step of the process that follows. The blended water is then pumped into the clear vats where algae, bacteria, and tiny snails go to work on it.

Next stop is the garden, which is little more than a huge box of small rocks that can grow any plants the customer wants, Del Porto said. But the plants only drink a little of the water.

The rest washes over the roots, which host special bacteria capable of converting harmful liquid nitrogen into harmless nitrogen gas. That box of rocks and roots, called a constructed wetland, is another key component of Solar Aquatics, Del Porto said.

Ultraviolet lights kill off any remaining bacteria, and the crystal-clear end product is returned to the ground water through a leeching field a quarter-mile from the plant.

''The reason you don't smell anything is all the plants," he said standing next to one of the bubbling vats of sewage. ''That's the great thing about these systems; they are not only cleaner, but they also make great neighbors."

For expensive neighborhoods.

West Newbury developer Wayne Vynorius recruited EEG to design a plant for his proposed 268-unit development called Meadowbrook Estates.

The Meadowbrook plant would treat about 60,000 gallons of waste water a day and cost $2.5 million. That plant, like the facility in Ipswich, requires an operator to run. All the costs have to be picked up by the owners, making Solar Aquatics a little too pricey for your average single-family house.

''The cost is a driving factor; you have to have a large project," Vynorius said. ''But it's almost a fail-safe system."

If costly, Solar Aquatics is also a clean septic system alternative for environmentally sensitive land that could otherwise not support any development, Walker said. And components of the system, such as the constructed wetlands, can be used independently to deodorize and clean up existing septic systems for a lot less money than the total package.

''The wetland is just a box of rocks; the land for it is the expensive part," Walker said. ''You can add the constructed wetland to any existing treatment plants and grow native plants year-round without the greenhouse."

EEG built a Solar Aquatics system using native plants for a Weston commercial development that has been running successfully for nine years. Now the state is looking at Solar Aquatics for a proposed expansion of the fire training academy in Stow.

Del Porto said his company is also building Solar Aquatics systems in South Carolina, Arizona, and Colorado. Apparently, as clean water becomes scarce in the Midwest, more and more people are worried about the water they don't use.

''It's only waste water if the water is wasted," Del Porto said. ''This doesn't waste the water, and they look and smell great."

[END REPORT]

Here is a link to the Solar Aquatics website.  And they have picked up a competitor, Living Machine.

For more on the Ganga's problems and the issues and controversies surrounding its cleanup:

Can Modi Save the Ganges River?; Dinesh Sharma; May 31, 2015; Asia Times

Clean Ganga first priority of Modi?; Binay Singh; May 24, 2015; TNN via Times of India

National Mission for Clean Ganga (GAP II - Modi administration plan)

India’s plan to clean up the Ganga flawed, say experts; Juhi Chaudhary; October 13, 2014; The Third Pole
Failure of the GAP (GAP I); Sankat Mochan Foundation

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'Top Chef Chimpanzee' won't be far behind

 Will the first chimp dish be s'mores?

Photo:  The Chive 

A s'more (sometimes spelled smore) is a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States, and more recently, Canada, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker.

Study reveals chimps have mental skills to cook
By Reuters

June 3, 2015

NEW YORK: They’re not likely to start barbecuing in the rainforest, but chimpanzees can understand the concept of cooking and are willing to postpone eating raw food, even carrying food some distance to cook it rather than eat immediately, scientists reported on Tuesday.

The findings, based on nine experiments conducted at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that chimps have all the brainpower needed to cook, including planning, causal understanding, and ability to postpone gratification.

They do lack the ability to produce fire. [Pundita Note: We know from Survivor that many humans can't make a fire, either]  But if they were given a source of heat, chimps “might be quite able to manipulate (it) to cook,” said developmental psychologist Felix Warneken of Harvard University, who conducted the study with Alexandra Rosati.

[Discussion early humans and cooking]

Some of the experiments confirmed studies by other scientists, such as that chimps prefer seared sweet potatoes to raw. But those tests did not test whether chimps have the mental chops to cook.

However, other tests did. For instance, the scientists presented chimps with two containers. One yielded cooked food through a false bottom, not actually cooking, and one did not.

The chimps learned that one transforms potatoes from raw to cooked. Given a choice of which device to put food in, they almost always opted for the “cooker,” showing they understood and willingly waited for the raw-to-cooked transformation.

Chimps did not put pieces of wood that scientists gave them into the cooker, suggesting they grasped that only food can be cooked.

Surprisingly, since chimps usually eat food immediately, they were often willing to walk across a room to cook. When the first one did this, the scientists wondered if they had a single “chimpanzee genius,” Warneken said. But others showed the same ability, understanding the idea of cooking and postponing gratification to do it.

There was no evidence, however, that they understood the concept of tipping. [Pundita Note:  There is much evidence that many human diners don't understand the concept of tipping, either]

[END REPORT]

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No honor among Islamists: Hamas and Islamic State battle it out for control of Gaza

The latest, which Aaron Klein reported to John Batchelor on Batchelor's Tuesday show, is that IS bombed the Hamas police station in Gaza. (Aaron's report can be heard in the second to last segment, 12 midnight to 1:00 AM of the JBS podcast.) The rest of the battle is equally hilarious although terribly confusing when one gets beyond a few named groups.

Luckily Aaron is fluent in Arabic and has been schmoozing with terrorists so long it's a walk in the park for him to keep the changing names of the many Islamist groups operating out of Gaza, Sinai, etc. straight.

******** 

Yup, it's something in the water over there in the Middle East

(See my upcoming post, Why are so many people in the Middle East batshit crazy?)

ISIS bans pigeon breeding - punishable by public flogging - because seeing birds' genitals overhead offends Islam

By JOHN HALL and ROBERT VERKAIK FOR U.K. Daily Mail Online
PUBLISHED: 03:57 EST, 2 June 2015

Senior clerics fighting for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have issued a diktat banning pigeon breeding as they claim the sight of the birds' genitals as they fly overhead is offensive to Islam.

Jihadis operating in the group's 'Euphrates province', which stretches from Anbar in Iraq to Dier ez Zour in Syria, told pigeon breeders they had one week to stop the practice or face public flogging.

The announcement isn't the first time ISIS has targeted the apparently blasphemous practice of pigeon breeding - a popular pastime in the Middle East.

Earlier this year it was claimed that 15 boys had been arrested and at least three of them executed by ISIS militants in Iraq's eastern Diyala governate after fighters took exception to their pigeon breeding hobby on the grounds that it stopped them spending their time worshipping Allah.

ISIS' latest ban on pigeon breeding was revealed in an official document released by senior administrators in the group's self-declared Euphrates province.

Written in Arabic script on paper headed with the terror group's chilling black and white logo, the short document begins with a warning to locals who keep pigeons on the roof of their houses.

When rumours of an ISIS ban on pigeons began to circulate earlier this year, it was widely assumed that it was related to the birds being used to either smuggle anti-ISIS messages or cigarettes.

However the new document clears up that misunderstanding, clearly stating that the ban is intended 'to put a stop to the greater criminal act of harming one's Muslim and Muslim women neighbours, revealing the [pigeon's] genitals and wasting time.'

[...]

See the websitie for the rest of the report and a photo of the edict.

Bingo! "Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master"

From Tyler Darden's June 2 report for Zero Hedge, Hacked Emails Expose George Soros As Ukraine Puppet-Master  (H/T John Batchelor Show, podcast, June 2, 10:00 PM EDT segments.)

Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine.

In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out "A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine,"expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force," and finally explained Poroshenko's "first priority must be to regain control of financial markets," which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding "I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement."

The hacking group CyberBerkut claims it has penetrated Ukraine’s presidential administration website and obtained correspondence between Soros and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. It has subsequently posted all the intercepted pdfs on line at the following location. More details as RT earlier reported [...]

What's it all mean?  It means for starters Soros and his crew don't support the Minsk II Agreement; it means they don't want a negotiated settlement in any direction. It means they think war with Russia and constant conflict in Ukraine are economically feasible and even profitable.          

So I'd like to know what the U.S. congressional faction in the Get Russia crowd has to say for itself now that the shit has hit the fan. 

But the big question right now is whether Soros's role in fomenting a huge mess in Ukraine tracks back to Victoria Nuland, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and from her to the White House.  And to the British foreign office and Whitehall.     

********    

MERS spreads on little cat feet

To be more precise, on people pussyfooting past airline security.  But just try to persuade WHO and the CDC to install temperature scanners at U.S. international airports.  You will be talking to a stone wall.        

South Korean MERS outbreak likely to spread, health officials say
by Liz Szabo 

USA TODAY

June 2, 2015 - 7:18 p.m. EDT 

A MERS outbreak in South Korea, the largest outsideSaudi Arabia where the disease first emerged in 2012, is likely to grow, the World Health Organizationsaid Tuesday.

MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, has infected at least 25 people in South Korea and killed two, according to the World Health Organization.

Doctors have diagnosed five new cases not yet confirmed by the WHO, bringing the total to 30 cases, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who is in contact with South Korean doctors who are treating the patients. South Korean officials have isolated 680 people to limit the spread of the disease, which spreads when sick people cough.

There have been at least 1,154 lab-confirmed cases of MERS worldwide since 2012, along with 431 deaths — a mortality rate of 37%.

MERS belongs to the same family of viruses as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which was identified in 2003. Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The first MERS case in South Korea, confirmed May 20, was in a 68-year-old man who had traveled to four Middle Eastern countries. He developed symptoms May 11 and sought care at two outpatient clinics and two hospitals, the WHO said.

Doctors didn't isolate the man because he didn't report exposure to MERS, the WHO said. He was exposed to a number of medical staff and hospital patients, as well as their family members and visitors. Health officials are seeking more information about how he was exposed during his Middle Eastern travels, the WHO said.

Other patients may have spread the virus at other hospitals before they were diagnosed.

The first MERS patient in South Korea shared a hospital ward with a 35-year-old man whose son had tuberculosis and who was taking medication to prevent infection. That man developed a fever after being discharged. He visited two hospitals and was given antibiotics by staff who probably assumed his symptoms were caused by tuberculosis, said Daniel Lucey, an adjunct professor of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University Medical Center. That man then visited the hospital again, where he was isolated.

Another man infected with MERS in South Korea traveled to China on May 26, against his doctor's orders, and was diagnosed a hospital in that country three days later. The man had symptoms of MERS during his travel, the WHO said.

South Korea's Ministry of Health confirmed that there have been three generations of MERS spread — from the initial patient to a second patient and then to a third patient with no contact with the original patient.

Given how many people were exposed, "further cases can be expected," the WHO said in a statement. People are more likely to spread the disease when they are very sick and coughing more, Osterholm said.

The first MERS case in the United States, a health professional who had traveled to Saudi Arabia, was diagnosed in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Doctors have long known that coronaviruses such as MERS spread easily in hospitals, Osterholm said. Hospitals helped to spread the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003, as sick patients waited in crowded emergency departments, Osterholm said.

The current South Korean outbreak underscores the need to develop a vaccine against MERS, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

There's a lot that doctors don't know about coronaviruses, such as why some people appear so much more contagious than others. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, doctors called highly infectious people "super spreaders" because they infected dozens of people. Other patients, however, never infect anyone. "These people may have more of the virus, or their coughs may be more efficient at spreading it," Osterholm said.

Osterholm notes that it's difficult to tell if the South Korean outbreak is spreading any more quickly than usual. In past outbreaks in Saudi Arabia, world health officials often received information long after patients had been treated.

South Korean officials have been quick to notify international authorities of new developments, allowing people to follow the outbreak "in real time," Osterholm said.

"There is a lot more transparency here than on the Arabian peninsula," Osterholm said.

Because South Korea has an advanced medical system, it is better positioned to contain the MERS outbreak than developing nations, Osterholm said.

"The fact that MERS has spread around the world is not surprising," Osterholm said. "The question is, 'Where is it going to spread to next?' It could very easily come to America. Very easily. Any flight could contain someone who was infected in the Middle East."

[END REPORT]

Using freshwater to process shit is a waste of water humanity can no longer afford

"Less than 3 per cent of Earth's water is fresh, and only a tiny portion of that is easily available to us. Most of the water that standard sewage systems use to move human waste is drinkable. Diminishing water resources mean alternatives are pressingly needed. Wastewater gardens, where marsh plants are used to filter lavatory output and allow cleaned water to enter natural watercourses, are very much part of that solution."

Beautiful and edible plants can grow out of excrement (Image: Gonzalo Areil

Book information
The Wastewater Gardener: Preserving the planet, one flush at a time
by Mark Nelson
Published by: Synergetic Press

Price: $23.95

Book Review

A globetrotting, water-saving tour of sewage gardens

by Adrian Bennett

August 4, 2014

New Scientist

Would you dine in an artificial wetland laced with human waste? In The Wastewater Gardener, Mark Nelson makes an inspiring case for a new ecology of water

RAINFOREST destruction, melting glaciers, acid oceans, the fate of polar bears, whales and pandas. You can understand why we get worked up about them ecologically. But wastewater?

The problem is excrement. Psychologically, we seem to be deeply averse to the stuff and want to avoid contact whenever possible – we don't even want to think about it, we just want it out of the way.

The solution, a universal pipe-based waste network, works well until domestic and industrial chemicals and other non-biological waste are mixed in. Treating the resulting toxic soup, as Mark Nelson explains in The Wastewater Gardener, is not only a major technological challenge, but also uses enormous amounts of one of the planet's most limited resources: fresh water.

Each adult produces between 200 and 500 grams of faeces per day. With our current population, that's a yearly 500 million tonnes. Centralised sewage systems use between 1000 and 2000 tonnes of water to move each tonne of faeces, and another 6000 to 8000 tonnes to process it.

Even then, this processed waste often ends up in waterways, affecting wildlife and communities downstream, and it eventually finds its way to the ocean. There it contributes to the process of eutrophication, which creates dead zones, killing coral reefs and other sea creatures.

But it doesn't have to be like that. As head of Wastewater Gardens International, Nelson has travelled the world, developing and promoting artificial wetlands as the most logical way to use what we otherwise flush away.

Except that, as Nelson points out, with 7 billion-plus people, there really is no "away". Besides, what the public purse pays to detox and dump can be put to profitable work, fertilising greenery for urban spaces and fruits and vegetables for domestic and commercial use, for example.

Less than 3 per cent of Earth's water is fresh, and only a tiny portion of that is easily available to us. Most of the water that standard sewage systems use to move human waste is drinkable. Diminishing water resources mean alternatives are pressingly needed. Wastewater gardens, where marsh plants are used to filter lavatory output and allow cleaned water to enter natural watercourses, are very much part of that solution.

Nelson clearly understands the yuck factor and goes to great lengths to show that having a shallow vat of human-waste-laced water nearby is far less vile than we might imagine, especially when it is covered by gravel and interlaced with plant roots. Restaurants with tables dotted between ponds containing the ever-filtering artificial wetlands provide convincing proof.

Constructed wetlands can take on big jobs, too: a mixture of papyrus, lotus and other plants have successfully and beautifully detoxified water from Indonesian batik-dying factories. This water had killed cows downstream and caused running battles between farmers and factory workers.

The Wastewater Gardener is not a "how to" story, but more a "how it was done" account. Nelson tells how these wetlands started to become mainstream in less than 30 years. With humility and humour, he recounts how, as a boy from New York City, he acquired hands-on ranching knowledge in New Mexico, then studied under American ecology guru, Howard Thomas Odum.

And stories of his experiences everywhere from urban Bali and the Australian outback to Morocco's Atlas mountains and Mexico's Cancún coast illustrate the gravelly, muddy evolution of his big idea. An inspiring read, not just for the smallest room.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Excellent excrement"

Adrian Barnett is a rainforest ecologist at Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus

[END REPORT]

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Little by Little (smiling)

In a local market in Yangon, Myanmar, a vendor using her smartphone

Credit: MICKIE.K / Shutterstock.com

Photo from Poppy McPherson's June 02, 2015 report for The Diplomat, There's an App For That (in Myanmar):  "Emerging from years of censorship to capitalize on growing demand for local apps, developers jump straight to mobile."

It's a bumpy ride, of course; this is Myanmar we're talking about:

[...] Due to remaining international sanctions, Google still stops locals from downloading paid Myanmar apps from its store, which is also incompatible with many of the Chinese smartphone models that wind up in the country. On top of that, most people in the country are still unbanked, meaning they do not have bank accounts.

Developers have employed a number of hacks to get around the problem, including selling USB sticks with the app installed and collaboration with telcos, though the latter has led to the big firms taking most of the revenues.

MYSQUAR, an entertainment platform for Myanmar set to list on London’s AIM stock exchange later this year, sent a team of students to convince phone shops to install their free local-language messaging service, MyChat. “It’s somewhat of a Myanmar-centric solution,” said Daniel Campbell, the firm’s general manager.

Even when developers do manage to distribute their product, there’s the threat of rampant piracy.

Everything in our country is limiting our creativity,” said Htoo Myint Naung.

But he’s made a career out of coming up with solutions. “Engineering has always been my hobby, but the real thing that triggers me is the problems ..." 

 [...]

With all the problems they're on their way and there's no turning back.  .  

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What do these water issues in Egypt, Iran, Gaza have to do with climate change?

“Dumping waste into the river does not mean that the water has become toxic.” 

People walk across a bridge, surrounded by litter and waste, across a canal connected to the Nile River in Cairo, on World Water Day, March 22, 2015.  (photo by REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

(Emphasis throughout mine)

Egypt Nile water pollution on the rise
by Ayah Aman
May 22, 2015
Al-Monitor - Egypt Pulse

CAIRO — An intensive media and political momentum is taking place in Egypt in regard to the conflict with Nile headwaters countries over securing Egypt’s annual share of the Nile waters. At the same time, the pollution of the Nile River remains a pending issue that is being underscored in Egypt with every water poisoning incident caused by the dumping of hazardous waste in the river. The debate usually ends when the government reassures the public, and emphasizes that the water is safe and suitable for human consumption, without establishing long-term policies to resolve the crisis.

[...]

Kareem Khaled, a water-quality researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, spoke to Al-Monitor about the water quality in Egypt. He said, “The absence of a single administrative body in charge of water management and quality improvement from the High Dam to the riverbed, and up to the point where it [water] is delivered to people's homes, is the reason behind water pollution in Egypt.”

Khaled added, “The state of the Nile water still needs to be precisely and scientifically defined, and we need to find out what pollutants are in the water. The river is subject to all forms of pollution, the most dangerous of which is the untreated, solid industrial waste, which is causing an accumulation of heavy metals in the aquaculture and drinking water, and therefore causes many health problems.”

Based on the findings of the studies he conducted, Khaled said, “The most dangerous pollution rates are found in Egypt’s Delta region. In most of the Delta villages there is high population density and weak sanitation services — or lack thereof. The use of untreated water for irrigation is another threat affecting the quality of agricultural products.”

Although officials in charge of drinking water in Egypt say the water is safe and suitable for human consumption, based on their analyses of the quality of the drinking water, media reports indicate that water poisoning incidents continue to exist because of polluted drinking water.

“The water samples are often taken right from the exit pipes of the drinking water stations. Yet the water may get polluted while being delivered to homes because of the deteriorated water distribution networks and pumping stations. Water chlorination is used by some drinking stations to kill the harmful bacteria. This process, however, causes health problems,” Khaled said.

The negative impact that the deterioration of the water quality has is not only limited to citizens’ health. Fish die in large numbers from poisoning because of the high levels of ammonia and lead, as happened in January in the Rosetta branch in the Nile Delta.

The minister of the environment, Khaled Fahmy, told Al-Monitor, “The government is adopting strict measures and penalties to prevent hazardous materials and pollutants from being dumped or leaking into the Nile.” He said, “The Nile water is completely safe and factories are subject to periodic inspections to make sure that the water is treated before being dumped into the river. We have started to take measures to review the river’s water transport system and identify the hazardous materials that cannot be transported across the river.”

He added, “Dumping waste into the river does not mean that the water has become toxic.” He justified this statement by saying, “The industrial waste dumped into the Nile is not directly delivered to the drinking water stations. The Nile has the ability to break up and disperse the pollutants.”

Fahmy admitted that the Nile water pollution problem “is still complex and has been going on for over 30 years. The state is trying to find solutions to improve the river water quality.”

The water pollution issue remains unresolved, at a time when Egypt does not have sufficient water resources. Technical reports conducted by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights indicate that Egypt may become a water-scarce country by 2025, particularly since it consumes far more water than it can replenish. In addition to other problems that weigh down on the country — such as population density and the dilapidated pipe network, which alone is behind 35% of wasted water every year — Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer, because there is not enough water to grow the crops locally.

Iran's water crisis reaches critical levels

by Bijan Khajehpour
May 1, 2015
Al-Monitor - Iran Pluse

Al-Monitor reported in May 2014 that Iran faced an unprecedented water shortage, and now, a year later, the crisis has deteriorated to the point of raising the alarm that a large number of Iranians might be forced to migrate, including externally, to access water if workable solutions are not found in the next few years. Addressing this critical issue will require Iranian authorities to make crucial strategic decisions.

To appreciate the depth of the crisis, one can start with a closer look at statements by Issa Kalantari, adviser to Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, former minister of agriculture and head of the task force addressing the Urmia Lake crisis. Kalantari addressed a group of experts and reporters April 25 to highlight the various aspects of the ongoing disaster. He charged the country’s politicians with being in denial of the true dimensions of the water crisis and outlined some of the key issues:

• Iran's self-inflicted water shortage stems from its exploiting 97% of its surface waters. The international benchmark for surface water use is 40%, which by comparison points to the magnitude of water mismanagement in Iran.
• The push for agricultural self-sufficiency in the past led to over-consumption of water reserves, which in turn undermined development. According to Kalantari, a number of political stakeholders dismissed sustainable development as a Western concept lacking utility in Iran.
• Dam building, once considered a sign of progress, dried up the nation's rivers and other waterways through poorly conceived projects.
• Iran must almost halve its annual water consumption, that is, reduce it from the current 96 billion cubic meters to 56 billion. Such an effort will require up to $8 billion in investments and include major rethinking about agriculture to halve consumption in that sector.
• The government needs to aggressively promote a new attitude toward water to reduce consumption and replenish renewable resources.

Recent analyses reveal that seven of the country’s 32 provinces are classified as experiencing “water shortage” while 13 face a “critical water situation.” According to the same analyses, none of the provinces — including in the Caspian Sea region, which enjoys vast water resources — can be categorized as having sufficient water basins. As such, water management has become the top priority for the government.

[...]
Gaza’s high population strains water supply
by Mohammed Othman
May 31, 2015
Al-Monitor - Palestine Pulse

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Fethiya Deeb lives in al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City and complains about the high salinity of the water that comes to her home from the wells, which are run by the Gaza City municipality. Deeb told Al-Monitor that she and her 17-member family "need a large amount of water on a daily basis. All we receive is salty water that is similar to seawater. We cannot use it for a lot of things. So we are forced to buy our potable water." 

Gaza Strip residents suffer from poor quality of household water. Mazen al-Banna, an engineer and vice president of the Palestinian Water Authority in the Gaza Strip, said Gaza's water situation is difficult due to limited water sources and the small land area of Gaza, about 365 square kilometers (141 square miles). Gaza represents less than 1.4% of the area of ​​Palestine, but is home to 2 million people, or 17% of the Palestinian population.

“Many sectors in Gaza, including water, land, agriculture, air and other environmental elements, are being drained," Banna told Al-Monitor. "The people’s consumption is large, and the size of the population does not match what is available from these natural elements and resources.”

Aquifers are Gaza's primary water source, according to [Mazen al-Banna, an engineer and vice president of the Palestinian Water Authority in the Gaza Strip], and provide for 98% of public consumption. 

“The second source of water is the Israeli national water company, known as Mekorot, which provides the Gaza Strip with 5 million cubic meters per year, paid for by the Palestinian Authority," Banna said. "This amount reaches the eastern areas of Khan Yunis and the central areas, as aquifers in some of these areas either don’t exist or are salty, and thus not suitable for direct use.”

Gaza's limited sources of water and the pollution of available sources have led to a decrease in the daily water allotments provided to Gaza residents. Ahmed Hillis, a water sector researcher, said individual Gaza residents are receiving less than the amount recommended by the World Health Organization to remain healthy.

“This severe shortage has steadily worsened over the past few years as a result of the increasing population [and not] seriously developing the water and sanitation sectors," Hillis said. 

"[This] has caused another major problem: deterioration in the [water] quality, as seawater is entering the aquifers as a result of aquifers being overdrawn. The Gaza Strip has more than 6,000 wells, most of which are unlicensed. … The aquifers have been contaminated by the entry of wastewater as a result of the infrastructure being worn out or destroyed during the wars, the absence of comprehensive development, the citizens digging soakwells and many farmers excessively using chemicals to fertilize the soil or to [exterminate] agricultural pests. [The chemicals] end up seeping into the aquifers.”

Water pollution and aquifer depletion have made potable water scarce in the Gaza Strip.

Munther Shiblak, general director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, said that 97% of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption and that aquifers produce no more than 55 million cubic meters per year. “Gaza needs an estimated 180 million cubic meters [146,000 acre-feet] a year for domestic and agricultural uses," he said. "The annual deficit is about 100 million cubic meters. The lack of water in the aquifers is causing a phenomenon whereby seawater seeps into the usable aquifer water and increases the water’s salinity. The wells near the coast are witnessing a significant rise in their chloride content — about 1,500 milligrams per liter in some cases. It should not exceed 250 milligrams per liter.”

Shiblak said that untreated sewage and the improper use of pesticides are major causes of increased pollution. “The nitrate level must be between 50 to 70 milligrams per liter according to international standards. But in the Gaza Strip, it reaches five times this level,” he said.

The Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, according to Shiblak, is responsible for finding water sources for Gaza’s population and is currently trying to find alternative water sources. “Seawater desalination is being considered," he said. "A plant for this purpose was established in 2003 to supply the population in the central area of ​​the Gaza Strip, funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation. [The plant’s] production capacity expanded from 600 to 2,600 cubic meters a day at the beginning of 2013 following a grant from the Islamic Development Bank. We are looking for additional funding to reach a production capacity of 5,000 cubic meters a day.”

A number of seawater desalination projects are in the works for several towns in the Gaza Strip and are expected to be functioning next year to serve hundreds of thousands of citizens. But, according to Shiblak, these projects will be held hostage to the general political and living conditions.

“Not all projects will be completed given the current political situation and power outages. Power is a key factor for the operation of these plants,” he said.

Gaza's options for potable water remain limited given the significant deterioration in its water situation. New options for water sources are subject to several factors, including international funding, internal politics and whether the water utility is active or not.

[END REPORT]

North Korea in drought: Just managing now but "Living on the edge"

The optimistic outlook follows a warning by the top U.N. official in North Korea of a looming crisis due to last year's drought, caused by the lowest rainfall in 30 years. "It is going to create a huge deficit between the needs and what is available."

Drought-hit North Korea seen able to avoid food crisis

By Jack Kim and James Pearson
May 31, 2015
Reuters

(Seoul) North Korea has updated farming methods and switched crops that could help soften the blow of drought and avert a disastrous food shortage, an aid worker and an analyst said on Sunday, after a U.N. official warned of another "huge food deficit".

Impoverished North Korea, which suffered a deadly famine in the 1990s, has seen international food aid fall sharply because of its restrictions on humanitarian workers and reluctance to allow monitoring of food distribution.

Food supplies had since improved and production has been at the highest levels, resulting in the lowest shortfall last year since the mid-2000s, according to independent South Korean studies.

"Supply this year will be even more stable and any shortfall is likely to be met sufficiently by imports," said Kwon Tae-jin of the GSnJ Institute in Seoul, an expert on North Korean agriculture.

"Improvement in the supply of food isn't likely by chance or a temporary situation," he said, crediting an increased allocation of resources in agriculture.

Linda Lewis, of the American Friends Service Committee, an NGO running farm projects inNorth Korea, said she had heard the new farm management system was helping.

"The production was okay last year, despite the drought, and there are more coping mechanisms in place this year," she said.

North Korea now allows smaller groups of farmers to keep a greater share of their crops, which they are allowed to sell in markets, which in turn improved distribution.

The optimistic outlook follows a warning by the top U.N. official in North Korea of a looming crisis due to last year's drought, caused by the lowest rainfall in 30 years.

"It is going to create a huge deficit between the needs and what is available," the U.N. resident coordinator for North Korea, Ghulam Isaczai, said.

North Korean state media last week highlighted the push to step up rice production with "a scientific farming method including the water-saving farming method", KCNA news agency said. It didn't elaborate.

Kwon said part of the success had been in diversifying crops, with wheat, barley and potatoes planted after the fall rice harvest.

Isaczai said farmers had no choice but to diversify, because it was too dry to plant rice.

Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group told Reuters in Singapore that the North was "living on the edge".

"They might have had four, five decent years of decent output but you need only one disaster, one flood or one El Nino pattern that could have a negative impact," he said.

(Additional reporting by Oh Seungyun in Seoul and Raju Gopalakrishnan in Singapore; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Nick Macfie)

[END REPORT]

Much surprising advice for dog and cat caretakers

This article by Michelle Crouch in Reader's Digest is a year old but it's the first time I've come across it: 50 Secrets Your Pet Won’t Tell You: "We asked animal behaviorists, nutritionists, veterinarians, and pet groomers to shed some light on what your furry friends would tell you if they could."

The 50 pieces of advice are presented in slide-show format but can be viewed in a single page format. Some of the advice is easy to figure out with close observation but I think much of it will come as a surprise. It really took people who do nothing but study dogs and cats to figure these things out.

Below, a few items of the advice but if you have a cat or dog or both the entire article is a must read.

As a matter of fact, it's a must read for everyone who knows people who have a cat or dog. Please pass along the article. Several items of the advice are critically important to the animal's physical health and others are big peacemakers.

Cats

Remember, I see the world as vertical, not horizontal

So instead of getting mad when I knock things off the mantel, build me a cat superhighway around the room. Put up a shelf that leads up to a bookcase that leads to a mantel that leads to a chair that gets me down.

Just because I’m purring doesn’t mean I’m happy and content.

I also purr when I’m in pain or mortally afraid because it’s a self-soothing mechanism.

Dogs 

Remember, my digestive system is very different from yours.

Raisins and grapes can shut down a dog’s kidneys. Other dangerous foods include chocolate, coffee, macadamia nuts, and avocado.

Every bag of pet food has an Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) statement on the label...

...although you might need a magnifying glass to read it. Look for one that says the food has undergone animal feeding trials rather than one that’s been “formulated” by a computer. The trials are expensive, but they indicate that real dogs actually ate the food for six months with good results.
Check with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist before giving me a homemade-food diet.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, who examined 200 recipes last year for home-prepared dog food found that 95 percent had some serious nutritional deficiencies.

Please don’t rush me when I’m going to the bathroom.

There’s a reason dogs circle around before getting down to business: We have an instinct to be aligned with the earth’s magnetic field before we poop. In fact, researchers watched 70 of us engage in 1,893 defecations over a two-year period just to figure this out.

You may think it’s nice to let me sleep all day, but too much nap time can affect my personality.

A lot of behavioral problems can be solved by just taking your dog on a daily walk or by playing with your cat for 20 minutes every day.

You say I’m great with kids, but...

...if I’m licking, pulling my ears back, turning my head away, or yawning (all signs of anxiety) while they play with me, I’m probably just barely tolerating them. If you keep letting them pull my tail, one of these days, I might lose it.

Hold those clippers!

No matter how high the mercury climbs or how long my hair is, I don’t need to be shaved. My undercoat actually insulates me from heat, so it helps me stay cool. Just make sure you keep my coat brushed and mat-free to promote good air circulation.

If you leave me in the backyard when you’re not home...

...don’t fool yourself that I’m going to run around and have fun. The truth is, I’m probably going to sit in one spot and wait for you to return. Dogs are den animals, and many of us prefer to be inside, ideally with you.

Want me to learn to walk by your side on a leash?

Well, give me some incentive. As soon as I start to pull ahead, stop walking. When I turn and look back, offer me a treat right next to your leg. I’ll quickly figure out I need to stay next to you in order to keep doing what I love most: moving and exploring.

If I’m a dog who is scared of thunderstorms or loud noises, get me a snug-fitting Thundershirt.

Or you can make your own. Wrap an Ace bandage across my chest, cross it over the top of my body and then back under, going over and under until it’s midway down my back, and then secure it. The constant pressure against the middle of my body will help ease my anxiety and calm me down.

Cats and Dogs

Did you hear the hype about grain-free cat and dog food?

That’s what it is: hype. There’s nothing wrong with feeding me grains—they can actually be an important part of a balanced diet. Before you make any change, talk to your vet.

If you switch me to a raw diet, I may end up with cracked teeth or a bacterial infection.

Also, exposure to my feces could put anyone with a weakened immune system at risk. That’s why the ASPCA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other institutions all strongly discourage raw diets. [I'm assuming this applies to both cats and dogs]

-----

By the way I think we could all do with a Thundershirt on occasion -- when there's nobody near during an alarming situation to give reassuring hugs.

********

I'm sorry I couldn't resist

The following is from a McClatchy report, 5 years after Iraq's 'liberation,' there are worms in the water by Hannah Allam, datelined March 16, 2008. It's about the massive infrastructure problems and every other kind of problem with key services delivery that emerged from the combined whammy of the demise of Saddam's regime, the US invasion, insurgencies, and all the infrastructure problems that Saddam's regime had swept under the rug.

Plus -- plus -- the Iraqis got a rude awakening about how modern democratic government actually works.

Pile that on top of the old-style way of getting things done -- graft -- and pile that on top of everything else, and the report would be tough reading. But the practical nature of many Iraqis -- and their sense of humor -- put the bad news in context.  If both can somehow triumph over sectarian differences that today threaten to rip the country apart, Iraqis have a fighting chance to come out on top.

That is, if President Obama and the goons who pass for his national security advisers would stop trying to 'rebalance' the Middle East.              

BAGHDAD (McClatchy)— Iraq's most prominent clerics have ruled that using a water pump on one's own pipes is akin to stealing resources from a neighbor, so what does a person do when it takes half an hour to fill a cooking pot with water from the tap?

Iraqis pray for forgiveness, then pump away.

To them, the real crime is that five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, they still swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter because of a lack of electricity. Government rations are inevitably late, incomplete or expired. Garbage piles up for days, sometimes weeks, emanating toxic fumes.

The list goes on: black-market fuel, phone bills for land lines that haven't worked in years, education and health-care systems degraded by the flight of thousands of Iraq's best teachers and doctors.

When the Iraqi government announced that 2008 would be "the year of services," workaday Iraqis had their doubts.

"Under Saddam's regime, we had limited salaries but we had security and decent services. Now, we have decent incomes but we lose it all to water, propane, groceries, fuel. We save nothing," said Balqis Kareem, 46, a Sunni Muslim housewife who lives in the predominantly Shiite Muslim district of Karrada. "This government gives with the right hand and takes away with the left."

At Kareem's modest, single-story home, a wall in the living room sprouts a tangle of electrical wires, a reflection of the three power sources she juggles throughout the day: the government's supply, her own small generator and the neighborhood's larger generator. Even so, for five years she hasn't been able to keep milk or meat in the refrigerator for more than a few hours because it spoils so quickly in the daily blackouts.

A kitchen cupboard holds a barely touched box of rationed tea, which Kareem described as "so bitter no amount of sugar can sweeten it." 

She said that she'd once used a magnet to clean metallic flakes from a bag of government-supplied rice. She barred her four children from drinking tap water after she found worms floating in a glass she'd poured.

The family's home phone rarely works, though earlier this month a worker from the phone company showed up demanding payment for calls that they both knew she hadn't made. Like so many employees of government utilities, he wanted a bribe.

"I just got to the point and told him, 'Don't waste my time. How much do you want?' " Kareem said. "He told me, I paid him and then went on with my day. I'm practical."

As another scorching summer approaches, everyone has to improvise to find electricity. Those who can't afford generators have to grease the meter men to look the other way as they splice wires and steal more than their permitted amount of power. At most, they'll be able to run a TV set, a couple of fluorescent bulbs and maybe the water pump. Of course, that's only when the electricity is on — never more than five hours a day and typically closer to two.

A popular joke here goes that a distraught boy approached his mother and sobbed that his father had touched a live wire and was electrocuted, to which the mother replied, "Thank God! There's electricity!"

[...]

d more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/03/16/30316/5-years-after-iraqs-liberation.html#storylink=cpy