The Stream, February 14: China’s Big Desalination Plans

China plans to quadruple its desalination capacity by the end of 2015 in an effort to relieve chronic water shortages that threaten to upend its economic growth, China Daily reported.

Meanwhile, Jordan is moving ahead with its Red Sea Water Desalination Project, which will extract 1.2 billion cubic meters of water from the sea, of which 930 million cubic meters will be desalinated and the rest will be transferred to the ailing Dead Sea, Bloomberg reported.

Australian gas drilling company Santos has reported three spills of contaminated water containing heavy metals from its coal seam gas operations in eastern New South Wales, according to Reuters. Santos said the spills were from operations formerly owned by Eastern Star Gas, which Santos acquired in November 2011.

Kyrgyzstan’s biggest gold mine routinely ignores national environmental legislation and could have a far-reaching negative effect on Central Asia’s water supply, according to a recent report cited by EurasiaNet.

Protests are underway at a Moroccan silver mine over concerns that the mine is sucking up scarce water supplies in a dry area and polluting crops with wastewater, Reuters reported.

The International Bottled Water Association and student activists are squaring off over the growing number of campaigns to ban bottled water in college campuses because of environmental and health concerns about the industry, NPR reported.

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