Free Republic

Which costs more, a dollar's worth of sugar or a dollar's worth of paint? That's not a trick question-the sugar costs more, if you count the liters of water that go into making it, according to a new study. Uncovering the water behind the dollars in sectors including cotton farming and movie making could help industries use water more wisely, the study's authors say. Researchers know little about how much and where water is used. The United States Census Bureau stopped monitoring companies' water consumption in the 1980s, so the most detailed information available is the U. S. Geological Survey's...

With the deletion of a single word from the Clean Water Act, some leading Democratic lawmakers are angling to greatly expand the federal government's authority to regulate water pollution. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in June quietly approved legislation dropping the adjective "navigable" to describe the bodies of water covered under the 1972 law, vastly expanding its scope and prompting a lobbying campaign from business groups that fear the small editorial change would cost jobs during economic hard times. The federal government regulates lakes and rivers large enough for ship traffic, but if the word "navigable" is deleted,...

If California suddenly went dry, and no rain or snow fell for two straight years, the state would still have enough water to go around thanks to this year's wet winter, meteorologists and water experts said Friday. The recent cold snap that blanketed the Sierra with snow, and even powdered Bay Area hills, is expected to leave the state flush with water for the foreseeable future. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which, to hydrologists, is a better holding tank than the biggest man-made reservoirs, has more water in it than even last year. "We're in fat city, and I mean fat...