Global Rundown

• By 2045, the European Union will require wastewater treatment facilities serving large populations to remove microplastics — Switzerland is ahead of the curve. 
• An effort to re-green the “most eroded place on Earth” in China has proved largely successful, but the new lush landscape, combined with shifting climate regimes, has challenged the local water balance.
• A landmark hearing this week will determine if German energy company RWE is responsible for accelerated glacial melt in the Peruvian Andes, threatening towns with flooding. 
• Farmers are worried about their crops and drinking water is being rationed after an oil pipeline burst, flooding Ecuador’s Esmeraldas River.

The Lead

The Yellow River, its waters thickened with sediment, gets its name from silt blown from the Loess plateau, a region covering 245,000 square miles and supporting 100 million people in north-central China. The area was known as the “most eroded place on Earth.”

This loose soil was the result of hundreds of years of tree-cutting, animal grazing, and farming, “slowly breaking down the soil and destroying the cover” without allowing the land to replenish itself, the Guardian reports. In 1999, an effort to save the plateau — later dubbed the “the largest and most successful water and soil conservancy project in the world” — was launched. 

Subsidies and tax cuts incentivized farmers to convert to more sustainable practices, participate in tree-planting projects, and center long-term farming of their orchards and crops. By 2016, this effort had paid dividends: 11,500 square miles of cropland had been converted to forests or grasslands. After so many years without them, birds returned to the landscape. 

But an unexpected consequence of the regreening effort now poses a new challenge for ecologists. The influx of planted trees and vegetation means they are dependent upon the Yellow River and groundwater for their water needs. Combined with the local effects of climate change, including warmer temperatures and increase in erratic rainfall, the water balance of the area is slowly recalibrating itself to support so much more life.

Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue

This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

98

Percent of Switzerland’s population connected to a wastewater treatment plant, a gold standard for Europe and major progress for the nation. In 1965, this figure stood at only 14 percent and water-related tragedies — including a 1963 typhoid outbreak in Zermatt which killed three people and sickened 437 others — were common. “Now Switzerland has some of the cleanest rivers in Europe,” the Guardian reports, with only five of its 196 swimming and bathing areas listed as “poor quality.” A key to this progress has been government investment. In 2022, the Swiss government spent an average of $226 per person on wastewater treatment, more than $100 more per person than the investment made by England and Wales. So far, the country also has made great steps towards limiting the spread of PFAS and other microplastics — some 37 micro-pollutant treatment centers are operating and 100 more will be added by 2040. “On micropollutants, we are 10 to 15 years ahead of our neighbours,” Michael Mattle, head of wastewater technology at the engineering company Holinger, tells the Guardian.

360,000

Barrels of oil transported each day through the Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System, which extends more than 300 miles from the Amazon to Ecuador’s Pacific coast, AFP reports. Last weekend, a spill — believed to have been caused by a landslide rupturing the pipeline — turned water in the Esmeraldas River black. Residents in the town of Viche have been instructed to ration their drinking water. As of Monday the size of the spill is unknown, as is its level of containment.  

On the Radar

Nine years ago Saul Luciano Lliuya, a farmer and tour guide who lives in the Peruvian mountain village of Huaraz, sued the German energy company RWE. The corporation, he said, should bear financial responsibility for protecting his house and village from the encroaching floodwaters created by a melting glacier, which is losing mass due to manmade climate change. According to a 2021 Greenpeace report, RWE is Europe’s leading polluter, annually contributing “89 million tonnes of Scope 1 emissions from its power stations.”

The hearing, which is underway this week, will determine “whether Lliyua’s house is really in danger of being flooded and if so, to what extent RWE can be held responsible,” Deutsche-Welle reports. Currently, a temporary drainage system — made of pipes spread along a glacial bed, directing meltwater elsewhere — is in place, though the plaintiffs say the infrastructure is unsustainable.

49th State Focus: Young Plaintiffs Challenge Cross-State Gas Pipeline

LNG Pipeline: A proposed $44 billion natural gas pipeline — which would carry the resource some 800 miles from Alaska’s North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula for processing and distribution — has been met with criticism by those concerned about the project’s environmental impacts. Among its opponents are eight young Alaskans, who last year filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the pipeline “would unconstitutionally exacerbate climate change.” A lower court has dismissed their suit, but the group will appeal, Anchorage Daily News reports.

Fresh: From the Great Lakes Region

Former 3M Resort Will Be Public Again: Mantrap Lake, its six miles of shoreline, and 449 acres of surrounding land will be property of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources later this year after being purchased by the the Northern Waters Land Trust and Minnesota Land Trust, Minnesota Public Radio reports. The area will be turned into a wildlife management area, open to the public. For the past six decades, the chemical company 3M owned the property and used it as a retreat center. 

Bridge Michigan, Circle of Blue, Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, Michigan Public and The Narwhal work together to report on the most pressing threats to the Great Lakes region’s water. This independent journalism is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Find all the work here.

• Ontario election results: what Doug Ford’s third win means for the environment — The Narwhal
• Michigan imposes new restrictions, testing requirements on UP copper mine — Bridge Michigan
• What a recent Supreme Court ruling could mean for the future of the Clean Water Act — Great Lakes Now
• Michigan’s landfills have 21 years before they’re full. Recycling more can extend their lifespan. — Michigan Public