7 Tips to Search for Water circa 1958

I stumbled on this Popular Science article from 1958 last week. A self-help guide caught my eye. There were the following 7 easy tips to help a person search for water when they left the city or suburbs for good ole country living:

1.  Look for a stream that flows all year round. This is a good sign of underground water; so are swamp areas.

2.  Talk to old-timers and bring up the subject of water casually. You will learn something. 

3.  In regions of dense rock outcroppings you are strictly on your own. It's hit or miss.

4.  State or county water authority will have facts and figures on the local situation.

5.  Water is where you find it. A shallow well next to a deep, dry hole may give plenty.

6.  In arid areas, learn about the special grasses, shrubs and trees that indicate water.

7.  Before picking your man, interview several well drillers. You may get some good tips.

The article stated that a minimum of 50 gallons a day should be allowed for each member of the family, but suggested ensuring 100 gallons a day per person.  Oh, how times have changed.

So, if we were going to modify the list 52 years later what would you add or delete?

7 iphone Apps about Water

When did this happen? Overnight it seems like I have stopped using the web.

I used to log into Google Reader and read though all my RSS feeds. Now, not so much.

Most of my "getting" is through apps on the go.  Hands down my favorite for news/twitter/facebook app right now is Flipboard. This one app is worth the cost of an iPad.

I guess I am not alone.

In January over 3 billion apps, just in the Apple ecosystem, were downloaded since the creation of the app store. Incredibly, this amount more than doubled to 7 billion apps by this past month.

I thought I would dig through the mountain of apps this morning and download 7 apps somehow related to water and give them a testdrive.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority

While I don't live in Dubai, this app looked to be a good example. This utility provides a mobile app to its customers where a customer can check their bills, use a mapping tool to find closest place to pay bills, and even watch utility videos.  Will all water utilities provide a water app in the future?

I don't think I would be interested in this type of app, until it can provide my water or electrical daily demand.  Now that would be powerful.

Virtual Water

This app calculates the volume of freshwater used to produce a product and was based on a poster designed by Timm Kekeritz. This is simple to use with close thirty food products, such as steaks, bananas and apples.  You can input how many apples you are eating and it will tell you its waterfootprint.

Maybe its just me, but needing to know how much water is used for my delicious steak is not a recurring mobile need.  Pass.

Waterprint

This app is similar to Virtual Water, but with more items.  It even has a calculator so you can add up your whole meal. However, it is kind of clunky. Again, not sure about the pent up mobile need for this app.

Water Facts

Oh my,  89 water facts in one mobile app. My first thought was I better not have paid for this piece of junk of an app.  You can shake your iphone and then it displays a small water fact such as “It takes X gallons to take a bath”  This is beyond awful. Double Pass.

Drip Detective

This app helps you calculate the yearly cost of any drips in your house.  You tap the screen to match drip rate and the app calculates the yearly cost. While it is simple to use, I am not sure if I would every download.  This app needs to be apart of a bigger app. Pass.

Water: Environmental Quiz

This app looks like it sponsored by the Sierra Club  Example question: Name the three counties that still have whaling operations.  Pass.

CreekWatch.

This app was developed by IBM as a part of their smarter planet initiative as a possible way to “crowdsource” watershed data. A person can report on a particular waterway, use the app to take a picture and report how much trash or how much water there is.  You can see contributions from other people on a map.

The Creek Watch App uses the following data:
1. The amount of water: empty, some, or full.
2. The rate of flow: still, moving slowly, or moving fast.
3. The amount of trash: none, some (a few pieces), or a lot (10 or more)

While this is a real app with the muscle of IBM backing it, it is only a start.  What would be really cool is if they tied this crowdsource collected data with USGS gaging stations and other other online data sources.  Give it a try.

Please comment if there are some other ones out there that are good.

Carolina's Water War ends with a wimper or a woot!

So, the word is out.  This interstate water war is ending. Its ending on a wimper or a woot depending on where you stand.

Catawba-Wateree River Basin Advisory Commission listened to a presentation yesterday detailing a proposed agreement on ending the SC vs. NC "Water Wars" Supreme Court case.  The commission later unanimously supported the arrangement.

I can’t believe it was over three years ago when South Carolina sued North Carolina under the original jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court. South Carolina said North Carolina was basically taking more than its fair share out of the Catawba and was violating the U.S. Constitution because one state’s decision cannot directly affect another state. South Carolina asked the Court to divide up the river’s flows between the states.  For any water wonks…great summary and history of the case over at Water Wiki.

While I am sure the actual agreement is complex, some basic provisions from the joint settlement agreement were reported to be:

• All users (NC and SC) of Catawba water, including interbasin transfers, are subject to drought response plans no less stringent than those of Duke Energy’s Low Inflow Protocol system.
• Both states, along with the Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group, will update the information on water conditions every 10 years.
• Neither state is allowed to file a Supreme Court action against its neighbor as long as conditions of the relicensing agreement are met or until 2058.
• Both states must provide notice of transfer applications to water users in both states and provide additional documentation of the need for an interbasin transfer.

South Carolina has reportedly spent close to $3.2 million dollars on this lawsuit. So as a South Carolinean I hope this agreement was worth this.

“I think it’s a gorgeous day for a settlement"

-Bob Cook, deputy attorney general for South Carolina.

“We’re going to be neighbors for a long time. We’re going to have to share this river for a long time.” 

- Jim Gulick, senior deputy attorney general for North Carolina.

Water Risk in the Municipal Bond Market

the report: The Ripple Effect: Water Risk in the Municipal Bond Market

authors: Ceres: National coalition of investors, environmental groups and other groups with a passion for sustainability challenges.  Pricewaterhouse Coopers: Big company focusing on audit and assurance, tax and advisory services. Water Asset Management: A global equity investor in public and private water related companies

why?: Municipal bonds are bought based on their credit ratings. This report contends these ratings "take little account of utilities’ vulnerability to increased water competition, nor do they account for climate change, which in many areas is rendering utility assets obsolete. Consequently, investors are blindly placing bets on which utilities are positioned to manage these growing risks".

The big three examples in the report:

• The City of Atlanta’s water supply and the possibility that supply could be cut by nearly 40 percent as early as 2012 due to the ruling of a federal judge.
• Lake Mead and the possibility of reduced water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada;
• Hoover Dam and the possibility of the reduction of electricity production as soon as 2013 if water levels in Lake Mead don’t begin to recover

Some Southeast examples noted:

• During the last drought, Southern Company was forced to buy $33 million in fossil fuels to replace lost power in Atlanta when hydropower generation declined by half due to low water levels
• Hilton Head has abandoned eight of the island’s 12 supply wells since 1990 due to saltwater intrusion.
• In August 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reduced generation at three of its facilities in Alabama and Tennessee when a heat wave pushed water temperatures to the permitted maximum temperature.

The Beef: The report says the credit rating methods "obscure the vulnerability of water utilities to water risks, and may even discourage utilities from taking necessary steps to manage a sustainable system". They reviewed credit risk assessment methodology by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch and found the following faults with their assumptions:

• Water flows are assumed to be consistent with the recent past. Basically, credit ratings typically do not consider "the revenue effects of natural reductions to water supply, or the likelihood of such reductions".
• Supply projections are not stress-tested to consider impacts on rate and revenue.
• Water constraints are not assessed across the supply chain between wholesale and retail providers.
• Unless a utility is in the midst of severe supply constrictions, credit agencies are almost hostile to conservation pricing and demand-side management.

 Report Recommendations: Water Utilities

• Improve disclosure of material water stresses such as exposure to persistent drought or long-term climatic changes, interstate legal conflicts over shared water resources, and potential and existing regulatory actions related to environmental flows. 
• Implement strategies to manage demand and reduce leakage, such as cost- effective infrastructure improvements to reduce water loss, and deployment of conservation incentives and new pricing strategies that reflect water scarcity and reward water-savings.
• Invest in infrastructure that reduces risk such as “closed loop” alternative supplies (including indirect potable reuse), and green infrastructure.

Rating Agencies

• Employ water risk stress tests to understand an issuer’s sensitivity to stresses such as legal rulings over contested resources, restrictions for environmental reasons, or changing climatic conditions.
• Factor water intensity into rating opinions for electric utilities.
• Reward with higher opinions utilities that manage water demand through pricing in anticipation of future supply constraints.