Your "need to know" news of the world's water from Circle of Blue. This week: drought in Taiwan, dry conditions in California, and PFAS lawsuits. Plus and exclusive CoB feature on federal study of PFAS exposure and viral illness.

What's Up With Water - April 12, 2021

This is an excerpt of the June 21, 2021 edition of What's Up With Water.

On Memorial Day, while many Californians were celebrating the unofficial start to summer, the residents of a house off of County Road 200 were contemplating a loss. That day, the homeowners in northern Glenn County submitted an anonymous report to a state database. It said that their drinking water well was on the verge of sputtering out. The well was shallow, only 75 feet deep, and the flow had slowed to a trickle. It pulled water from its site outside the town of Orland, an agricultural valley some 100 miles north of Sacramento, an area covered by almond, walnut, and olive orchards.

The failing well was not an isolated case — and not a quick fix either, as the incident report went on to recount, saying: “Everyone around us and neighbors are having the same problems and with our water table being so low we will have to drill the well deeper but the wait list in Orland and Glenn County is months out and we cannot afford that cost.” 

In this blistering year in California, drinking water wells are going dry in increasing numbers. It’s rekindling memories of the historic drought of 2012 to 2016, when over 2,600 wells across the state stopped producing water. 

California is not yet to that level of emergency. But a state database for household water supply issues received 38 dry well reports in the first 12 days of June, the most for any month in nearly five years.

California Drought & Rural Wells

What’s up with Water, your need-to-know news of the world’s water, from Circle of Blue.

What's Up With Water June 18, 2018

Water watchers know the Pacific Institute is a renowned global water think tank providing thought leadership for sustainable water policies. For over 30 years, the Institute has curated a chronology of water and conflict, tracking and categorizing events from the present back to the earliest recorded history.

"Speaking of Water" host Eileen Wray-McCann spoke with the Pacific Institute's co-founder and President Emeritus, Dr. Peter Gleick to discuss the connections between resource
issues, environmental issues, and the broad area of international security and
conflict.

Speaking Of Water - Featuring Dr. Peter Gleick

Founded in 2000 by leading journalists and scientists, Circle of Blue provides relevant, reliable, and actionable on-the-ground information about the world’s resource crises.

With an intense focus on water and its relationships to food, energy, and health, Circle of Blue has created a breakthrough model of front-line reporting, data collection, design, and convening that has evolved with the world’s need to spur new methodology in science, collaboration, innovation, and response. To document emerging and recognized crises, Circle of Blue collaborates with leading scientists and data experts. Through its partnerships, Circle of Blue then dispatches top journalists to map and define the region where the change is occurring. Making connections from localized occurrences to global trends, Circle of Blue publishes these reports online — free of charge — to inform academics, governments, and the general public, catalyzing participation across disciplines, regions, and cultures.


California Drought & Rural Wells

Circle of Blue

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