This Week in Water

Fast flows the flood of days.

Fukushima: TEPCO has once again postponed the removal of spent nuclear rods from one its crippled reactors because it is still too dangerous. Meanwhile, leaked radioactive water from the meltdown is apparently reaching the west coast waters of Alaska, and is approaching Canada and the continental U.S.

Super Typhoon Haiyan, called the most powerful storm ever on the planet, devastated parts of the Philippines. You can donate to Red Cross relief efforts here. Access to clean drinking water is a serious problem for survivors there.

The head of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for a grassroots movement to put pressure on politicians to act to limit carbon emissions and other policies contributing to the warming of Earth's climate.

The Keeling Curve is a website run by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD which is trying to keep "a daily record of atmospheric carbon dioxide."

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed a "hydrological modelling tool to aid in the planning of water-supply sustainability and help prepare for potential impacts of climate change in regional coastal aquifer systems" called the Seawater Intrusion (SWI2) package.

Some predict that South Florida's coastal communities, beaches, and barrier islands could be underwater in as little as 100 years.

According to researchers at University of Colorado at Boulder, nearly one in 10 U.S. watersheds is "stressed" as demand for water exceeds supply, and the situation is only likely to get worse.

Lakes in Central Texas are at their lowest levels in more than two generations due to the worst drought in the region's history. The 'other' Colorado River, upon which Austin relies for water, is under serious threat.

Fracking wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia use upwards of 5 million gallons of fresh water each to draw gas and oil out of the Marcellus Shale formation. That's water that can't be used for drinking, irrigation, sanitation, or pretty much anything else.

The Coachella Valley's largest water district is seeking to limit the amount of groundwater golf courses can use.

The CEO of Nestle believes that water is not a human right and should be commoditized, and privatized for profit.

Waukesha, Wisconsin, is running out of fresh drinking water even though it is only about 15 miles from Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes hold one-fifth of all the fresh water on the earth's surface and have been at abnormally low levels for over a decade.

Water-borne, disease-causing bacteria are evolving resistances to chlorine in drinking water.

The U.S. EPA will spend $506 million to clean up New York's Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted waterways in the country.

Scientists from UC Santa Cruz have developed a device that produces hydrogen gas from wastewater and sunlight.

Charged bantam water droplets may increase the output of power plants, according to MIT scientists.

Here's an argument for preserving scarce fresh water resources by tapping into sea water through the use of technology.

Three words: "water bench sofa."

The Mars Rover discovered that approximately two pints of liquid water can be "squeezed" out of a cubic foot of Martian soil.

Using the Hubble telescope, scientists have discovered an asteroid revolving around a distant star that looks to have once been flooded with water, leading them to believe that this is how Earth and similar planets got their own water.

A new species of hammerhead shark was discovered off the coast of South Carolina.

A climber on Mont Blanc discovered a treasure chest filled with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires worth around $322,000 buried in a glacier.

An Italian runner was caught using a dummy penis loaded with clean urine to pass his drug test.

A free diver died after coming up from a 3 minute 38 second, 72 meter dive using no fins or supplemental oxygen