The Stream, October 2: India to Tackle Sanitation

India
India’s new prime minister is hoping to vastly improve sanitation in the country by making toilets accessible to every home and school by 2019, as well as changing ideas about who cleans up after society, Reuters reported. Poor sanitation is estimated to cost India 6.4 percent of its gross domestic product annually.

United States
A U.S. district judge in Arizona has ruled to uphold a ban on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region, which will stop an estimated 26 new uranium mines, the Guardian reported. Conservation groups said the ban is necessary to protect the area’s watersheds and wildlife.

A New Orleans levee board is suing 90 oil and gas companies for destroying coastal wetlands that provided natural protection from floods, Bloomberg News reported. The lawsuit has faced stiff opposition from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and many of the original board members have been replaced.

Climate Change
Scientists hope to have a new tool ready by the end of 2015 that will allow them to more quickly assess if an extreme weather event is attributable to climate change, Reuters reported. The initiative’s goal is to be able to determine how much of an event is human-caused within days of it happening.

Codi Kozacek

A news correspondent for Circle of Blue based out of Hawaii. She writes The Stream, Circle of Blue’s daily digest of international water news trends. Her interests include food security, ecology and the Great Lakes.
Contact Codi Kozacek