On Saturday a friend and I drove through coastal California, from Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Before we left, she began to fret about water. She wanted it filtered, and we couldn’t find any. Finally I commented that since most of the world’s people have to worry about shit and bugs in their water, I [...]
Hydro-Quebec is a hydroelectric energy producer in Quebec, one of the largest in Canada. For some years now they have been planning the damming of the Romaine River, a river which runs from Northern Quebec to the gulf of the St-Lawrence. The plan would put four major dams along the river, completing destroying the rivers [...]
More than 200 volunteers banded together during two weeks, from July 12th through July 27th, to remove hundreds of invasive water chestnuts from the Charles River in Newton, Mass. For the second year in a row, Charles River Watershed Association and Charles River Canoe and Kayak teamed up to deal with this decades-old problem, in [...]
In 2004, Saves You Energy, a San Diego company that develops and manufactures water and energy conservation technologies, introduced the On Demand Intelligent Pumping System which reduces energy required to provide domestic hot water by 30% or more.
Providing hot water for household uses such as showering, cooking or washing clothes in apartments, condominiums, hotels and [...]
In January 1996, Ole and Maitri Ersson installed a rainwater catchment system in their Portland, OR, home. Two years later they received approval from the city to use this water for all household use, even as drinking water.
The results have been cleaner than city water, says Ole. They self-test the water twice a [...]
A fellow named Paul from Seattle, Washington has an awesome online guide about hooking up a rainwater barrel to his downstairs toilet. He likes to share this information with everyone. “My work and website are public domain,” he says.
Costing less than $100 to install, this system will pay for itself over time and definitely helps [...]
The Otesha Project is a grassroots group of hopeful young people who know that our current way of life is harming the planet and its inhabitants, but believe that hope and action will remedy this.
Otesha means “reason to dream” in Swahili. This group insists that we must BE the positive change we want to see [...]
I recently picked up a pamphlet for a self-guided walking tour of stormwater solutions in a neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The tour includes businesses and residential homes that display rain gardens, pervious pavement, disconnected downspouts, and eco-roofs.
These stormwater solutions help protect the city’s Willamette River by naturally filtering and/or diverting rainwater from street drains. When [...]
Our children’s children may well be incredulous when we tell them stories of how we used to flush drinking water down the toilet. “Why did you do that?” they may well ask, and we might respond, “Because we were silly and it was the law.” Well, luckily we seem to be ceasing some of our [...]
I find it strange that we passively accept the pollution of waterways we live around. Indigenous cultures lived for thousands of years with flourishing rivers and lakes, fishing and swimming and drinking from the source, respecting their beauty and sacredness. This was until the Western industrial revolution began mucking them up, pouring into them [...]
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