#sewage pollution

[bumblebeeappletree]

They've been threatened with legal action but they say they will keep trespassing and breaking rules to bring their local river back to life.

A team of local volunteers has been picking rubbish, clearing the river banks and restoring London's River Roding, saying they've got no other choice since no one else is doing it.

We spent the day with the activists, and a warning there's some moderately offensive language in his report.

[rjzimmerman]

Climate Change and Sewage: A Dangerous Combination for Coastal Communities • The Revelator

Storm surges and sea-level rise damage sanitation systems and threaten ecosystems and human health. We need to take this risk seriously.

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

As rising sea levels and climate change-induced storms batter coastlines the world over, one threat often flies under the radar: sewage pollution.

Today many tropical coastal communities on the frontlines of climate change find themselves battling not just erosion and flooding, but also crumbling sanitation systems. Sea-level rise and storm surges, especially in rural and low-resource areas, bring saltwater pouring into inland spaces, where it corrodes pipes, damages pit latrines, and floods freshwater aquifers with sewage-laden salty water.

More frequent and severe storms flood pit latrines and septic tanks and overwhelm treatment plants with stormwater, causing uncontrolled discharge. As these systems fail, overflowing waste contaminates groundwater, soil, and water bodies, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases, exacerbating existing inequalities, and creating unsafe conditions for sanitation workers.

As we’ve seen in our work studying coastal pollution, the damage to sanitation systems is not just a human health issue (though that’s bad enough). It has profound environmental consequences. Sewage carries pathogens and high concentrations of nutrients and organic matter that cause coral disease and mortality, generate algae blooms that smother seagrass meadows, weaken the root systems of mangroves, and kill fish.

The waste also increases the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to climate change. For instance, sewage makes corals more sensitive to marine heatwaves. The weakened mangrove forests are more susceptible to erosion from sea-level rise and are less able to store carbon. Nutrients and higher temperatures combined amplify algae blooms.

Degradation of coastal ecosystems, meanwhile, creates a vicious cycle in which damaged sanitation systems lead to more pollution that further harms ecosystems, making them less resilient to climate impacts and less able to protect coastal communities — and results in yet more damage to sanitation systems.

[hindi24samachar]

Troubled waters: sewage and effluents sink the Cauvery

Along its course, the river Cauvery receives water from multiple tributaries — many of which now function less like rivers and more like drains. Reservoirs such as the Mettur Dam regulate its flow, while hundreds of towns and industrial clusters draw from it for drinking water, irrigation, and manufacturing.  For generations, the river’s rise and retreat has dictated planting seasons, sustained…

Troubled waters: sewage and effluents sink the Cauvery

[theaspandthecrayfish-blog]

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