 | | Greg Cole gazes at Van Etten Lake, a waterbody in northeastern Michigan that has been polluted with PFAS compounds from the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue |
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| Shortly after the networks called the 2020 presidential race for Joe Biden, a list of four priorities appeared on the president-elect’s transition website. - Covid-19
- Economic Recovery
- Racial Equity
- Climate Change
Certain observers noticed a common thread that knitted these priorities together: water
“Water is integral to all of those things,” said Heather Cooley, director of research for the Pacific Institute, a California-based environmental and public policy organization.
Cooley is not the only one to make that observation. Academics and former policy leaders chimed in. So did conservation groups like American Rivers, and think tanks like the Brookings Institution. Even the political consultant David Axelrod, at a Colorado State University symposium in mid-November, discussed how the incoming administration or another campaign could frame a water message. “It seems to me that part of the story you want to tell is the story of interconnectivity,” Axelrod said.
Out of this chorus a narrative has emerged: in a country that is politically fractured, water can unite. |
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 | | Community members in Flint, Michigan, gather on February 6, 2016, to discuss the lead contamination crisis. Photo @ J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue |
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| When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, the change in U.S. leadership will signal a clear break with the previous four years of the Trump administration, especially for environmental policy. How big will the break be? And what will be the priorities for water?
Circle of Blue reporter Brett Walton hosted a roundtable discussion with three experts about what a Biden administration might mean for federal water policy. |
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Water scarcity in occupied Palestinian territories continues to put health and agriculture at risk as conflict over water supplies between Jordan, Israel, and Palestinians flares. |
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What's Up With Water - November 30, 2020
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud.
This week's episode features coverage on the United Nations, which launched a new fund last week, hoping to raise $2 billion over the next five years to address sanitation-related health crises around the world.
In a separate report, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization highlighted the risk of water scarcity for the world’s farmers. The report estimates that over a billion people live in agricultural areas with major constraints on water resources.
For news in the United States, the energy company Enbridge is suing the state of Michigan over what the company calls “illegal actions” by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Additional U.S. news looks at how Enbridge is at the center of another oil pipeline decision in the Upper Midwest. Reuters reports that last week the company got a permit from federal regulators to replace its Line 3 pipeline, which runs from Alberta, Canada to refineries in the Midwest.
This week Circle of Blue reports on how the U.S. government’s foreign aid agency is responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. |
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| From Circle of Blue's Archives: |
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 | | The Wekiva River flows through Orange County, Florida. County voters approved a charter amendment to grant the river and other county waterways legal rights. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons user rain0975 |
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| Residents of Orange County, Florida, voted overwhelmingly in favor of changing the county charter to give legal protection to rivers.
The result was one of a handful across the country in which voters endorsed new protections for waterways or property taxes that will fund water projects. Voters in Utah and Wyoming also approved constitutional amendments that fix technical matters related to municipal water supply and water infrastructure spending. |
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