BLUE DIGEST 01-06-2025

Blue News from around the world. The most important news on water and sanitation from a human rights perspective.

UK: Pesticides, antibiotics, animal medicines: the chemical cocktail seeping into our rivers

A study of Yorkshire’s rivers is helping scientists understand the impact everyday pollutants are having on waterways – and the results are sobering. Rivers carry more than just water through Britain’s landscapes. A hidden cocktail of chemicals seeps out of farmland, passes undetected through sewage treatment works, and drains off the roads into the country’s rivers. Normally these chemicals flow through unreported, silently restructuring ecosystems as they go, but now, UK scientists are building a map of what lies within – and the damage it may be causing.

Read The Guardian / Tags: UK

On French Réunion Island, a private operator has been ordered to compensate thousands of customers for supplying undrinkable water.

Between 2016 and 2022, Cise Réunion — a subsidiary of the private SAUR group which holds contracts with several municipalities — distributed unfit water on several of its networks. On Tuesday, the courts ordered the company to pay compensation to more than 89,000 people.

Read Le Monde (French) / Tags: France –

The one thing Texas won’t do to save its water supply

Texas property owners can use nearly as much water under their land as they want. That’s unlikely to change even as the state approaches a crisis. Every winter, after the sea of cotton has been harvested in the South Plains and the ground looks barren, technicians with the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District check the water levels in nearly 75,000 wells across 16 counties. For years, their measurements have shown what farmers and water conservationists fear most — the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground water source that’s the lifeblood of the South Plains agriculture industry, is running dry. That’s because of a century-old law called the rule of capture.

Read The Texas Tribune / Tags: WaterCrisis – US

Drinking water: will customers in the south of Martinique soon receive 8 m³ for free?

People in Martinique currently pay twice as much for water as those in mainland France. After more than five years of demanding that the first eight cubic metres of drinking water from every tap should be free, the Comité Citoyen du Sud de la Martinique (Citizens’ Committee for Southern Martinique) seems to have hit the nail on the head. On Tuesday 27 May, a CCSM delegation was received at the end of the morning, in the presence of several local mayors. If it is adopted by a majority of elected representatives on 19 June, an ad hoc committee will be set up to study the application of this future measure.

Read franceinfo (French) / Tags: France

‘Unxano’ sends a powerful message about water scarcity

“Unxano”, a powerful African contemporary dance and music theatre production, weaves together the urgent narrative of drought, forced migration, and survival in a world of growing water scarcity. Directed and choreographed by Maxwell Rani, with musical direction by Keketso Bolofo and Nomapostile Nyiki, the performance was staged by the South African College of Music (SACM) and the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (CTDPS) on 23 and 24 May.

Read University of Cape Town News / Tags: SouthAfrica – WaterCrisis

New IAEA Project to Enhance Water Forecasting

2 billion people could face chaotic and ‘irreversible’ shift in rainfall patterns if warming continues

Nearly 2 billion people could face wild disruptions in water availability if the planet continues to warm — and the change could be irreversible, new research suggests. Earth’s average surface temperature is already about 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) higher than pre-industrial levels, and with 2024 the hottest year on record, the future forecast is not promising. The new study, published May 14 in the journal Earth’s Future, looked at what would happen should global temperatures swell to 2.7 F (1.5 C), even for just a few decades.

Read LiveScience / Tags: Water&Climate

Coca-Cola to save our water? They pretend they do:

In regions where clean water is increasingly hard to come by, the role large companies play in managing that resource is under more scrutiny than ever. As pressure on these companies builds, Coca-Cola’s African bottling partner is beginning to shift how it handles water use. Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, the continent’s largest Coca-Cola bottling partner, announced a $25 million investment in water-focused initiatives across 20 African countries. As reported by PML Daily, Coca-Cola Beverages Uganda, a subsidiary of CCBA, is already making strides at the local level by implementing water-saving practices at its Rwenzori and Namanve bottling plants.

Read The Cool Down / Tags: Africa – CocaCola