The Stream, December 4, 2024: One Month After Deadly Floods, Spain Contends with Polluted Runoff

Torrential rains caused deadly flooding and extensive damage in eastern Spain at the end of October 2024. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Landsat 8/NASA

YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN

Nearly six feet of rain fell in just five days in some parts of northeastern Malaysia, killing dozens of people and forcing mass evacuations.
Roughly one month after devastating flooding rocked eastern Spain, wastewater, sewage, and polluted runoff still inundate farms and protected wetlands.
Residents of Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuvialuit hamlet in western Canada, are grappling with thawing permafrost and facing a decision to move from their home.
The mass die-off of 350 elephants in Botswana in 2020 is likely to have been caused by toxic drinking water, new research suggests.

A half-decade of legal disputes in Australia’s Northern Territory took another turn last week, as the territory’s Supreme Court moved to overturn a ruling that had put the onus on the government to provide clean water for its communities.

“I think people living in Australia’s capital cities will be shocked by this but nobody in remote areas is shocked. There’s many places where this is a problem and it’s just swept under the carpet.” — Dan Kelly, director of Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights.

In 2019, following community water testing that showed uranium levels more than three times the recommended amount, lawyers for the Aboriginal community of Laramba filed suit against the Northern Territory’s government, who serve as the effective “landlord” for 72 Aboriginal communities in the region, the Guardian reports. Asserting that it was the government’s responsibility to provide its people with access to clean drinking water, Laramba originally lost the case in 2020.

Three years later, momentum appeared to be changing. In April 2023, the Northern Territory government funded the construction of a new water treatment plant. And six months later, the territory’s Supreme Court overruled the original decision, “finding the quality of drinking water supplied to the homes was, in fact, ‘an issue of habitability.’” The landmark decision was seen by many as a precedent-setting water rights victory.

But problems persist in the large desert region. Water supplies remain polluted, with fluoride exceeding national standards. At least one community is resorting to importing bottled water for children and pregnant women. Now, amidst this uncertainty, the government has moved to overturn last year’s overruling in the territory’s court of appeals.

“It’s disappointing that the government continues to fight what would seem a very reasonable position: that they have to provide clean drinking water to their citizens,” Kelly told the Guardian.

— Christian Thorsberg, Interim Stream Editor

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The Lead

More than a month after devastating rains killed at least 222 people in Valencia on the eastern coast of Spain, farmers are confronting the fallout from polluted floodwaters, France24 reports. Roughly six miles outside Valencia city, massive amounts of waste — bottles, wrappers, shoes, paint jugs, pills, deodorants and more — have washed into crop fields and will inevitably be absorbed into the soil.

“We’re going to have to grow with all these different types of plastics in it,” Fransec Moncholi, a rice producer in Massanassa, told France24.

In some areas, the problem is deeper than just the waste itself — before washing onto the farm, the floodwaters flowed through a nearby industrial park, likely picking up toxics.

As communities continue to wait for government help, local fishers have taken to testing waters and wetlands — including La Albufera, Spain’s largest wetland and protected park — themselves. So far, the results are grim: with some purification plants out of service or partially shut down, village sewage is flowing into the reserve. More than 120 water treatment plants were affected by the floods, and pipes and drains remain damaged or clogged with mud. Disposing of wastewater via rivers, in some areas, is seen as the only viable solution.

So far, 200,000 gallons of waste have been removed from La Albufera — one percent of the ecosystem’s total pollution.

This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

350

The number of elephants that died suddenly in Botswana in 2020, a tragedy that scientists are now attributing to drinking water made toxic by harmful algal blooms, the Guardian reports. Researchers used satellite imagery to study 3,000 watering holes, many of which were visibly green, and found that the elephants died within roughly 88 hours of drinking from them. An abnormally dry 2019, followed by an abnormally wet 2020, “led to more sediment and nutrients being suspended in the water, which led to unprecedented algal growth,” according to the Guardian. It was the largest mass die-off of elephants with an unknown cause.

69.3

Inches of rain that fell on Kuala Besut, Malaysia, between November 26 and November 30 — roughly half a year’s worth of precipitation for the country’s northeastern region, Reuters reports. More than 150,000 people were evacuated due to flooding, and some 300,000 households are still affected by significant damages. Some residents are beginning to return to their homes this week, where electricity and water supplies were cut off amidst the rising waters, though a second wave of floods is forecast. Authorities have confirmed that 25 people in Thailand, and six people in Malaysia, have died.

In context: Giant Storms, Growing Stronger, Inundate an Unprepared Planet

On the Radar

Since time immemorial the Inuvialuit have called what is now known as western Canada home. Its reliably frozen winter landscapes have supported homes, roads, and travel. But rapidly thawing permafrost is making this way of life — and the ground itself — unstable. Huge thaw slumps have dropped swaths of land hundreds of feet wide into lakes or off the coast, the New York Times reports. The possibility of leaving the hamlet — and becoming climate refugees — is a serious consideration for the community.

More Water News

Seoul Snow: The heaviest snow in a century — about 15 inches — fell on South Korea’s capital late last week, sparking winter joy for some and logistical nightmares for many others. Amidst transportation difficulties, four people died, Deutsche Welle reports. Scientists attributed the snow to “warmer than usual sea temperatures.”

Uganda Landslides: Heavy rains and landslides killed 15 people — and 113 people are still missing — in eastern Uganda’s mountainous district of Bulambuli, Al Jazeera reports.

Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer from Chicago. He is passionate about climate and cultural phenomena that often appear slow or invisible, and he examines these themes in his journalism, poetry, and fiction.