Study: Saving Forests Best Way to Cheap, Clean Water (Reuters)

[Nambe]

GENEVA (Reuters)

Major cities should focus efforts and funds on conserving forests that naturally purify their drinking water, saving them from spending billions of dollars on water treatment facilities, a study published Monday showed.

The study of 105 big cities by the World Bank and the ecology organization the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-International) showed that one-third of them, including New York, Tokyo, Barcelona and Melbourne, get much of their water via protected forests. ---

Chris Elliot, director of WWF's Forests for Life Program, highlighted the stark case of New York, whose nine million residents get much of their water from the Catskill/Delaware watersheds in upstate New York.

A recent evaluation showed it would cost $7 billion to build a water treatment plant against a $1 billion bill for actively managing the forest catchment area by raising water taxes and paying farmers to use less fertilizer and reduce grazing. ---

[rusty charly]

1. but chimpy said

chopping down all the trees was the best thing for the forest... i'm confused

[Journeyman]

2. Natural filtration, such as forests. . .

or riverbank filtration through contiguous substratum, has the added benefit of accomplishing water treatment without the use of disinfecting chemicals. There will be, of course, chemical usage at a later stage, but its quantity and potency can be vastly reduced. This reduces the ill-effects of chemical disinfection, including the possible development of NDMA in groundwater.

Amazing, isn't it, that if we treat the world well it'll treat us in kind.

[baby_bear]

3. Not usually a need to chlorinate groundwater

but I agree that if we can reduce the use of disinfectants for surface water, making use of the forests' filtration, the less NMDA will be formed, and that would be incredibly good news.

s_m

[Journeyman]

4. Here in Southern California. . .

imported surface water is treated, then pumped into the aquifer both to create a seawater barrier and to replenish the groundwater level.

[baby_bear]

5. Imported from where?

Out of state, CO River or what? I know the water situation in California is very complicated and politically charged.

s_m

[Journeyman]

6. Southern California water is imported. . .

from the Colorado River, the Owens Valley (through the Los Angeles Aqueduct ), and from Central California via the State Water Project (largest public-works project ever undertaken by a state) and the Central Valley Project.

To understand water in the West, a good place to start is Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water.

When you finish Reisner, you'll finally understand the answer to the science question you were asked in the second grade: Which direction does water flow? Contrary to popular belief, water flows uphill, towards power and money.

[Whoa_Nelly]

7. No-brainer

Learned the connection between our forests andthe earth's water waaaay back in the 4th grade complete with experiments to demonstrate the validity of that connection. And it's not just our forests, it's forests all over the world with the Brazilian rain forest being number one in preserving.

Keep clearing the brush and altering your own private property, Boy George, but stop destroying our world.

(((Hmmmm...did * get the idea re: cutting down forests and removing the protectionson them while clearing brush on the ranch? Can see the fantasy now..."Yes, people of America, I give you the word in this, my sermon from Mt. Crawford!"...the crowd goes wild, the buzz is incredible, and then suddenly a sharp sting! Is it a bullet? A spitwad from a pea shooter?...))) "PICKLES! Get the bee sting kit!"

And the moral to this fantasy is that, yes, Georgie, the sting of reality really can sneak up on you and bite you in the ass.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

8. Also...

...wetlands. The naturally occuring cattail plants in wetlands/marshes remove toxins from the water.