<
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/climate/groundwater-aquifer-depletion-courts.html>
"After years of dangerous decline in the nation’s groundwater, a series of
developments in Western states indicates that state and federal officials may
begin tightening protections for the dwindling resource.
In Nevada, Idaho and Montana, a string of court decisions have strengthened
states’ ability to restrict overpumping of groundwater. California is
considering penalizing local officials for draining their aquifers. And the
White House has asked scientists who focus on groundwater to advise how the
federal government can help.
“This is truly exciting,” said Upmanu Lall, director of both the Water
Institute at Arizona State University and the Columbia Water Center at Columbia
University. “There has been stuff like this off and on, but not in such a short
period of time across the Western states.”
Groundwater levels have fallen significantly around the country in the past
four decades, according to data gathered from tens of thousands of monitoring
wells and analyzed in a
New York Times investigation last year.
That water, used to support industrial farms and sprawling cities, could take
centuries or millenniums to replenish, if it recovers at all. Climate change is
accelerating that depletion, which threatens irreversible harm to American
society.
Groundwater supplies 90 percent of the nation’s drinking-water systems, which
means draining aquifers could render some communities unlivable. Groundwater
loss has also reduced crop yields in some areas and caused the ground to
subside in much of the country."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/goodnews-meals-brazil-rewild-denmark-mangroves-pakistan/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
