Tag: farms
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What you don’t know about the water law that saved Arizona
Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic Video in source article: Jim Graham operates a pistachio and wine-grape farm in Cochise County. He and other farmers have seen their groundwater levels drop. In 2016, when the rains dried and reservoirs shrank, California was forced to impose drastic water conservation measures to keep taps flowing. Arizona avoided this fate,…
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Farming activity contaminates water despite best practices
CASCO, Wis. – Lynda Cochart did not realize her water was contaminated with coliform bacteria until she contracted MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant skin infection. She believed it came from the water in her well in Casco, Wisconsin. “There’s no other way I could have gotten it,” she said. A year later, U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist…
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Lawsuit Dismissal Spells Bad News for Iowa Water Quality
Central Iowans got bad news about the quality of their drinking water on Friday when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works against three northern Iowa drainage districts. In 2015, the public utility – which provides clean drinking water to 500,000 residents of central Iowa – sued three drainage districts…
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How Much Wastewater Is Used on Farms?
The use of wastewater on farmland is at least 50% more prevalent than previously thought, according to a new study. Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the report provides the first quantified analysis of the extent to which farmland is fed by wastewater (both treated and untreated). The results show that there are 35.9…
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A global, spatially-explicit assessment of irrigated croplands influenced by urban wastewater flows
1. Introduction Despite significant investments in wastewater treatment infrastructure, levels of treatment in rapidly urbanizing, low-income urban areas are not keeping pace with population growth [1, 2]. Globally, less than 10% of collected wastewater receives any form of treatment [3 ,4]. Concomitantly, agriculture is the largest water user in most countries, representing 70% of total…
