Blue News from around the world. The most important news on water and sanitation from a human rights perspective.
Over 13 million Colombians do not have access to clean drinking water.
Over 13 million Colombians do not have access to clean drinking water.The challenges posed by climate change, the scarcity of natural resources, and pollution become particularly pertinent, especially in countries such as Colombia, where significant social and environmental disparities persist.
One of the most critical issues is access to clean drinking water. According to a report by the Commission for the Regulation of Drinking Water and Sanitation (CRA), approximately 29 per cent of the Colombian population — equivalent to 13.8 million people — lacks access to clean water. A United Nations report revealed that globally, almost half of the population faces water scarcity at least once a year and one in four people live under extreme water stress.
Read La Gran Noticia (Spanish) / Tags: Colombia – Right2Water
Britain Is Racing to Fix Its Broken Water System
Britain Is Racing to Fix Its Broken Water SystemFrom gardens to farms, the UK’s way of life is inextricably linked to rain. Now, it risks becoming a cautionary tale of how a developed country can squander its most important resource.
A fifth of Britain’s water supply is lost through the kinds of leaks that Knowles is searching for. The problem was easy to overlook when the country — long associated with soggy weather — had consistent and plentiful rainfall. But climate change driven by ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases is shifting once-benign weather patterns toward extremes of heavy rain and drought. Wasted water has become a worldwide concern as regions from the US Southwest to northern Africa experience more unusually hot and dry periods.
Read Bloomberg / Tags: UK
Germany: Despite the drought, industry continues to use water without restriction.
While harvests are drying up and allotment gardeners and citizens are being told to use less water, companies are still allowed to pump it freely. According to a survey by Correctiv, the federal states are allowing their coal, chemical and pharmaceutical companies to use water without restriction.
Germany is heading for another dramatic summer drought, but companies need not worry if water becomes scarce. According to a survey by CORRECTIV of all state environmental agencies, not a single one has yet reduced industrial water consumption. Nor have they increased prices so noticeably that major water users, such as the coal mining, chemical and paper industries, would be motivated to save water. In contrast, the population in some parts of the country has been asked to cut back.
Read CORRECTIV (German) / Tags: Germany – WaterCrisis
UK: ‘Keir Starmer’s Timid Refusal to Nationalise Failing Water Companies is a Symptom of a Government Cast Adrift’
UK: ‘Keir Starmer’s Timid Refusal to Nationalise Failing Water Companies is a Symptom of a Government Cast Adrift’Starmer’s administration is proving itself to be “devoid of moral compass or political courage”, argues Labour MP Clive Lewis.
The collapse of KKR’s planned rescue of Thames Water has exposed something even murkier than the sewage flowing into our rivers: the ideological bankruptcy at the heart of Britain’s privatised water model.
Thames Water, burdened by £20 billion of debt and escalating pollution fines, now teeters on the edge of a special administration regime. Done the wrong way, that could morph into a taxpayer-funded bailout.
This fiasco isn’t just corporate mismanagement; it reveals profound flaws in the Labour Government’s timid approach to water reform. One vividly underscored by the narrow technocratic remit of the recent Cunliffe Review, which recently published its interim findings.
Read Byline Times / Tags: UK
UK: Nationalisation is the only way to fix the crisis in the water industry
UK: Nationalisation is the only way to fix the crisis in the water industryBy Prem Sikka, Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
The government is obsessed with private ownership and is hoping that someone will rescue Thames Water. Meanwhile, Thames Water’s £19bn debt pile has increased by another £3bn, borrowed at interest rate of 9.75%. It is paying £200m a year to business advisers and nearly a one-third of its customer’s bills service company debt.
Other water companies operate with similar business models. The entire water sector in England is now controlled by companies with over 1,135 criminal convictions. Due to leaky pipes, more than 1 trillion litres of water a year is lost. In 2024, companies dumped raw sewage into rivers, seas and lakes for 3.62m hours. Asset-stripping is rife.
Read Left Foot Forward / Tags: UK
US: Cancer ‘Gag Act’ sputters in Iowa, federal push continues
Groups advocating for clean, safe water are pushing back on proposals to revive a pesticide labeling law introduced last year in Congress which would give chemical companies legal immunity from claims if their products cause cancer.
A similar measure failed in Iowa this year, despite intense lobbying by the pesticide manufacturer, Bayer.
Jennifer Breon, Iowa organizer for the group Food and Water Watch, said public sentiment has been decidedly against giving chemical manufacturers immunity from lawsuits if their products are shown to cause cancer.
Read Public News Service / Tags: US
Our Atmosphere’s Growing Thirst Is a Hidden Cause of Worsening Droughts
Our Atmosphere’s Growing Thirst Is a Hidden Cause of Worsening DroughtsDroughts are becoming more severe and widespread across the globe. But it’s not just changing rainfall patterns that are to blame. The atmosphere is also getting thirstier.
In a new study published in Nature, my colleagues and I show that this rising “atmospheric thirst” – also known as atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) – is responsible for about 40% of the increase in drought severity over the last four decades (1981-2022).
Read science alert / Tags WaterCrisis
UK – A race against time: what now for Thames Water after rescue deal collapses?
UK – A race against time: what now for Thames Water after rescue deal collapses?Huge group of creditors in scramble as prospect of temporary nationalisation looms large for troubled firm.
Thames Water came close to collapse this year as it almost ran out of money. But after agreeing to exclusive takeover talks with the US private equity company KKR, the debt-laden utility was hoping for a quieter period as it sorted out the details.
Those hopes were extinguished on Tuesday after KKR said it was withdrawing its bid – to the shock of Thames Water and its creditors.
It is those creditors, some of whom bought Thames’s debt at a big discount in the hope of a quick profit, who have been left – without warning – with the responsibility of pulling together billions of pounds to carry out a turnaround that could take 15 years.
Read The Guardian / Tags: UK
Kabul at risk of becoming first modern city to run out of water, report warns
Kabul at risk of becoming first modern city to run out of water, report warnsNGO says Afghan capital’s 7 million people face existential crisis that world needs urgently to address.
Kabul could become the first modern city to completely run out of water, experts have warned.
Water levels within Kabul’s aquifers have dropped by up to 30 metres over the past decade owing to rapid urbanisation and climate breakdown, according to a report by the NGO Mercy Corps.
Meanwhile, almost half of the city’s boreholes – the primary source of drinking water for Kabul residents – have dried out. Water extraction currently exceeds the natural recharge rate by 44m cubic metres each year.
If these trends continue, all of Kabul’s aquifers will run dry as early as 2030, posing an existential threat to the city’s seven million inhabitants.
Read The Guardian / Tags: Afghanistan – WaterCrisis
