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Thursday, June 13, 2024

Throughout history, we have witnessed the fierce pursuit of valuable commodities such as spices, gold, wheat, cotton and oil. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s new documentary, The Grab, reveals that nations and multinational corporations are now urgently scouring the globe to hoard and control an even more crucial resource: water. Cowperthwaite directed the acclaimed 2013 documentary Blackfish, which investigated the death of a SeaWorld trainer, highlighted the mistreatment of orca whales in captivity, and ultimately led to SeaWorld ending its orca shows. The Grab (streaming and in select theaters June 14) follows investigative reporter Nathan Halverson and his team from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Together, they have traveled the globe, from Arizona to Zambia, to shed light on the covert acquisition of water-rich lands. As global warming intensifies and water resources dwindle, these areas are becoming hotbeds for profit-driven companies and for nations desperate to sustain their populations. This film reveals how a Chinese company backed by the government bought the American company Smithfield Foods; now China owns one in four pigs raised in the U.S. In Arizona, a Saudi-owned 10,000 acre hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the desert and exporting the hay back to the Kingdom. And former mercenary and Blackwater Security Company founder Erik Prince is leading a group of Chinese investors on a hunt for natural resources and investment opportunities by snatching up land in Zambia and other African countries. Cowperthwaite recently spoke to Capital & Main about her intention to craft The Grab as a geopolitical thriller and the formidable challenges of documenting the global struggle for this increasingly precious resource. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Capital & Main: What was your approach to covering this complex issue of foreign interests grabbing up land with water resources around the world? Gabriela Cowperthwaite: What I felt like I wanted to do was create a geopolitical thriller. I feel like there are people who need to hear about what’s happening with the grabbing of resources on the planet and need to hear it from the position of power and from the perspective of power. And if we do that, there is a possibility of getting half of this country to see themselves inside this story if we frame it in the context of power rather than going back to Blue State catch words like “environmentalism,” “global warming” and “climate change,” because they turn off the TV if they see those words. So I wanted to find access points that are human and personal to folks that are not in the environmental echo chamber. Finding a way to humanize this issue and put it in a context that they can relate to, which is powerful people surrounding them, making decisions that are going to destroy their livelihoods and communities. Right, like the Arizona farmers in the film having their water dry up because a massive plot of land owned by the Saudis is using much of the groundwater. But how do you get authoritarian countries like China and Saudi Arabia to stop buying up huge plots of land in places like Africa? Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Nathan Halverson. Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images. It’s not just “Oh, there’s these insidious countries and these dark countries and they’re adversarial and they’re doing these bad things.” First of all, we’re doing the same thing. Wall Street, United States, Western Europe, we’re all doing that. And second, they’re fighting for survival just as much as we are. And I think this is the most Sisyphean answer that you’ll ever get, but in my mind there are many, many things to do. One of the most important, and, I guess, jarring moments for me in the film is when [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping revealed he ate raw pork as a kid [because he was starving]. And for me, it changed everything for me in terms of how I made this film. And that was because if there is someone who has understood starvation at that level — and I’m not talking about feeling hungry, I’m talking about just mass starvation — and that person is now essentially in charge of a country, it is the purview of that leader now to make sure that doesn’t happen again. So it gives you hope that you saw a glimmer of vulnerability in the world’s most powerful authoritarian leader. I think that’s right. I think if I had gone through what he went through, perhaps I’d make similar decisions. We must see ourselves in each other for anything to make sense about how we do life. And so I think that’s why I got into documentary, and that’s what I love about documentaries. But if powerful countries secure resources for themselves, won’t smaller, poorer nations suffer disproportionately? Yes, it will disproportionately affect them. Smaller countries will be hit faster with the ramifications of some of it, but nobody gets out alive is the thing. This is [like] OPEC right? Look at the wars we fought over oil and think about what that would be like over food and water. If all these powerful nations do this, and they control the levers of food and water, that’s going to affect everybody negatively. And if one country fails, whether it’s Zambia or China, we are going to feel it in our food prices. We’re going to feel it geopolitically. We’re completely interconnected. If Zambia starves, that isn’t just a human rights issue. That means disease, and that disease does not respect national borders, as we’ve seen recently. That means refugees. And it means conflict. And that’s geopolitical conflict, because now that’s happening in a place that the world has deemed as a final breadbasket. We’re going to have to go into conflict with countries in areas that are deemed incredibly geopolitically important and are valuable for water, for the future of food. It’s going to affect them. It’s going to affect us. It’s going to affect everybody. What surprised you the most in making this film? What I was the most surprised of was the fear. It was purely the fear. The Saudi cables that suggested that they were terrified that the Arab Spring was going to come to them. Food prices go up, we’re in trouble. Look at what people can do on the streets. Same with China. Fear. They don’t admit it inside their country that there was a great famine [from 1959-1961]. They call it natural disaster, but they remember their grandparents starving. So it’s sort of like it’s fear and a lot of it. VIDEO Speaking of fear, there was a moment in the film when the crew thought they may be being bugged. Did you guys ever fear for your life, or do you fear for your life now? And are you taking any steps to mitigate that? So while we were making the film was the scariest part, I think because you don’t yet have a film, which means the people you are talking to could be in trouble. You could be in trouble. And then if someone does something to you, there’s no smoking gun because you don’t have a film out yet. So that period of time was very scary and very, very sensitive. Our information was on an air gap computer [such a computer is physically separated from and not capable of connecting to other computers or networks]. As you can see, Nate [Halverson] was putting glue into the ports and everything. So we were scared at that point. Do I think that I was in danger? There was a moment in Zambia where I imagined anything could happen to me and it could just be anyone’s fault. Because everything works in the shadows in those places and the mercenaries operate with plausible deniability. So that was scary. I think what’s scarier and what I’m worried about and was always worried about is someone like Brig [a local Zambian activist in the film]. He’s in the shadows. He’s there surrounded by people who might just say, you’re hurting our profits. It could be people inside Zambia, it could be Zambians, and it could also be mercenaries working on behalf of big governments. There’s a huge implication in the film that Ukraine was invaded by Russia because they had dammed a water source from flowing into Crimea. Do you really think water was the primary reason behind the current conflict? It was certainly a big catalyst that nobody talks about. But is it the only catalyst? I don’t think so. I think there’s always a lot of calculated risk that someone like Putin’s going to take, and he’s going to come into that situation for a number of reasons. But the water thing, we felt like it was not given enough attention, especially when you really look at Ukraine being the biggest bread basket in the world and the biggest feeder of poverty stricken nations in the world. So it was something that bore mentioning. Blackfish had a tremendous real-world impact. How important is it for you to create change with your films? I think Blackfish made me realize that you can effect change through a film. And I think that it almost looms over me as a promise that I feel like I’m making when I make my films. Yes, I do hope that it effects change. I don’t go into the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking thinking that, because then I’m creating a 90-minute 1-800 number, and so the impetus when I’m making a film is to make it entertaining and help you learn. But once it’s finished, then I sort of catapult to another sphere, and that’s to get people to do life better, to make us do something after we feel something. So it’s an added pressure I think that I just give to myself. I just feel like that’s my lane because of what I saw happening with my own experience with Blackfish. So ultimately what’s the change you want to engender with this film? Let’s create a national water center that’s going to synthesize all the information about water. There is no national water policy because we’re a federalist country. It’s all state, right? So what we need to understand is how much water we have, which is something else we don’t know as a nation. We have groundwater, we know rivers, but we don’t know how much water we have and where it is. And that information is starting to become available and could become more available. So once we have that, we should create an agency or a national water center that’s really a clearinghouse for information. It’s such a ridiculous pie in the sky dream. But now I have it, and so I want to just at least try to do that. So I don’t think I can leave this one because it is so ongoing and there’s no sort of decisive end to it. There is no “OK, now everybody’s fine and has water.” It’s continuing because, as someone said, the discussion about water constantly fluctuates, because water constantly fluctuates. Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

Around the world, lands with water and food resources are being snatched up by powerful interests. The Grab director Gabriela Cowperthwaite discusses her documentary that is both a geopolitical thriller and a call to action. The post In Deep Water appeared first on .

Throughout history, we have witnessed the fierce pursuit of valuable commodities such as spices, gold, wheat, cotton and oil. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s new documentary, The Grab, reveals that nations and multinational corporations are now urgently scouring the globe to hoard and control an even more crucial resource: water.

Cowperthwaite directed the acclaimed 2013 documentary Blackfish, which investigated the death of a SeaWorld trainer, highlighted the mistreatment of orca whales in captivity, and ultimately led to SeaWorld ending its orca shows.

The Grab (streaming and in select theaters June 14) follows investigative reporter Nathan Halverson and his team from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Together, they have traveled the globe, from Arizona to Zambia, to shed light on the covert acquisition of water-rich lands. As global warming intensifies and water resources dwindle, these areas are becoming hotbeds for profit-driven companies and for nations desperate to sustain their populations.

This film reveals how a Chinese company backed by the government bought the American company Smithfield Foods; now China owns one in four pigs raised in the U.S. In Arizona, a Saudi-owned 10,000 acre hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the desert and exporting the hay back to the Kingdom. And former mercenary and Blackwater Security Company founder Erik Prince is leading a group of Chinese investors on a hunt for natural resources and investment opportunities by snatching up land in Zambia and other African countries.

Cowperthwaite recently spoke to Capital & Main about her intention to craft The Grab as a geopolitical thriller and the formidable challenges of documenting the global struggle for this increasingly precious resource.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Capital & Main: What was your approach to covering this complex issue of foreign interests grabbing up land with water resources around the world?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: What I felt like I wanted to do was create a geopolitical thriller. I feel like there are people who need to hear about what’s happening with the grabbing of resources on the planet and need to hear it from the position of power and from the perspective of power. And if we do that, there is a possibility of getting half of this country to see themselves inside this story if we frame it in the context of power rather than going back to Blue State catch words like “environmentalism,” “global warming” and “climate change,” because they turn off the TV if they see those words.

So I wanted to find access points that are human and personal to folks that are not in the environmental echo chamber. Finding a way to humanize this issue and put it in a context that they can relate to, which is powerful people surrounding them, making decisions that are going to destroy their livelihoods and communities.

Right, like the Arizona farmers in the film having their water dry up because a massive plot of land owned by the Saudis is using much of the groundwater. But how do you get authoritarian countries like China and Saudi Arabia to stop buying up huge plots of land in places like Africa?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Nathan Halverson. Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.

It’s not just “Oh, there’s these insidious countries and these dark countries and they’re adversarial and they’re doing these bad things.” First of all, we’re doing the same thing. Wall Street, United States, Western Europe, we’re all doing that. And second, they’re fighting for survival just as much as we are. And I think this is the most Sisyphean answer that you’ll ever get, but in my mind there are many, many things to do.

One of the most important, and, I guess, jarring moments for me in the film is when [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping revealed he ate raw pork as a kid [because he was starving]. And for me, it changed everything for me in terms of how I made this film. And that was because if there is someone who has understood starvation at that level — and I’m not talking about feeling hungry, I’m talking about just mass starvation — and that person is now essentially in charge of a country, it is the purview of that leader now to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

So it gives you hope that you saw a glimmer of vulnerability in the world’s most powerful authoritarian leader.

I think that’s right. I think if I had gone through what he went through, perhaps I’d make similar decisions. We must see ourselves in each other for anything to make sense about how we do life. And so I think that’s why I got into documentary, and that’s what I love about documentaries.

But if powerful countries secure resources for themselves, won’t smaller, poorer nations suffer disproportionately?

Yes, it will disproportionately affect them. Smaller countries will be hit faster with the ramifications of some of it, but nobody gets out alive is the thing. This is [like] OPEC right? Look at the wars we fought over oil and think about what that would be like over food and water. If all these powerful nations do this, and they control the levers of food and water, that’s going to affect everybody negatively.

And if one country fails, whether it’s Zambia or China, we are going to feel it in our food prices. We’re going to feel it geopolitically. We’re completely interconnected. If Zambia starves, that isn’t just a human rights issue. That means disease, and that disease does not respect national borders, as we’ve seen recently. That means refugees. And it means conflict. And that’s geopolitical conflict, because now that’s happening in a place that the world has deemed as a final breadbasket. We’re going to have to go into conflict with countries in areas that are deemed incredibly geopolitically important and are valuable for water, for the future of food. It’s going to affect them. It’s going to affect us. It’s going to affect everybody.

What surprised you the most in making this film?

What I was the most surprised of was the fear. It was purely the fear. The Saudi cables that suggested that they were terrified that the Arab Spring was going to come to them. Food prices go up, we’re in trouble. Look at what people can do on the streets. Same with China. Fear. They don’t admit it inside their country that there was a great famine [from 1959-1961]. They call it natural disaster, but they remember their grandparents starving. So it’s sort of like it’s fear and a lot of it.

VIDEO

Speaking of fear, there was a moment in the film when the crew thought they may be being bugged. Did you guys ever fear for your life, or do you fear for your life now? And are you taking any steps to mitigate that?

So while we were making the film was the scariest part, I think because you don’t yet have a film, which means the people you are talking to could be in trouble. You could be in trouble. And then if someone does something to you, there’s no smoking gun because you don’t have a film out yet. So that period of time was very scary and very, very sensitive. Our information was on an air gap computer [such a computer is physically separated from and not capable of connecting to other computers or networks]. As you can see, Nate [Halverson] was putting glue into the ports and everything. So we were scared at that point.

Do I think that I was in danger? There was a moment in Zambia where I imagined anything could happen to me and it could just be anyone’s fault. Because everything works in the shadows in those places and the mercenaries operate with plausible deniability. So that was scary.

I think what’s scarier and what I’m worried about and was always worried about is someone like Brig [a local Zambian activist in the film]. He’s in the shadows. He’s there surrounded by people who might just say, you’re hurting our profits. It could be people inside Zambia, it could be Zambians, and it could also be mercenaries working on behalf of big governments.

There’s a huge implication in the film that Ukraine was invaded by Russia because they had dammed a water source from flowing into Crimea. Do you really think water was the primary reason behind the current conflict?

It was certainly a big catalyst that nobody talks about. But is it the only catalyst? I don’t think so. I think there’s always a lot of calculated risk that someone like Putin’s going to take, and he’s going to come into that situation for a number of reasons. But the water thing, we felt like it was not given enough attention, especially when you really look at Ukraine being the biggest bread basket in the world and the biggest feeder of poverty stricken nations in the world. So it was something that bore mentioning.

Blackfish had a tremendous real-world impact. How important is it for you to create change with your films?

I think Blackfish made me realize that you can effect change through a film. And I think that it almost looms over me as a promise that I feel like I’m making when I make my films. Yes, I do hope that it effects change. I don’t go into the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking thinking that, because then I’m creating a 90-minute 1-800 number, and so the impetus when I’m making a film is to make it entertaining and help you learn. But once it’s finished, then I sort of catapult to another sphere, and that’s to get people to do life better, to make us do something after we feel something. So it’s an added pressure I think that I just give to myself. I just feel like that’s my lane because of what I saw happening with my own experience with Blackfish.

So ultimately what’s the change you want to engender with this film?

Let’s create a national water center that’s going to synthesize all the information about water. There is no national water policy because we’re a federalist country. It’s all state, right? So what we need to understand is how much water we have, which is something else we don’t know as a nation. We have groundwater, we know rivers, but we don’t know how much water we have and where it is. And that information is starting to become available and could become more available. So once we have that, we should create an agency or a national water center that’s really a clearinghouse for information.

It’s such a ridiculous pie in the sky dream. But now I have it, and so I want to just at least try to do that. So I don’t think I can leave this one because it is so ongoing and there’s no sort of decisive end to it. There is no “OK, now everybody’s fine and has water.” It’s continuing because, as someone said, the discussion about water constantly fluctuates, because water constantly fluctuates.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

Related News

A rare glimpse inside the mountain tunnel that carries water to Southern California

In the 1930s, workers bored a 13-mile tunnel beneath Mt. San Jacinto. Here's a look inside the engineering feat that carries Colorado River water to Southern California.

Thousands of feet below the snowy summit of Mt. San Jacinto, a formidable feat of engineering and grit makes life as we know it in Southern California possible. The 13-mile-long San Jacinto Tunnel was bored through the mountain in the 1930s by a crew of about 1,200 men who worked day and night for six years, blasting rock and digging with machinery. Completed in 1939, the tunnel was a cornerstone in the construction of the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct. It enabled the delivery of as much as 1 billion gallons of water per day.The tunnel is usually off-limits when it is filled and coursing with a massive stream of Colorado River water. But recently, while it was shut down for annual maintenance, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California opened the west end of the passage to give The Times and others a rare look inside. “It’s an engineering marvel,” said John Bednarski, an assistant general manager of MWD. “It’s pretty awe-inspiring.” The 16-foot-diameter San Jacinto Tunnel runs 13 miles through the mountain. While shut down for maintenance, the tunnel has a constant stream of water entering from the mountain. A group visits the west end of the San Jacinto Tunnel, where the mouth of the water tunnel enters a chamber. He wore a hard hat as he led a group to the gaping, horseshoe-shaped mouth of the tunnel. The passage’s concrete arch faded in the distance to pitch black.The tunnel wasn’t entirely empty. The sound of rushing water echoed from the walls as an ankle-deep stream flowed from the portal and cascaded into a churning pool beneath metal gates. Many in the tour group wore rubber boots as they stood on moist concrete in a chamber faintly lit by filtered sunlight, peering into the dark tunnel. This constant flow comes as groundwater seeps and gushes from springs that run through the heart of the mountain. In places deep in the tunnel, water shoots so forcefully from the floor or the wall that workers have affectionately named these soaking obstacles “the fire hose” and “the car wash.”Standing by the flowing stream, Bednarski called it “leakage water from the mountain itself.”Mt. San Jacinto rises 10,834 feet above sea level, making it the second-highest peak in Southern California after 11,503-foot Mt. San Gorgonio.As the tunnel passes beneath San Jacinto’s flank, as much as 2,500 feet of solid rock lies overhead, pierced only by two vertical ventilation shafts. Snow covers Mt. San Jacinto, as seen from Whitewater, in March. At the base of the mountain, the 13-mile San Jacinto Tunnel starts its journey. The tunnel transports Colorado River water to Southern California’s cities. During maintenance, workers roll through on a tractor equipped with a frame bearing metal bristles that scrape the tunnel walls, cleaning off algae and any growth of invasive mussels. Workers also inspect the tunnel by passing through on an open trailer, scanning for any cracks that require repairs.“It’s like a Disneyland ride,” said Bryan Raymond, an MWD conveyance team manager. “You’re sitting on this trailer, and there’s a bunch of other people on it too, and you’re just cruising through looking at the walls.” Aside from the spraying and trickling water, employee Michael Volpone said he has also heard faint creaking.“If you sit still and listen, you can kind of hear the earth move,” he said. “It’s a little eerie.”Standing at the mouth of the tunnel, the constant babble of cascading water dominates the senses. The air is moist but not musty. Put a hand to the clear flowing water, and it feels warm enough for a swim. On the concrete walls are stained lines that extend into the darkness, marking where the water often reaches when the aqueduct is running full. Many who have worked on the aqueduct say they are impressed by the system’s design and how engineers and workers built such a monumental system with the basic tools and technology available during the Great Depression.Pipelines and tunnelsThe search for a route to bring Colorado River water across the desert to Los Angeles began with the signing of a 1922 agreement that divided water among seven states. After the passage of a $2-million bond measure by Los Angeles voters in 1925, hundreds of surveyors fanned out across the largely roadless Mojave and Sonoran deserts to take measurements and study potential routes.The surveyors traveled mostly on horseback and on foot as they mapped the rugged terrain, enduring grueling days in desert camps where the heat sometimes topped 120 degrees.Planners studied and debated more than 100 potential paths before settling on one in 1931. The route began near Parker, Ariz., and took a curving path through desert valleys, around obstacles and, where there was no better option, through mountains.In one official report, a manager wrote that “to bore straight through the mountains is very expensive and to pump over them is likewise costly.” He said the planners carefully weighed these factors as they decided on a solution that would deliver water at the lowest cost. VIDEO | 02:45 A visit to the giant tunnel that brings Colorado River water to Southern California Share via Those in charge of the Metropolitan Water District, which had been created in 1928 to lead the effort, were focused on delivering water to 13 participating cities, including Los Angeles, Burbank and Anaheim. William Mulholland, Los Angeles’ chief water engineer, had led an early scouting party to map possible routes from the Colorado River to Southern California’s cities in 1923, a decade after he celebrated the completion of the 233-mile aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles with the triumphant words, “There it is. Take it.”The aqueduct’s design matched the audaciousness of the giant dams the federal government was starting to build along the Colorado — Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam) and Parker Dam, which formed the reservoir where the aqueduct would begin its journey.Five pumping plants would be built to lift water more than 1,600 feet along the route across the desert. Between those points, water would run by gravity through open canals, buried pipelines and 29 separate tunnels stretching 92 miles — the longest of which was a series of nine tunnels running 33.7 miles through hills bordering the Coachella Valley.To make it possible, voters in the district’s 13 cities overwhelmingly approved a $220-million bond in 1931, the equivalent of a $4.5-billion investment today, which enabled the hiring of 35,000 workers. Crews set up camps, excavated canals and began to blast open shafts through the desert’s rocky spines to make way for water.In 1933, workers started tearing into the San Jacinto Mountains at several locations, from the east and the west, as well as excavating shafts from above. Black-and-white photographs and films showed miners in hard hats and soiled uniforms as they stood smoking cigarettes, climbing into open rail cars and running machinery that scooped and loaded piles of rocks.Crews on another hulking piece of equipment, called a jumbo, used compressed-air drills to bore dozens of holes, which were packed with blasting power and detonated to pierce the rock. (Courtesy of Metropolitan Water District of Southern California) The work progressed slowly, growing complicated when the miners struck underground streams, which sent water gushing in.According to a 1991 history of the MWD titled “A Water Odyssey,” one flood in 1934 disabled two of three pumps that had been brought in to clear the tunnel. In another sudden flood, an engineer recalled that “the water came in with a big, mad rush and filled the shaft to the top. Miners scrambled up the 800-foot ladder to the surface, and the last man out made it with water swirling around his waist.”Death and delaysAccording to the MWD’s records, 13 workers died during the tunnel’s construction, including men who were struck by falling rocks, run over by equipment or electrocuted with a wire on one of the mining trolleys that rolled on railroad tracks. The Metropolitan Water District had originally hired Wenzel & Henoch Construction Co. to build the tunnel. But after less than two years, only about two miles of the tunnel had been excavated, and the contractor was fired by MWD general manager Frank Elwin “F.E.” Weymouth, who assigned the district’s engineers and workers to complete the project.Construction was delayed again in 1937 when workers went on strike for six weeks. But in 1939, the last wall of rock tumbled down, uniting the east and west tunnels, and the tunnel was finished. John Bednarski, assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, stands in a water tunnel near the end point of the larger San Jacinto Tunnel, which carries Colorado River water. The total cost was $23.5 million. But there also were other costs. As the construction work drained water, many nearby springs used by the Native Soboba people stopped flowing. The drying of springs and creeks left the tribe’s members without water and starved their farms, which led to decades of litigation by the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians and eventually a legal settlement in 2008 that resolved the tribe’s water rights claims.The ‘magic touch’ of waterBy the time the tunnel was completed, the Metropolitan Water District had released a 20-minute film that was shown in movie theaters and schools celebrating its conquest of the Colorado River and the desert. It called Mt. San Jacinto the “tallest and most forbidding barrier.”In a rich baritone, the narrator declared Southern California “a new empire made possible by the magic touch of water.” “Water required to support this growth and wealth could not be obtained from the local rainfall in this land of sunshine,” the narrator said as the camera showed newly built homes and streets filled with cars and buses. “The people therefore realized that a new and dependable water supply must be provided, and this new water supply has been found on the lofty western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, a wonderland of beauty, clad by nature in a white mantle of snow.”Water began to flow through the aqueduct in 1939 as the pumping plants were tested. At the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant, near the aqueduct’s halfway point, water was lifted 441 feet, surging through three pipelines up a desert mountain. March 2012 image of the 10-foot-diameter delivery lines carrying water 441 feet uphill from the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant. (Los Angeles Times) From there, the water flowed by gravity, moving at 3-6 mph as it traveled through pipelines, siphons and tunnels. It entered the San Jacinto Tunnel in Cabazon, passed under the mountain and emerged near the city of San Jacinto, then continued in pipelines to Lake Mathews reservoir in Riverside County. In 1941, Colorado River water started flowing to Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Compton and other cities. Within six years, another pipeline was built to transport water from the aqueduct south to San Diego.The influx of water fueled Southern California’s rapid growth during and after World War II.Over decades, the dams and increased diversions also took an environmental toll, drying up much of the once-vast wetlands in Mexico’s Colorado River Delta. John Bednarski, assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District, walks in a water tunnel near the end point of the larger San Jacinto Tunnel. An impressive designToday, 19 million people depend on water delivered by the MWD, which also imports supplies from Northern California through the aqueducts and pipelines of the State Water Project.In recent decades, the agency has continued boring tunnels where needed to move water. A $1.2-billion, 44-mile-long conveyance system called the Inland Feeder, completed in 2009, involved boring eight miles of tunnels through the San Bernardino Mountains and another 7.9-mile tunnel under the Badlands in Riverside County.The system enabled the district to increase its capacity and store more water during wet years in Diamond Valley Lake, Southern California’s largest reservoir, which can hold about 260 billion gallons of water. “Sometimes tunneling is actually the most effective way to get from point A to point B,” said Deven Upadhyay, the MWD’s general manager.Speaking hypothetically, Upadhyay said, if engineers had another shot at designing and building the aqueduct now using modern technology, it’s hard to say if they would end up choosing the same route through Mt. San Jacinto or a different route around it. But the focus on minimizing cost might yield a similar route, he said.“Even to this day, it’s a pretty impressive design,” Upadhyay said.When people drive past on the I-10 in Cabazon, few realize that a key piece of infrastructure lies hidden where the desert meets the base of the mountain. At the tunnel’s exit point near San Jacinto, the only visible signs of the infrastructure are several concrete structures resembling bunkers. When the aqueduct is running, those who enter the facility will hear the rumble of rushing water. The tunnel’s west end was opened to a group of visitors in March, when the district’s managers held an event to name the tunnel in honor of Randy Record, who served on the MWD board for two decades and was chair from 2014 to 2018. Speaking to an audience, Upadhyay reflected on the struggles the region now faces as the Colorado River is sapped by drought and global warming, and he drew a parallel to the challenges the tunnel’s builders overcame in the 1930s. “They found a path,” Upadhyay said. “This incredible engineering feat. And it required strength, courage and really an innovative spirit.” “When we now think about the challenges that we face today, dealing with wild swings in climate and the potential reductions that we might face, sharing dwindling supplies on our river systems with the growing Southwest, it’s going to require the same thing — strength, courage and a spirit of innovation,” he said. A steep steel staircase gives access to a water tunnel near the end point of the larger San Jacinto Tunnel, which carries Colorado River water to Southern California.

Water

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Government

Officials to Test Water From Ohio Village Near Cold War-Era Weapons Plant After Newspaper Probe

Authorities in Ohio plan to test the water supply across a small village near a former weapons plant after a newspaper investigation published Friday found high levels of radioactivity in samples taken at a school, athletic field, library and other sites

LUCKEY, Ohio (AP) — Authorities in Ohio plan to test the groundwater supply across a village near a former weapons plant after a newspaper investigation published Friday found high levels of radioactivity in samples taken at a school, athletic field, library and other sites.However, The Blade in Toledo said its tests showed radioactivity levels 10 times higher than normal in water from a drinking fountain at Eastwood Middle School, 45 times higher than normal at the Luckey Library and 1,731 times higher than normal at a water pump near athletic fields.“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” said Lt. Col. Robert Burnham, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Buffalo District, which oversees the cleanup.Nineteen of the 39 samples collected by the newspaper from well water across Luckey — at homes, businesses, and public places — showed radioactivity at least 10 times greater than what the federal government calls normal for the area, the newspaper said. The Blade hired an accredited private lab to conduct the testing.The radioactivity detected was primarily bismuth-214, which decays from the radioactive gas radon-222. Experts agree that high levels of bismuth-214 suggest high levels of radon are also present.Radon exposure is the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers.The testing also found low levels of radioactive cobalt-60, a man-made isotope, in two wells. Experts called that finding extremely rare.Taehyun Roh, a Texas A&M University scientist who specializes in environmental exposures, said regulators should also conduct air and soil testing to assess the extent of the contamination and identify the source."Since this area likely has high radon levels, testing for radon in both air and water is advisable,” he wrote in an email. “A safe drinking water advisory should be issued, recommending the use of bottled water until further assessments and mitigation measures are in place.”The Corps of Engineers has long maintained that residential drinking water was not being contaminated by the removal work. Burnham and others said they still believe that to be true, citing thousands of their own soil samples.The state Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health will lead the testing. In an email, Ohio EPA spokesperson Katie Boyer told the newspaper the contaminant levels in the public drinking water are still “within acceptable drinking water standards.” She said any concerns raised by the state testing would be addressed.The 44-acre industrial site — 22 miles (35 kilometers) south of Toledo — was long crucial to America’s nuclear weapons program. In the 1940s, farmland was replaced by a sprawling defense plant that produced magnesium metal for the Manhattan Project. In the 1950s, the plant became the government’s sole source of beryllium metal for nuclear bombs, Cold War missiles and Space Race products, including a heat shield for Project Mercury.“Things that happened generations ago are still affecting us,” said Karina Hahn-Claydon, a 50-year-old teacher whose family lives less than a mile from the site. “And that’s because the government didn’t take care of it.”Private drinking wells, unlike municipal systems, are not regulated, and responsibility for testing is left to owners. The Blade’s testing took place from April 2024 through January.Radioactivity has been linked to an increased risk of various cancers, including blood and thyroid cancers.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Water

Business

Health

UK spending watchdog censures water firms and regulators over sewage failings

NAO finds regulatory gaps have enabled overspending on infrastructure building while not improving sewage worksWater companies have been getting away with failures to improve sewage works and overspending because of regulatory problems, a damning report by the government’s spending watchdog has found.Firms have overspent on infrastructure building, the National Audit Office (NAO) found, with some of these costs being added to consumers’ bills. The Guardian this week reported Ofwat and the independent water commission are investigating water firms for spending up to 10 times as much on their sewage works and piping as comparable countries. Continue reading...

Water companies have been getting away with failures to improve sewage works and overspending because of regulatory problems, a damning report by the government’s spending watchdog has found.Firms have overspent on infrastructure building, the National Audit Office (NAO) found, with some of these costs being added to consumers’ bills. The Guardian this week reported Ofwat and the independent water commission are investigating water firms for spending up to 10 times as much on their sewage works and piping as comparable countries.Bills in England and Wales are rising by £123 on average this year, and will go up further over the next five years, so that companies can fix ageing sewage infrastructure and stop spills of human waste from contaminating rivers and seas. Several water firms have complained to the Competition and Markets Authority because they want the regulator to allow them to increase bills even further.Only 1% of water companies’ actions to improve environmental performance, such as improving sewer overflows, have been inspected by the Environment Agency, the authors of the NAO report said. They also found there was no regulator responsible for proactively inspecting wastewater assets to prevent further environmental harm.The report, which audited the three water regulators, Ofwat, the Environment Agency, and the Drinking Water Inspectorate, as well as the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, also found the regulators did not have a good understanding of the condition of infrastructure assets such as leaking sewers and ageing sewage treatment facilities as they do not have a set of metrics to assess their condition.Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “Given the unprecedented situation facing the sector, Defra and the regulators need to act urgently to address industry performance and resilience to ensure the sector can meet government targets and achieve value for money over the long term for bill payers.”Despite the huge costs of infrastructure, the water companies have moved slowly meaning that at the current rate, it would take 700 years to replace the entire existing water network, the report found. Regulatory gaps and a lack of urgency about replacing old and malfunctioning infrastructure has caused a “rising tide of risk” in the sector, which is contributing to increasing bills for customers, the report warned.It also criticised the lack of a national plan for water supply and recommended that Defra must understand the costs and deliverability of its plans, alongside the impact they would have on customers’ bills.Several of the issues raised by the NAO, including concerns about weak infrastructure, have come to the fore in the debate over the future of Thames Water, the country’s largest water company with 16 million customers. Thames, which is under significant financial pressure with almost £20bn in debt, needs to secure fresh investment within months. Questions over the state of Thames’s infrastructure and regulatory punishment it could face for its failures have dogged the process of winning fresh funds. Meanwhile, Ofwat has also rejected its requests to raise bills by as much as 59%, instead allowing a 35% increase over the next five years.The government set up the independent water commission (IWC) last year to investigate how the water industry operated and whether regulation was fit for purpose.Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Tory chair of the Commons public accounts committee, said: “Today’s NAO report lays bare the scale of the challenges facing the water sector – not least the real prospect of water shortfall without urgent action.“The consequences of government’s failure to regulate this sector properly are now landing squarely on bill payers who are being left to pick up the tab. After years of under-investment, pollution incidents and water supply issues, it is no surprise that consumer trust is at an all-time low. Having not built any reservoirs in the last 30 years, we now need 10.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“Consumers rightly expect a water sector that is robust, resilient and fit for the future. Defra and the regulators must focus on rebuilding public confidence and ensure the sector can attract the long-term investment it desperately needs.”An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We recognise the significant challenges facing the water industry. That is why we will be working with Defra and other water regulators to implement the report’s recommendations and update our frameworks to reflect its findings.”An Ofwat spokesperson added: “We agree with the NAO’s recommendations for Ofwat and we continue to progress our work in these areas, and to contribute to the IWC wider review of the regulatory framework. We also look forward to the IWC’s recommendations and to working with government and other regulators to better deliver for customers and the environment.”A Defra spokesperson said: “The government has taken urgent action to fix the water industry – but change will not happen overnight. We have put water companies under tough special measures through our landmark Water Act.”Water UK, which represents the water companies, has been contacted for comment.

Water

Government

Food

Water firms admit sewage monitoring damaging public trust

The industry says powers to self-monitor water quality should be handed back to the regulator.

Water companies should no longer be allowed to monitor their own levels of sewage pollution, the industry body has told the BBC exclusively.Instead they are proposing a new, third-party monitoring system to build consumer trust.The recommendation is part of a submission made to the UK government's independent review into the water sector.Campaigners have long complained the companies' self-reporting has prevented the true scale of pollution in UK water being revealed.A third-party system could add more pressure to the regulators, which have also been criticised for not holding the companies to account. A report from the National Audit Office is expected to say on Friday that the Environment Agency does not currently have enough capacity to take on any new monitoring.David Henderson, CEO of industry body Water UK, told the BBC: "We absolutely accept that self-monitoring is not helping to instil trust and so we would like to see an end to it, and in place of it a more robust, third-party system." As part of their permitting arrangements water companies are expected to regularly sample water quality to identify potential pollution, and submit this data to the Environment Agency in an arrangement known as "operator self monitoring". But there have been incidents of misreporting by water companies in England and Wales uncovered by the regulators, who said some cases had been deliberate.Southern Water was previously issued fines totalling £213m by the industry regulator (Ofwat) and the environmental regulator (the Environment Agency) for manipulating sewage data.In that case, there was unreported pollution into numerous conservation sites which caused "major environmental harm" to wildlife.The company later admitted its actions "fell short".Henderson added that the industry never asked to self-monitor, but that it was introduced in 2009 by the then Labour government to "reduce the administrative burden" on the Environment Agency (EA). In 2023, the BBC reported that EA staff were concerned that, due to funding cuts, the Agency was increasingly relying on water companies to self-report rather than carrying out its own checks on pollution from sewage. The current environment minister, Steve Reed, has promised to review the system, calling it the equivalent of companies "mark[ing] their own homework".But the National Audit Office (NAO), which reviews government spending, questioned the ability of the EA to take on any new monitoring. "Regulators need to address the fact that they currently have limited oversight over whether water companies are carrying out their work as expected. It is hard to see how they will achieve this without increased overall capacity," said Anita Shah, NAO Director of Regulation.It is expected to publish a full review of the regulation of the water sector on Friday. A Defra spokesperson told the BBC: "We are committed to taking decisive action to fix the water industry. The Water Commission's recommendations will mark the next major step [to] restore public trust in the sector."The government launched an independent water commission in October to review the sector and the way it is regulated. The public consultation closed on Wednesday with the findings expected in July. Water UK submitted a 200-page document of recommendations, including this call to end self-monitoring.The industry body also requested that water meters be universal across England and Wales to make bills fairer. At present about 60% of the population have a meter."The meter is just to ensure that people are paying for what they use as opposed to a flat rate of system where you can use virtually no water and pay the same as someone filling up a pool three times in a summer," said Henderson."This doesn't properly reflect the value of water and encourage people to conserve it in the way that we need," he added.

Water

Conservation

Pollution

Cambodia Canal's Impact on Mekong Questioned After China Signs Deal

By Francesco Guarascio(Reuters) -Cambodia should share a feasibility study on the impact of a planned China-backed canal that would divert water...

(Reuters) -Cambodia should share a feasibility study on the impact of a planned China-backed canal that would divert water from the rice-growing floodplains of Vietnam's Mekong Delta, said the body overseeing the transnational river.After months of uncertainty, Phnom Penh last week signed a deal with China to develop the Funan Techo Canal when President Xi Jinping visited Cambodia as part of a tour of Southeast Asia.It was Beijing's first explicit public commitment to the project, giving state-controlled construction giant China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) a 49% stake through a subsidiary, but also linking Chinese support to the "sustainability" of the project.The Secretariat of the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) that coordinates the sustainable development of Southeast Asia's longest river said it had so far received from Cambodia only "basic information" on the project."We hope that further details, including the feasibility study report and other relevant reports, will be provided," the Commission said in a statement to Reuters this week.That would be needed "to ensure that any potential implications for the broader Mekong Basin are fully considered," it added.The canal has already created concern among environmentalists who say it could further harm the delicate ecology of the Mekong Delta, which is Vietnam's major rice growing region and is already facing problems of drought and salination as result of infrastructure projects upstream. Vietnam is also a leading exporter of rice.On Friday, the Cambodian government said the canal would have minimal environmental impact and "aligns with the 1995 Mekong Agreement" which governs cooperation among riverine countries in Southeast Asia.The Mekong River, fed by a series of tributaries, flows some 4,900 kilometres (3,045 miles) from its source in the Tibetan plateau through China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to the sea."Whether the Funan Techo Canal violates the 1995 Mekong Agreement depends on several factors, including its connection to the Mekong mainstream," the Commission said, offering additional guidance to Phnom Penh and other member states "to ensure compliance".Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are members of the MRC while China and Myanmar are dialogue partners.The Cambodian government did not respond to questions about whether it intended to share the requested documents.Vietnam's foreign ministry did not reply to a request for comment after the deal with China was signed, but the country has repeatedly asked Cambodia to share more information about the canal to assess its impact.Xi made no reference to the canal in his public statements in Phnom Penh but a joint communique issued at the end of his visit said China supported Cambodia in building the canal "in accordance with the principles of feasibility and sustainability".The deal signed by CCCC on Friday was for a 151.6 km (94.2 miles) canal costing $1.16 billion.However, the Cambodian government says on the canal's official website that the waterway would stretch 180 km and cost $1.7 billion at completion in 2028.The higher cost reflects a short section to be built by Cambodian firms as well as bridges and water conservation resources, the government told Reuters without clarifying who would pay for the bridges and water conservation.Cambodia's deputy prime minister said in May 2024 that China would cover the entire cost of the project, which was put at $1.7 billion.The canal is designed to link the Mekong Basin to the Gulf of Thailand in Cambodia's southern Kep province. Much of the Mekong's nutrient-rich sediment no longer reaches rice farms in the Delta because of multiple hydroelectric dams built by China upriver, a Reuters analysis showed in 2022.The project agreed with China is also different from the original plan as it is focusing on boosting irrigation rather than solely pursuing navigation purposes, said Brian Eyler, an expert on the Mekong region at U.S.-based think tank Stimson Center.The water diverted from the Mekong Delta "will be much more than previously described," said Eyler.(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; additional reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi; Editing by Kate Mayberry)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Water

Conservation

Sustainable

Suggested Viewing

Ser Manguezal

Ser Manguezal, created by Eliseu Cavalcante, was inspired by Josué de Castro's book "Of Men and Crabs" from 1967. De Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger. In his book, Castro envisions men as crabs, learning to walk in the mangroves. This relationship between them seems to unify and blend all together making the human being part of that specific biome. This film is part of an ongoing project that examines those who depend on the mangrove ecosystem to survive, and the delicate relationship between humans and this particular ecosystem. It seeks to recognize the hard-working crab hunters of the mangroves and make their work more visible, and to bring awareness about the importance of mangroves to the environment. Worldwide, 3,400 square kilometers (1,300 square miles) of mangrove forests were lost between 2000 and 2016, or about 2% of the global mangrove area (NASA). About 62% of the losses were due to direct human causes such as agriculture and aquaculture. Mangrove degradation is greater than the average for tropical and subtropical forest loss.

Water

Conservation

Plants

The Great Divide

Twenty minutes outside of Visalia, amidst the seemingly endless rows of citrus trees, Yolanda Cuevas packs enchiladas with shredded chicken for her husband Benjamin, their adult daughters and two teenaged grandchildren in her modest single-story home. Their house is the first one off the main drag, one of 83 lining the two crumbling roads that comprise the tiny town of Tooleville. Yolanda must wash the tomatoes for the salsa first in the sink and then again with a splash of clean water from a 5-gallon jug. The process is arduous, and though she’s resigned to do it, she’s not happy about it. Along with Tooleville’s several hundred other residents, Yolanda’s family has survived on bi-weekly delivery of water to their homes for the past 12 years. It’s an annoyance for the family, and it’s expensive for the State of California, which has been paying for the replacement water since the discovery of Chromium-6 (the same chemical featured in Erin Brokovich) in the water. The simpler solution would be to consolidate the town’s water system with that of its larger, affluent neighbor to the west, Exeter. And for this purpose, Yolanda has become a reluctant activist, attending community meetings in Tooleville and lobbying for consolidation at Exeter’s city council meetings under the expert guidance of Pedro Hernandez, an organizer with the Leadership Counsel. While Exeter has resisted the consolidation since it was first proposed, organizers like Pedro feel that this could be the year Exeter finally succumbs to the growing community pressure and brings Tooleville into the fold. The decision will echo around the Central Valley and across the state, as hundreds of similar community water systems find themselves in a nearly identical predicament.

Water

Activism

Documentary

Haboob

A man and his daughter are used to living in harmony and peace with nature, but some disruptions change their lovely little life.

Animation

Water

Family

Vanishing Springs

The Florida you know is a lie. In contrast to what Americans have been told, Florida’s magic is not found in the giant mouse, the rolling green golf courses, or in the beachside palaces. The beauty and uniqueness of Florida is under our feet - the aquifer. This pure, crystal clear water is the life blood of our state and without it, life as we know it in the sunshine state would not exist. This life sustaining force is only seen where it bubbles up to the surface through Florida’s collection of 1,000 springs. These springs were originally what drew society to this land. Wealthy tourists in the 1900’s flooded the Florida springs seeking medicinal cures from its pristine waters. As springs became a popular tourist destination, spring houses were built around these pools of water. When this development began, the springs began flowing less and some eventually stopped altogether. People assumed this was the natural order of this wonder and moved on. Theme parks, golf courses and resorts were erected to entice tourists to visit Florida, the natural beauty of the state soon faded out of our memory. The springs of Florida now silently suffer from the effects of continued development in Florida. The current strain we are placing on the fragile ecosystem is choking the life out of our state. Overdevelopment is one of the leading forces that is damaging the springs. The once pure sources of water no longer boil up like a fountain the way they have for centuries. The water that the springs do produce is polluted by nitrates. This pollution fuels the growth of toxic algae blooms, which are taking over springs and the rivers they feed, thus putting our health at risk. Over 90% of our drinking water gushes out of these sapphire pools. These glorious reservoirs have begun to shrink. If something is not done soon, the springs will simply become part of Florida history. In southern Florida they already have. Springs once bubbled up all across the state. They were wiped out in South Florida decades ago by the ditching and draining of the landscape as well as over-pumping of the aquifer. This water was then sprayed on suburban lawns and farmers' fields, run through showers and flushed down toilets, turned into steam to crank turbines for electricity, or siphoned into plastic bottles for sale around the country. Because of poor use and neglect of our greatest resource, we will soon be without this supply of fresh water. Floridians regard their water supply as abundant and cheap, when the fact is it's neither. Until this attitude changes, the springs will not be rescued.

Water

Conservation

Health