Kenya Is Growing Fast, but Severe Water Shortages Make The Future Look Grim

 

by Justus Bahati Wanzala

Reprinted from Alternet

As demand for water rises and rainfall becomes less dependable, fewer Kenyans can rely only on rivers, springs or – for the lucky minority – a piped water supply. Many instead are turning to borehole water.

But increasing urbanisation, combined with the effects of climate change and the growing popularity of tapping into underground aquifers, is proving an unsustainable combination, experts say.

Kenya’s traditional water sources are rapidly dwindling in volume due to overexploitation, erratic rains and the degradation of catchment areas. In response, the use of underground water is becoming widespread across this water-stressed east African country, whose population of 41 million has access to an annual renewable fresh water supply of only 647 cubic metres per person, according to government figures.

But some areas are already experiencing depletion of underground water as well. Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, has a rapidly growing population of around three million, and several satellite towns emerging on its outskirts. With no piped water, many residents of these new communities have turned to borehole water, resulting in increasing pressure on groundwater resources.

Daniel Juma, of Joska Township on Nairobi’s outskirts, has dug a 30-metre (100-foot) borehole to supply his household with water. Already he worries about how long it will last.

“It was costly digging the borehole, yet many more are being (dug) in the neighbourhood and it might dry up in a few years,” he says.

LACK OF PIPED WATER

Boreholes are widely used in Nairobi, given that 40 percent of the city’s population is not directly supplied with piped water. Agatha Thuita, an official of the government’s Water Resources Management Authority (WRMA), said that even those with access to piped water often supplement their supply with borehole water or harvested rainwater because the piped supply is unreliable.

The Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company is among those drilling boreholes to improve the water supply to Nairobi residents and supplement the supply of water from dams on the outskirts of the city, Thuita said. Residents without piped water or a borehole buy water from the company’s water tankers.

The problem is not confined to Kenya. Groundwater reservoirs are rapidly being depleted around the world. In August 2012, researchers in Canada and the Netherlands found that 80 percent of the world’s aquifers were not being used sustainably, with heavy exploitation of water threatening livelihoods and lives of millions of people.

Some 430 km (270 miles) west of Nairobi, in the Mundika area of Busia County, near Kenya’s border with Uganda, people already have seen their boreholes dry up. Jackline Ajiambo is one of many residents who dug a borehole to ensure reliable access to clean water because of lower water levels in rivers and the drying up of springs and streams.

“This borehole was initially 28 feet (deep) and drawing water was much easier, but the water level has grown low, compelling us to dig it deeper,” Ajiambo said.

DRYING BOREHOLES

Because drilling boreholes with machines is costly, the majority of borehole users rely on hand-dug holes, but they are not always reliable. Milton Onyango’s borehole is 50 feet (15 metres) deep and was once a source of water for both domestic use and the watering of livestock. But it dried up two years ago, and with no source of running water, he now relies on the Sio river, 7 km (4 miles) away.

In a culture where fetching water is a woman’s role, Onyango’s wife and two teenage daughters must endure the regular long trek.

Officials point to several factors leading to the depletion of traditional water supplies. According to Musembi Munyao, an official with the water ministry in Nairobi, pollution of rivers is partly to blame for the increasing switch to groundwater in Kenya.

“If the Nairobi River (had not) been polluted, its water would still be fit for consumption thus reducing the need for drilling boreholes in the city and its environs,” Munyao, a geologist, says.

Munyao also criticises the damage done to water catchment areas, such as the destruction of vegetation on mountains and hills. According to the WRMA’s Thuita, rapid urbanisation also increases the amount of land covered in impermeable surfaces such as roads, while deforestation can also lead to more surface-water runoff during the rainy seasons. These factors make it difficult for water to percolate into the ground and recharge aquifers.

Although the government has not undertaken detailed monitoring, Thuita believes that two further factors contributing to increasing water stress are low precipitation linked to climate change, and overexploitation of groundwater.

“At the coast, heavy extraction of groundwater has led to seawater intrusion causing salinity in borehole water,” she said.

Munyao notes that the country’s exact groundwater availability is unknown, making it hard to determine which areas have enough water to tolerate increased exploitation.

SOLUTIONS?

Addressing the problem, experts say, will require a range of changes, including more harvesting of rainwater to boost supplies and recharge aquifers, and rules to prevent housing estates being developed in water catchment areas where aquifer recharge takes place.

What Kenya needs is “an integrated water resources management system,” Thuita says. “We need to develop wisely by not undoing what nature has provided us.”

Demand for water, however, is driving action. Speaking at the opening of a recent workshop on developing a master plan for Nairobi’s water resources, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga said the government intended to meet the needs of the capital and its 13 satellite communities one way or another.

“The water available currently meets a mere 60 percent of the demands of the city and its satellite towns,” said Odinga. In response – for better or for worse – the government plans to sink more boreholes.

• Justus Bahati Wanzala is a writer based in Nairobi.

Read more at AlertNet Climate, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s daily news website on the human impacts of climate change.

Source: Alternet

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 Solar Power and Water.  Desalination Can Be Powered by Solar Energy

U.S  President John F. Kennedy,  speaking in 1962,  said: ‘If we could produce fresh water from salt water at a low cost, that would indeed be a great service to humanity, and would dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.’ In the half century since, the need for innovation to satisfy humanity’s demand for clean water has become ever more urgent. While technological advances continue to improve the efficiency of desalination methods, it is vital that the sources of power used by desalination plants also continue to evolve.

An article by Robin Yapp  discusses Saudia Arabia’s ambitious plans to introduce  new solar-powered desalination plants.

The country’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) announced plans to establish three new solar-powered desalination plants in Haqel, Dhuba and Farasan.   SWCC is the biggest producer of desalinated water worldwide, accounting for 18% of global output.

Around half the operating cost of a desalination plant comes from energy use, and on current trends Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the region would consume most of the oil they produce on desalination by 2050.

The dominant desalination technology at present, with around 60% of global capacity, is Reverse Osmosis (RO), which pushes brine water through a membrane that retains the salt and other impurities.

Thermal desalination uses heat as well as electricity in distillation processes with saline feedwater heated to vaporise, so fresh water evaporates and the brine is left behind. Cooling and condensation are then used to obtain fresh water for consumption.

Desalination with renewable energy can already compete cost-wise with conventional systems in remote regions where the cost of energy transmission is high.

The use of solar power can bring huge cuts to the facility’s contribution to global warming and smog compared to use of RO or MSF with fossil fuels, according to the developers.

Around 700 million people in 43 countries are classified by the UN as suffering from water scarcity today,  but by 2025 the figure is forecast to rise to 1.8 billion. With the global population expected to reach nine billion by 2050 and the US Secretary of State openly discussing the threat of water shortages leading to wars, desalinated water has never been more important.

The World’s Oldest Human Dies Without Revealing What Kind of Water She Drank

by Gene Franks

This week Besse Cooper died in a Georgia nursing home.  She was 116 and officially the world’s oldest living human.  Dina Manfredini, of Iowa, inherits Cooper’s title as world’s oldest living person. She is currently 115.

When very old people die there is almost always a newspaper article that tells their secrets for a long life.  Jeanne Clement of France, who died at 122 and holds the world record for longevity (if you omit the Biblical geezers, who don’t really count),  explained her long life by saying that God must have overlooked her. A very old man, whose name I’ve forgotten,  attributed his long life to having eaten oatmeal cookies for breakfast most of his life. Books and articles about longevity always trot out the same old advice about eating well balanced meals, eating regularly, getting plenty of sleep, having friends, being in a “happy relationship,” and thinking positive thoughts.

It is always disappointing to me that no one ever says they lived to 115 because they drank only mountain spring water or distilled water or Gatorade.  We could, after all, use a hint.  Water is water, but what particular type of water do the people who really live a long time recommend?

There have been many attempts to link the drinking water of a region with longevity.  The best example is probably the southern Ecuadorian village of Vilcabamba, which in alternative health literature is legendary for its high percentage of centenarians.  According to the Wikipedia:

In 1981, the Ecuadorian government hired medical journalist Dr. Morton Walker to study these people in depth. In his book, “The Secret to a Youthful Long Life,”  Dr. Walker reported that his research showed the mineral rich water that the Vilcabambans drank was key to their long lives and health. Laboratory analysis of the Vilcabamba water determined that the unique balance of enriched colloidal minerals in the local drinking water was ideal for promoting optimum human health. 

 Although Dr. Walker’s water theory helped with the marketing of  some health food store supplements and drinks, there has, to my knowledge,  been no effort to bottle and sell water from Vilcabamba, and everyone now seems to have forgotten the whole issue.

Another place that vies for the title of having the oldest people in the world is Hunza in far NE Pakistan.  The inhabitants of Hunza,  or  Hunzakuts as they are called, rival Vilcabambans in the attainment of geezerhood,  and some believe that the water they drink is responsible.  Here’s a description from one website:

This water comes from the melting of glaciers from the nearby mountains. These glaciers are hundreds of thousand of years old and grind the mountainous rock into extremely fine particles. In turn the fine particles of rock are suspended in this water and is called glacial milk because of its cloudy appearance by being so loaded with these minerals. Coming from glacial mountain streams and waterfalls this water carries a negative charge or negative ions and is called “living water.” This results in the water having an oxygen reduction potential and acts as an antioxidant in the body with the ability to neutralize free radicals. Also the negative charge makes minerals easily absorbable. Their crops are also irrigated with this colloidal alkalizing mineral water and thus unlike Western soils, hunza soils are not depleted of minerals.

Keywords like “alkalizing” might lead you to suspect where the article is going.  To live a long time, it appears, you have to 1) move to a place near a glacier, or 2) drag a glacier near to your home so you can drink the water that melts from it, or 3) buy a $2,000 electrical “ionizer” for your kitchen to turn tap water into the glacier water that the almost-immortal Hunzakuts drink.

A fourth alternative would be to learn the secrets of the Immortal Jellyfish.

 More about Besse Cooper.

Unique Cloud Forest Trees  Are In Danger Because of Climate Change

University of California scientists have learned that tropical montane cloud forest trees actually drink water through their leaves in defiance of conventional scientific wisdom that says trees take in moisture only through their roots.

The trees may be in for a difficult time, however, as the clouds they now drink from are drying up due to climate change.  Changes in cloud cover have already been correlated to declines and disappearances of cloud forest animal populations, such as frogs and salamanders.  The trees may be the next to go.

Full details from the UC Berkeley News Center.

Membrane Autopsy

By Ryan Lessing, WATTS Water Technologies

Introductory Note:  The following piece, by Ryan Lessing of the Engineering Dept. of Watts Water Technologies,  San Antonio, TX, is reprinted from the Winter 2011 issue of H2O Quality magazine, a publication of the Texas Water Quality Association.  Ryan’s article is intended for large reverse osmosis membranes, but the same principles can be applied to small  residential undersink RO membranes.  Residential membranes usually last for several years.  When they fail prematurely,  applying Ryan’s autopsy procedure may allow you to diagnose and fix the issue to protect subsequent membranes.   For example, if it appears the membrane is failing due to hardness scaling, pretreatment to soften or condition the water’s hardness can prevent future failures; if the membrane appears to be damaged by chlorine, you may need to change your carbon prefilter more often; if you cut the membrane open and it’s full of dirt, you definitely need to change your sediment and carbon prefilters more often.   –Gene Franks, Pure Water Products.

Membranes can be cleaned by following the cleaning chemical manufacturer’s
guidelines. As a rule of thumb, if the membranes require up to 15% more feed pressure
to make the same amount of permeate as when they were new or make up to 15%
less permeate at the same feed pressure as when they were new they can be cleaned.
Exceeding either of the 15% benchmarks may mean the membranes may not respond
well to cleaning.

Autopsying a membrane is helpful in determining what is causing the scaling or fouling
issue. I follow a simple procedure that can be very telling. Begin by making a shallow
cut to the membrane’s outer wrapping from top to bottom. Remove the tape or fiberglass
wrapping. Again make a shallow cut from top to bottom, this time through the first layer
of the membrane. The membrane should now unroll like a roll of paper towels. Look at
what is on the membrane surface. At this point, given your water analysis results, you
can begin to draw some conclusions.

 

Red may indicate the presence of iron or clay, or both. Grey to black could indicate
manganese (gray could also mean silt). Fine loose powder could be silt. Hard grit (with
a caked-on sand paper-like texture) is scale. Dry a section of the scale and put vinegar
on it. If it foams up it is most likely calcium carbonate and this means the softener is
not working properly. If the scale looks like sugar crystals and does not foam when
vinegar is applied it may be a sulfate-based scale. Calcium is still required to make this
form of scale so the softener could still be the problem. Is the membrane slimy? Let the
membrane warm up to room temperature and smell it.

Does it have a fishy smell? Microbiological fouling could be the problem. With each
of these tests, look back at the pretreatment responsible for addressing that issue. Is it
functioning properly, is it sized properly? Then you can make the proper adjustments or
add what component might be missing.

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 Jellyfish and Sea Urchins Know Things That We Don’t About Disease Resistance and Longevity

In 1988 a young German Marine-Biologist captured and began observing a fairly rare marine creature known to biologists as Turritopsis dohrnii.  The creature is now commonly referred to as The Immortal Jellyfish.  After several days he noticed that his Turritopsis dohrnii was behaving in a very peculiar manner, for which he could imagine no explanation. Plainly speaking, it refused to die. It appeared to age in reverse, growing younger and younger until it reached its earliest stage of development, at which point it began its life cycle anew.

Here’s how NY Times writer Nathaniel Rich explains the process:

Like most hydrozoans, Turritopsis passes through two main stages of life, polyp and medusa.  A polyp resembles a sprig of dill, with spindly stalks that branch and fork and terminate in buds. When these buds swell, they sprout not flowers but medusas. A medusa has a bell-shaped dome and dangling tentacles. Any layperson would identify it as a jellyfish, though it is not the kind you see at the beach. Those belong to a different taxonomic group, Scyphozoa, and tend to spend most of their lives as jellyfish; hydrozoans have briefer medusa phases. An adult medusa produces eggs or sperm, which combine to create larvae that form new polyps. In other hydroid species, the medusa dies after it spawns. A Turritopsis medusa, however, sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, where its body folds in on itself — assuming the jellyfish equivalent of the fetal position. The bell reabsorbs the tentacles, and then it degenerates further until it becomes a gelatinous blob. Over the course of several days, this blob forms an outer shell. Next it shoots out stolons, which resemble roots. The stolons lengthen and become a polyp. The new polyp produces new medusas, and the process begins again.

 All this, of course, flies in the face of our most basic assumption about our world:  “first you are born, then you die.” The jellyfish, though, acts like a chicken that can turn back into and egg which hatches and grows again into a chicken which then turns back into an egg, and so on.

Although there is strong reason to believe that the simple creatures of the sea hold secrets that teach of immortality and the cure of cancer, there seems to be little will to study them.  For example, cancer funding, which is high dollar business,  is directed toward the study of actual cancers and drugs that can be used to make money. “Venture capitalists” do not want to open their pockets on long-shot studies of jellyfish.  There is also the problem that there are so few experts in hydrozoans.  Few want to make a career of studying jellyfish when there are sexier creatures to be examined.  It is also a very difficult research area because hydrozoans don’t like laboratory life and are tedious to maintain as research animals.

That doesn’t erase the fact that we may be looking in the wrong places.  One scientist says that to learn about life we need to look at the roots rather than the tree.  The simple creatures of the ocean have much to teach us.

“Immortality might be much more common than we think,” one researcher says.  “There are sponges out there that we know have been there for decades. Sea-urchin larvae are able to regenerate and continuously give rise to new adults.” He continued: “This might be a general feature of these animals. They never really die.”

For the full, fascinating story of the immortal jellyfish, you should read the  full article from the NY Times.

In Our Age of Information, Information About Fluoride and IQ in Children Is Hard to Find

by Hardly Waite, Senior Editor

An October 2012 publication of research done at the Harvard University Department of Environmental Health   surveyed numerous previous studies and reached the conclusion that ingesting fluoride has an effect on children’s neurodevelopment and that, in fact, “. . .children in high­ fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low­ fluoride areas.”

The sad thing about the finding is that you probably aren’t going to read about it in your local paper or hear about it

on the evening news.  And what’s doubly sad is that it isn’t news at all.  The Harvard researchers  (Anna L. Choi, Gufian Sun, Ying Zhang, and Phillippe Grandjean) made no startling discovery on their own.  They simply reviewed the findings of many, many previous studies that have shown similar results but have also failed to be reported on the evening news.

Fluoride Action Network had identified at least 36 previous studies that came to the same conclusion.  Michael Connett and Tara Blank write:

As of September 2012, a total of 42 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence, and a total of 17 studies have investigated the relationship fluoride and learning/memory in animals. Of these investigations, 36 of the 42 human studies have found that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ, while 16 of the 17 animal studies have found that fluoride exposure impairs the learning and memory capacity of animals. The human studies, which are based on IQ examinations of over 11,000 children, provide compelling evidence that fluoride exposure during the early years of life can damage a child’s developing brain.

The relationship between fluoride and the dumbing down of children isn’t new and it isn’t secret.  It is surprising, though, how few people are aware of it.  The next time your dentist speaks out for fluoride, ask him if he’s aware of the Harvard research showing that fluoride has a demonstrable bad effect on the neurodevelopment of children.  If he says that the Harvard research is part of a commie plot to ruin America’s teeth, look for another dentist.

As Water Grows Scarcer by the Day, The Texas Legislature Finally Promises Action

Texas has just experienced a year of extreme drought.  Added to that, economic growth, with its ensuing demand for water, has been strong. At long last, the Texas legislature seems ready to make some tough decisions.

In 2011 Texas experienced the worst drought in its history.  The realization has come that the state isn’t ready for another drought of of that magnitude.

Texas’ strong economy has led to predictions that the state’s population will grow from 25 million in 2010 to 55 million in 2050.  Water, clearly, will be in demand.  The short-term forecast is for an 18 percent increase in demand coupled with a 10 percent drop in supply.  More people and more industrial activity also use more electricity which uses more water.

The Texas Water Development Board  predicts that failing to take action now to assure a sufficient water supply could lead to a loss of 1 million jobs and $115.7 billion in business by 2060.  The board has a $53 billion plan that includes  new reservoirs, dams, pipelines and wells over the next 50 years to meet the growing demand for water, but so far the Legislature has not appropriated a penny to fund any of this.

Those skeptical or unhappy with the ambitious development plans (which address only increased supply and seem to ignore conservation) include the Environmental Defense Fund, residents and industries whose land may be lost to eminent domain purchases,  timber companies, fishermen, and many cities.

Another troublesome issue that the legislature needs to tackle is a hopelessly out of date law that was upheld last year by the Texas Supreme Court.  The law gives landowners the right to all groundwater under the land.  It’s a concept that goes back to medieval Europe, but it is still in force in Texas, greatly complicating the state’s ability to manage water.

Groundwater levels are  dropping fast in Texas, and climatologists are warning of another drought in 2013. Texas lawmakers have their hands full.

Reference:  CBS Local.

A Case of Health of Many vs. Wealth of a Few: A Hard Look at Horizontal Fracking

Editor’s Note.  The following description of the practice of fracking, excerpted from Why the War Against Fracking May Be Our Most Crucial Conflict, by Ellen Cantarow, underlines the seriousness of  the practice of horizontal fracking.

Developed in 2008 and vastly more expansive in its infrastructure than the purely vertical form of fracking invented by Halliburton Corporation in the 1940s, high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing is a land-devouring, water-squandering technology with a greenhouse gas footprint  greater than that of coal. The process begins by propelling one to nine million gallons of sand-and-chemical-laced water at hyperbaric bomb-like pressures a mile or more beneath Earth’s surface. Most of that fluid stays underground. Of the remainder,  next to nothing is ever again available for irrigation or drinking.  A recent report  by the independent, nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that fracking poses serious risks to health and the environment.

New York State’s grassroots resistance to fracking began about four years ago around kitchen tables and in living rooms as neighbors started talking about this frightening technology. Shallow drilling for easily obtainable gas had been done for decades in the state, but this gargantuan industrial effort represented something else again.

Anthony Ingraffea  of Cornell University’s Department of Engineering, co-author of a study that established the global warming footprint of the industry, calls this new form of fracking an unparalleled danger to the environment and human health. “There’s much more land clearing, much more devastation of forests and fields. . . thousands of miles of pipelines. . . many compressor stations [that] require burning enormous quantities of diesel. . . [emitting] hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.” He adds that it’s a case of “the health of many versus the wealth of a few.”

Against that wealth stands a movement of the 99% — farmers, physicists, journalists, teachers, librarians, innkeepers, brewery owners, and engineers.  “In Middlefield we’re nothing special,” says Kelly Branigan, a realtor who last year founded a group called Middlefield Neighbors. “We’re just regular people who got together and learned, and reached in our pockets to go to work on this. It’s inspiring, it’s awesome, and it’s America — its own little revolution.”

Read more about the grassroots struggle of the many against the apparently overwhelming wealth and power of the few.