Water Wars? The Damn Dam...

Well, we all knew it was coming, sooner or later.

Unfortunately, the totally disfunctional Islamic government now in charge of the "new" Egypt doesn't know it's ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to diplomacy. Tsk tsk! Yeah, nothing like fundy politicians going on television saying they're go to war with Ethiopia if E goes ANY further with its construction of a massive damn across a portion of the Blue Nile.  Surely Cheops is rolling in his grave (WHEREVER IT IS) right now...

Well, we ain't seen nothing yet.  As the world continues to suffer through more drastic climate changes thanks to the shift in the Jet Stream and the melting of the Polar Ice Caps, to name just a few well-documented changes that didn't just "creep" up upon us over thousands or even hundreds of years but are happening right here and now, within the average person's lifetime, Ha!  If I live to be 100, as I'd planned previously (I'll wait and see how things are going...) perhaps Mars won't look so forbidding to mankind after all...  Meanwhile, I am sure to be entertained by the antics of the idiots in Cairo.

From Yahoo News

'No Nile, no Egypt', Cairo warns over Ethiopia dam

By Shadia Nasralla | Reuters – 1 hour 26 minutes ago

 

By Shadia Nasralla

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's foreign minister, vowing not to give up "a single drop of water from the Nile", said on Sunday he would go to Addis Ababa to discuss a giant dam that Ethiopia has begun building in defiance of Cairo's objections. [Right, dude.  Way to start negotiations from the get-go -- we won't give us a SINGLE DROP OF WATER.]

Speaking to Egypt's state news agency MENA two days after the Ethiopian government flatly rejected a request [? request? More like a threat of war if construction was not halted] from Cairo to halt the project, Mohamed Kamel Amr said Egyptians view any obstacle to the river's flow as a threat to national survival.

"No Nile - no Egypt," he said, highlighting the pressure on the Egyptian government, whose popularity is wilting in the face of economic troubles, to prevent the hydro power plant cutting already stretched water supplies for its 84 million people. [How about reinstituting the birth control programs that were very popular under the former regime, you dildo heads?]

Last week, Ethiopia summoned the Egyptian ambassador after politicians in Cairo were shown on television suggesting military action or supporting Ethiopian rebels - a mark of the threat felt in Cairo from the plan to dam the Blue Nile, the tributary that supplies the bulk of water downstream in Egypt.
"Egypt won't give up on a single drop of water from the Nile or any part of what arrives into Egypt from this water in terms of quantity and quality," Amr told MENA, noting that Egypt has little rain and is effectively desert without its great river.

Speaking at a news conference, he declined to detail the action Egypt might take next but noted Ethiopian assurances that Africa's biggest hydro station would not cut water supplies.

"We have a plan for action, which will start soon," Amr said. "We'll talk to Ethiopia and we'll see what comes of it. Ethiopia has said it will not harm Egypt, not even by a liter of water. We are looking at ... this being implemented."

Countries that share the Nile have long argued over the use of its waters, repeatedly raising fears that the disputes could eventually boil over into war. Egypt, struggling with a shortage of cash and bitter internal political divisions following a 2011 revolution, called on Ethiopia to stop work after engineers began diverting the course of the Blue Nile late last month.

In Addis Ababa, a government spokesman called that request a "non-starter" and dismissed threats from Cairo of "sabotage" and "destabilization", saying attempts by Egypt under its previous military rulers to undermine Ethiopian leaders had failed.

The possible downstream effects of the $4.7-billion Grand Renaissance Dam, some 40 km (25 miles) from Ethiopia's border with Sudan, have been disputed and full details are unclear.

While letting water through such dams - of which Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia already have several - may not reduce its flow greatly, the filling of the reservoir behind any new dam means cutting the river's flow for a time. Evaporation from reservoirs can also permanently reduce water flowing downstream.

Now 21 percent complete, the new dam on the Blue Nile will eventually have capacity of 6,000 megawatts and is central to Ethiopia's plans to become Africa's leading exporter of power.

Sudan, which borders Egypt and Ethiopia and also gets much of its water from the Nile, said it supported the project. [Okay, so where was the Egyptian government when this dam project was on the drawing board, and before construction even began?  Were there no consultations, no negotiations going on before hand -- I don't believe that for a second!]

"The Grand Renaissance Dam brings many benefits and blessings for us," Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman told reporters in Khartoum.

He gave no details, but Sudanese officials have said the dam will enable Ethiopia to export power to Sudan, a country with frequent outages and one of its closest allies in Africa.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald, Tom Pfeiffer and Kevin Liffey)

*************************************************************

P.S.  Did I forget to mention that the Islamist government in Cairo probably wouldn't hesitate to start a war it cannot possibly win, if only to rally the populace behind it -- you know, life and death of our country and all that jazz.  An obvious ploy to try and distract the populace from the increasingly deteriorating conditions going on around them around them.  Hmmm, no bread, no problem.  Hmmm, no free-spending average-Joe AMERICAN and ENGLISH tourists, no problem.  Waiting in lines to fill up with adulterated gasoline, no problem.  No garbage pick-up, no problem.  No clean wate rto drink, no problem.  No water to grow our crops -- whoa, now that's a problem...  Hey yeah, Abdul, our government frigging sucks and can't see the pyramids for the mounds of garbage being piled up all around them in the desert, but they want us to go to war over our water rights.  Okay, let's go, dude.  Geez, where is the Hind of Hinds when we need her...

Water Wars: Egypt v. Ethiopia, Sudan, and Other Nile River Users

This isn't even a blip yet on the West's radar, but it's some serious business. I happened to come across this story this morning while looking at something else - it's nearly a year old, from July, 2010, but certainly relevant:

Nile River row: Could it turn violent?
Jul 7, 2010
Reuters

The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam.

The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes through.

Allam bared his teeth when a Kenyan journalist accused him of hiding behind “colonial-era treaties” giving his country the brunt of the river’s vital waters whether that hurt the poorer upstream countries or not.

“You obviously don’t know enough about this subject to be asking questions about it,” he snapped before later apologising to her with a kiss on the cheek.

Five of the nine Nile countries — Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya — last month signed a deal to share the water that is a crucial resource for all of them. But Egypt and Sudan, who are entitled to most of the water and can veto upstream dams under a 1929 British-brokered agreement, refused.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have not signed yet either and analysts are divided on whether they will or not. Six Nile countries must sign the agreement for it to have any power but Egypt says even that wouldn’t change its mind. The five signatories — some of the world’s poorest countries — have left the agreement open for debating and possible signing for up to a year.

Tensions were clearly still running high after two days of negotiations in Addis and despite grinning around the table and constantly referring to each other as “my brother”, the ministers always seemed in danger of breaking into bickering.

When the Sudanese water minister said his country was freezing cooperation with the Nile Basin Initiative — the name given to the ten-year effort to agree on how to manage the river — Ethiopia’s water minister loudly protested to the media that his Sudanese colleague had not revealed that during their private meetings.

Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga, arrived in Addis Ababaon Wednesday to again meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

It’s no surprise that the spat is getting a lot of press in both Ethiopia and Egypt.

“Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” people like to say in a country that worshipped the river as a God in ancient times. “If Egypt is a gift of the Nile, then the Nile is a gift of Ethiopia,” Ethiopians shoot back with growing confidence.

And they have a point. More than 85 percent of the waters originate in Ethiopia, which relies on foreign aid for survival and sees hydropower dams as a potential cash cow and central to its plans to become one of Africa’s only power exporters.

But Egypt is not for turning. Almost totally dependent on the Nile for its agricultural output (a third of its economy) and already worried about climate change, it is determined to hold onto its 55.5 billion cubic metres of water a year, a seemingly unfair share of the Nile’s total flow of 84 billion cubic metres.

The Egyptians point out that they don’t benefit from rains like the upstream countries. Everybody, it seems, has valid points. Nobody is budging. Now some regional analysts are even saying the row could turn into the world’s first major water war and similar thoughts are being expressed in cafes from Cairo all the way upriver to Dar es Salaam.

So what next? The nine countries are due to meet again in Nairobi sometime between September and November. But where is the way forward? Who will blink first? And who really should? Could this bickering turn violent?

Who Owns the Rain?

Ohmygoddess - it's come to this. How well I remember the big hit by Credence Clearwater Revivial "Who'll Stop the Rain?" Long as I remember the rain been comin down. Clouds of mystry pourin confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, tryin to find the sun; And I wonder, still I wonder, wholl stop the rain. I went down virginia, seekin shelter from the storm. Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow. Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains. And I wonder, still I wonder wholl stop the rain. Heard the singers playin, how we cheered for more. The crowd had rushed together, tryin to keep warm. Still the rain kept pourin, fallin on my ears. And I wonder, still I wonder wholl stop the rain. It's an allegory about the political times we were living in back when this song was a megahit. But if taken literally, it represents a situation where unrelenting rain and cold are threatening life on the planet as we know it. These days, lots of people are praying that those big rains will come - no political commentary intended. They want - they NEED - BIG RAIN - right over their county, region, state, country... Who Owns the Rain? Hint: It's Not Always Homeowners Across the country, resourceful homeowners have embraced rainwater capture as a way of conserving community water supplies while maintaining healthy gardens. Unfortunately, rain barrels are sometimes at odds with the law. Facing certain water scarcity, cities and states have begun to wrestle with the conundrum of water rights versus conservation. When it all shakes out, will you own the rain that falls on your own property? By Andrew Moseman Published on: April 22, 2009 ************************************************************************ So - it rains on your quarter acre in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. You have rain barrels hooked up to two of your downspouts to collect rainwater that can be used during dry-spells (which we have been experiencing more often since about 1980) and another downspout is connected to a series of dry-wells feeding a rain garden in your backyard. The fourth downspout still feeds into the storm sewer system. Then, Milwaukee County passes a law saying that everything that was previously done legally under your municipal and the county building code is now illegal, and the County owns each and every raindrop that falls upon your roof, your driveway, and your soft surfaces. Rain barrels are outlawed; dry-wells are outlawed; furthermore, if your connection to your local storm sewer system does not register a certain flow back into the system each month, you are billed for that lack of water that is not going back into Lake Michigan - even if you never used a drop. That charge is on top of what you have always been charged separately for treatment of the sewerage/waste water from your house. In my municipality, sewerage/waste water flows into a separate, dedicated sewer line, but once it joins the City of Milwaukee sewer lines it gets freely mixed into storm water, and therefore ALL has to be treated as contaminated waste water at the two City of Milwaukee-owned sewerage treatment plants. Except, it's not the City of Milwaukee who bills you, because the sewerage treatment plants are run by private enterprise. So, they are free to bill you whatever they want, and the City gets a fixed amount off the contract. As a homeowner, you are screwed, one way or another. As a renter, this just means you pay more and more and more as your landlord gets squeezed every year with higher and higher water bills and sewer bills. Some of this is happening right now in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Think it can't happen where you live? Think again. I live within seven miles of Lake Michigan. Yeah, that's right. The lake that is part of the five great lakes that the water-hungry west is looking for to solve all of their water problems. What do you think is going to happen?

Water Wars!

Oh, this is just too precious to pass up posting. From that BASTION of Truth, Justice, and the former SOVIET (now RUSSIAN) Way. What's the opposite of the movie "Water World?" Yikes! Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025 15.07.2008 [What - 2025? Come on, darlings! We'll be whacking off each other's heads and swiping out each other's eyeballs for the fluid by 2015, if not before...] The shortage of fresh water on planet Earth is likely to become the biggest problem ever during the forthcoming decades. Experts from the International Water Management Institute said in their recent report that the water crisis in the world would occur because of the growing number of population. According to the UN, the population of planet Earth will grow from 6 to 8.5 billion people by 2030. One person living in an industrially developed country consumes up to 3,000 liters of water a year. If the global population grows by 2.5 billion, it will be necessary to find additional 2,000 cubic kilometers of water for their living. “The global consumption of water has increased six times during the recent 100 years and will double by 2050. There are countries that have already run out of water reserves for the production of their food. The shortage of fresh water will inevitably boost prices on this resource,” the Director of the International Water Management Institute, Frank Rijsberman said. The accelerating urbanization and the rising living standard will set forth new requirements to the quality of water. Drinking water and industrial water is obtained from one and the same sources. It may just so happen that agricultural producers, for example, will face serious problems with the required volumes of water. Mankind will have to deal with a serious shortage of water in 25 years. Earth’s fresh water reserves will not be enough to feed the growing population of the planet. Specialists say that one should take urgent measures now to solve the water problem. The list of measures includes the construction of water reservoirs, the use of rain water for irrigation of fields and gardens, etc. It is not the first time when futurologists raise the water crisis subject. They believe that the crisis may occur even before the planet runs out of its fresh water. The shortage of water can be accompanied with large-scale military conflicts. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised the subject in December 2007 at the first Asian-Pacific Water Forum, which took place in Japan. Ban Ki-moon said that one-third of Earth’s population lives in the areas, which already suffer from the lack of water. More importantly, about 1.1 billion people living on the planet nowadays do not have access to fresh water which poses no health risks. Humans still pollute water sources irresponsibly and do not seem to care about the consequences. Rest of article.

Well, Duh!

From The New York Times Water-Starved California Slows Development By JENNIFER STEINHAUER Published: June 7, 2008 PERRIS, Calif. — As California faces one of its worst droughts in two decades, building projects are being curtailed for the first time under state law by the inability of developers to find long-term water supplies. Water authorities and other government agencies scattered throughout the state, including here in sprawling Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, have begun denying, delaying or challenging authorization for dozens of housing tracts and other developments under a state law that requires a 20-year water supply as a condition for building. California officials suggested that the actions were only the beginning, and they worry about the impact on a state that has grown into an economic powerhouse over the last several decades. The state law was enacted in 2001, but until statewide water shortages, it had not been invoked to hold up projects. While previous droughts and supply problems have led to severe water cutbacks and rationing, water officials said the outright refusal to sign off on projects over water scarcity had until now been virtually unheard of on a statewide scale. “Businesses are telling us that they can’t get things done because of water,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said in a telephone interview. On Wednesday, Mr. Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought, the first such designation since 1991. As the governor was making his drought announcement, the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County — one of the fastest-growing counties in the state in recent years — gave a provisional nod to nine projects that it had held up for months because of water concerns. The approval came with the caveat that the water district could revisit its decision, and only after adjustments had been made to the plans to reduce water demand. “The statement that we’re making is that this isn’t business as usual,” said Randy A. Record, a water district board member, at the meeting here in Perris. Shawn Jenkins, a developer who had two projects caught up in the delays, said he was accustomed to piles of paperwork and reams of red tape in getting projects approved. But he was not prepared to have the water district hold up the projects he was planning. He changed the projects’ landscaping, to make it less water dependent, as the board pondered their fate. “I think this is a warning for everyone,” Mr. Jenkins said. Also in Riverside County, a superior court judge recently stopped a 1,500-home development project, citing, among others things, a failure to provide substantial evidence of adequate water supply. In San Luis Obispo County, north of Los Angeles, the City of Pismo Beach was recently denied the right to annex unincorporated land to build a large multipurpose project because, “the city didn’t have enough water to adequately serve the development,” said Paul Hood, the executive officer of the commission that approves the annexations and incorporations of cities. In agriculturally rich Kern County, north of Los Angeles, at least three developers scrapped plans recently to apply for permits, realizing water was going to be an issue. An official from the county’s planning department said the developers were the first ever in the county to be stymied by water concerns. Large-scale housing developments in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties have met a similar fate, officials in those counties said. Throughout the state, other projects have been suspended or are being revised to accommodate water shortages, and water authorities and cities have increasingly begun to consider holding off on “will-serve” letters — promises to developers to provide water — for new projects. “The water in our state is not sufficient to add more demand,” said Lester Snow, the director of the California Department of Water Resources. “And that now means that some large development can’t go forward. If we don’t make changes with water, we are going to have a major economic problem in this state.” The words “crisis” and “water” have gone together in this state since the 49ers traded flecks of gold for food. But several factors have combined to make the current water crisis more acute than those of recent years. Rest of article.

In Spain, Water is a New Battleground

It's only going to get worse as the population continues to grow and the weather gets dryer and hotter in the regions already suffering from drought and lack of potable water. The implications of this article are truly frightening:

From The New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: June 3, 2008
FORTUNA, Spain — Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — dozens of them, all recently built — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer plans, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water.

This year, farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting one another over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a rapidly growing black market, mostly from illegal wells.

Southern Spain has long been plagued by cyclical droughts, but the current crisis, scientists say, probably reflects a more permanent climate change brought on by global warming. And it is a harbinger of a new kind of conflict.

The battles of yesterday were fought over land, they warn. Those of the present center on oil. But those of the future — a future made hotter and drier by climate change in much of the world — seem likely to focus on water, they say.

“Water will be the environmental issue this year — the problem is urgent and immediate,” said Barbara Helferrich, a spokeswoman for the European Union’s Environment Directorate. “If you already have water shortages in spring, you know it’s going to be a really bad summer.”

Dozens of world leaders will be meeting at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome starting Tuesday to address a global food crisis caused in part by water shortages in Africa, Australia and here in southern Spain.

Climate change means that creeping deserts may eventually drive 135 million people off their land, the United Nations estimates. Most of them are in the developing world. But Southern Europe is experiencing the problem now, its climate drying to the point that it is becoming more like Africa’s, scientists say.

For Murcia, the arrival of the water crisis has been accelerated by developers and farmers who have hewed to water-hungry ventures highly unsuited to a drier, warmer climate: crops like lettuce that need ample irrigation, resorts that promise a swimming pool in the yard, acres of freshly sodded golf courses that sop up millions of gallons a day.

“I come under a lot of pressure to release water from farmers and also from developers,” said Antonio Pérez Gracia, the water manager here in Fortuna, sipping coffee with farmers in a bar in the town’s dusty square. He rued the fact that he could provide each property owner with only 30 percent of its government-determined water allotment.

“I’m not sure what we’ll do this summer,” he added, noting that the local aquifer was sinking so quickly that the pumps would not reach it soon. “I come under a lot of pressure to release water, from farmers and also from developers. They can complain as much as they want, but if there’s no more water, there’s no more water.”

Rubén Vives, a farmer who relies on Mr. Pérez Gracia’s largess, said he could not afford the black market water prices. “This year, my livelihood is in danger,” said Mr. Vives, who has farmed low-water crops like lemons here for nearly two decades.

The hundreds of thousands of wells — most of them illegal — that have in the past provided a temporary reprieve from thirst have depleted underground water to the point of no return. Water from northern Spain that was once transferred here has also slowed to a trickle, as wetter northern provinces are drying up, too.

The scramble for water has set off scandals. Local officials are in prison for taking payoffs to grant building permits in places where there is not adequate water. Chema Gil, a journalist who exposed one such scheme, has been subject to death threats, carries pepper spray and is guarded day and night by the Guardia Civil, a police force with military and civilian functions.

Rest of article.

Water Wars - More Precious Than Oil

Darlings - here's a no-brainer investment tip: buy a good water ETF like PHO, and hang on to it for dear life for the next 20 years. Think I'm full of baloney? Just take a look at what is happening in the USA: severe, sustained drought in the southwest due to climate changes; the same in the southeast US (I sure wouldn't want to be living in Atlanta right now); more and more sink holes showing up in Florida due to depletion of water tables. We also have deteriorating and collapsing infrastructure, often more than 100 years old, that needs to be replaced. We have lead pipes and PCP pipes, both hazardous to people's health. We have antiquated sewerage treatment systems. We have systems that co-mingle sanitary sewerage with storm run-off. And we in the USA have a LOT of fresh water sources and the technology to provide safe drinking water to all of our population. BUT - THE COST! Oy! The cost! So, what are they going to do in China? Asia? Africa? From the Times Online December 4, 2007 Water shortages are likely to be trigger for wars, says UN chief Ban Ki Moon By Leo Lewis in Beppu A struggle by nations to secure sources of clean water will be “potent fuel” for war, the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit heard yesterday. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, told delegates from across the region that the planet faced a water crisis that was especially troubling for Asia. High population growth, rising consumption, pollution and poor water management posed significant threats, he said, adding that climate change was also making “a bad situation worse”. Mr Ban went on to condemn the lack of heed paid by governments to these warning signs: “Throughout the world, water resources continue to be spoiled, wasted and degraded. “The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.” His remarks come as environmental experts in Great Britain have identified 46 countries — home to 2.7 billion people — where climate change and water-related crises will create a high risk of violent conflict. A further 56, representing another 1.2 billion people, are at high risk of political instability, claims a report by International Alert, which concludes that it is now “too late to believe the situation can be made safe solely by reducing carbon emissions worldwide and mitigating climate change”. Janani Vivekananda, one of the authors of the International Alert report said: “Water management will be a huge tinderbox and now is the time for international organisations to come together. There is huge potential not just for conflict but for co-operation.” Mr Ban's comments were echoed by many of the other speakers at the water summit, who gathered in southwestern Japan to discuss a range of issues, including policies that might prevent the various aspects of an Asian water crisis deepening into armed conflict. Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese Prime Minister, vowed yesterday that water and climate change would be at the top of the agenda for the Group of Eight summit in Japan next summer. The Beppu summit, which began on the same day as UN Climate Change talks in Bali, also coincides with a study directly linking water shortages to violence throughout history. In a report published in by the United States National Academy of Sciences journal today, David Zhang, of Hong Kong University, has analysed a half millennium's worth of human conflict — more than 8,000 wars — and concluded that climate change and resulting water shortage has been a far greater trigger than imagined previously. If global warming continues, water shortages could trigger more wars, Dr Zhang told The Times: “We are on alert, because this gives us the indication that resource shortage is the main cause of war. Human beings will definitely have conflicts over this; whether it turns to war depends on the quality of the social buffer available to each nation, but the danger is right there.” The Asia Development Bank, which was also represented at the Beppu summit, informed delegates that without rational water development and better management, the future social development of Asian developing countries would be seriously jeopardised. The president of the ADB, Haruhiko Kuroda, said that his bank now plans to double investment in Asian water projects to $2 billion per year, given the potential for conflict if water governance remains weak.