#water security

Once Running Out of Water, San Diego Now Manages Their Water So Well They Can Assist Other States

Image and information from this New York Times article:

After spending half a decade ravaged by drought, San Diego has invested significant time and money in decreasing its reliance on water imports. By building desalination plants, strategically acquiring water rights, boosting dam storage--and increasing water use efficiency even to the point of now recycling sewage water--they have now thoroughly accomplished that goal.

Like all new prime ministers, when Mette Frederiksen secured a third consecutive term as Denmark’s head of government this week, she promised her administration would take steps to “improve the everyday lives” of the country’s inhabitants.

Unlike most new prime ministers, however, she specified that her left-leaning coalition’s policy programme would be not just for “the people who are in Denmark and the ⁠generations to come” but also “for the animals”.

For the home of Danish bacon, an ultra-intensive farming country that produces about 30m piglets a year – against roughly 60,000 human babies – it was a huge moment: a Danish government, seeking existential reform of Denmark’s most iconic industry.

It was also the culmination of two years of focused campaigning by animal welfare, environmentalist and residents’ groups that turned March’s ballot into what became known as “the pig election” – and won a comprehensive victory.

“I hardly dare say it, but we got more than we asked for,” said Britta Riis, the head of Animal Protection Denmark, one of the primary actors in the campaign. “We made pig farming a top political issue. And we’ve won immediate, and systemic, change.”

Pigs are to Denmark roughly what cars are to Germany and wine to France. But activists have long campaigned against the extreme breeding practices on the country’s vast, ultra-intensive industrial farms.

On average, sows in Denmark wean more than 37 piglets a year, and those in the top 10% of farms nearly 43. That’s far more than other intensive pig producers such as the Netherlands, which manages 31 piglets per sow.

In Denmark, sows, which usually have 14 teats, routinely produce up to 20 piglets a litter.

Campaigners say pushing an animal’s biology to produce more offspring than it can physically feed causes not only severe physical stress but also an unacceptable mortality rate: roughly 9m piglets die every year in Denmark, more than 25,000 a day.

Danish farms also routinely cut the tails off about 95% of surviving piglets to prevent tail-biting caused by stress and confinement in tightly packed pens, while sows are often locked into restrictive farrowing crates where they cannot move.

But animal welfare is not the only issue. Nearly 25% of Denmark’s landmass is used to produce feed for pigs, according to an Aarhus University study – and as a result, toxic pesticide residues are present in 56% of drinking water catchment points.

Vast quantities of manure are also spread on the fields around farms that can hold up to 25,000 pigs, leaching toxic nitrates into the groundwater.

“It’s pure corporate capture,” said Christian Fromberg, from Greenpeace Denmark. “Denmark’s big meat exporters and the industrial farming sector have treated our shared water supply like a private, unregulated sewer for decades. Polluted drinking water is the other huge problem with intensive pig farming in Denmark.”

Worst-hit is Aalborg, in northern Denmark, in an area of intensive agriculture known as “the nitrate belt”. The municipality took the Danish government to court in February over nitrate levels in its surface and groundwater that have exceeded legal limits for decades.

It said the state had failed to take promised measures, forcing the municipality to invest in a drinking water treatment plant that would cost it DKr1.1bn (€147m or £127m) to build and operate over 30 years.

Riis said: “All these problems have been building for a long time. We’ve campaigned on the animal welfare issue for years, but nothing changed. The difference, this time, was that we intensified our efforts, we focused on pigs and we worked together.”

A citizens’ initiative demanding reform garnered the 50,000 signatures necessary to prompt a parliamentary debate with 72 hours, a record. Slowly but surely the issue gained public awareness, support and, finally, political traction.

Three weeks before the election, Animal Protection Denmark, the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, Greenpeace Denmark and the National Association against Pig Factories, joined forces.

Together with four left-wing parties, they launched the “Alliance for a pig election” seeking a “showdown with an industry that has huge costs for our country in terms of climate, nature, environment, social cohesion and animal welfare”.

In the days before the 24 March vote, pig farming became the dominant campaign issue, featuring heavily in candidates’ televised debates. Riis said: “Eventually the Social Democrats [led by Frederiksen], even parts of the right, saw the point. It just took off.”

More than 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils are degraded due to intensive agriculture, with similar damage to about 40% of British soils, a report has found. Experts from the Save Soil initiative said nourishing and restoring agricultural soils could reduce the impact of the climate crisis and provide protection against the worsening extremes of weather, as well as the food shortages and price rises likely to accompany them. This degradation of soil is changing the land’s water cycle and exacerbating the impact of the climate crisis in a vicious circle. Impoverished soils, lacking their natural structure, are incapable of holding water in any quantity, so that when it rains, the water tends to run off them, worsening flooding; but in times of drought, when healthy soils would act as a sponge, poor soils have little resilience. Save Soil, which advocates regenerative farming practices, called for soil restoration to be made a key priority of climate programmes, and for changes in agricultural policies and subsidies to reward it. “Europe and the UK are experiencing extremes – parched fields one month, flooded towns the next. What this report makes clear is that our soils are no longer buffering us,” said a spokesperson for the group. “We are losing the natural infrastructure that manages water.” In 2022, a third of the EU population and 40% of the bloc’s land were affected by water scarcity, while Spain, Italy and Germany have also seen disastrous floods in 2023-2024, the report noted. Groundwater levels have dropped by a third in France, and the UK is likely to see drought this year despite record rain last year.

The Liberal government tabled much-anticipated legislation Monday that aims to improve water quality in First Nations communities, improve collaboration on water protection and codify a new First Nations-led commission.

The long-promised bill, which Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is touting as the result of immense collaboration and knowledge-sharing, would apply a new framework for source water, drinking water, wastewater and related infrastructure on First Nations land.

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"After years of discussion, the Atlantic First Nations Water Authority made history Monday by becoming the first Indigenous water utility in Canada.

The transfer agreement was signed in Dartmouth, N.S., by Atlantic First Nations Water Authority (AFWNA) CEO Carl Yates, Potlotek First Nation Chief Wilbert Marshall, and federal Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu.

“Today we make over 20 years of discussion and planning an official action. It has taken a long time to arrive where we are today, and dedication from all those involved, and can’t be overlooked,” said Chief Marshall.

Under this agreement, AFWNA will handle the operation, maintenance, and capital upgrades of all water and wastewater systems in participating First Nation communities.

First Nations can officially join the water authority after receiving approval from their community members."

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