The Stream, July 17, 2024: Indigenous Women in Oaxaca Conserve Water While Farming As Countrywide Shortages Continue

The Mississippi River delta. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue

YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN

Extreme coastal rains in Cape Town, South Africa, have destroyed thousands of homes and raised both rivers and dams to the cusp of overflowing.
A new study found “alarming levels” of an unregulated, lesser-known class of PFAS used in lithium ion batteries in international waterways and soils near manufacturing plants where the chemical is used.
As Mexico continues to suffer from water scarcity and extreme heat, Indigenous women in Oaxaca are combining ancient growing practices with new technologies to conserve the resource.
The melting of old, dense Arctic sea ice is making sailing routes through the Northwest Passage more dangerous and unpredictable.

The Mississippi River’s increasingly unpredictable, oscillating flows are forcing the cancellation of river cruises and tours, hurting local economies along its shores.

“How can you be a river-facing city if you don’t have any riverboats?” — Phil Stang, the mayor of Kimmswick, Missouri.

Disrupted by drought, extreme rainfall, dam construction, and wetland and forest loss, the Mississippi River’s fluctuating seasonal flows are making it nearly impossible for cruises and boat tours to reliably navigate the mammoth river’s waters.

As a result, more trips than ever are being canceled, despite growing demand: “An analysis by the market research firm Grandview Research in 2022 projected continued growth of more than 20 percent a year for U.S. river cruising through 2030, largely on the strength of the Mississippi River cruises,” the New York Times reports.

Riverside communities, whose economies are stimulated by onshore excursions, are feeling the financial pinch of these river extremes. This fiscal year alone, the nonprofit which manages Memphis’s Beale Street Landing anticipates a $700,000 revenue shortfall.

Smaller towns shoulder a larger burden. “We have cities that 20 percent of their economy is captured from the riverboats stopping in, and we have cities where 60 percent of the economy is captured from riverboats stopping in,” Colin Wellenkamp, the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, tells the Times.

— Christian Thorsberg, Interim Stream Editor

Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue

The Bird Connection — Change and Decline in Our World, Part 1: Disease
The New Normal: Northern India Faces Record-Breaking Hot Summers — Northern India is experiencing first-of-its-kind overwhelming extreme heat.

The Lead

In Oaxaca, one of the states in Mexico most vulnerable to climate change, ongoing droughts and rising temperatures have made water scarcity — and the resulting difficulty in raising crops — an acute concern for farmers, subsistence users, and the Zapotec Indigenous community. Amidst unpredictable rainy seasons, for many people the only reliable water source was river water, retrieved via bucket after walking long distances, BBC reports.

But over the past decade, Indigenous women have taught the next generation how to plant less water-intensive crops — coriander, green beans, onions, garlic, and radishes — and began working with a nonprofit to help build inexpensive water tanks in the community of Xixovo. These tanks, which have built-in purification filters and hold more than 5,000 gallons, have helped the women irrigate their lands and more reliably grow crops, bridging newer technology and local knowledge.

“To date more than 1,500 women have been part of the program, with around 280 women from 13 communities currently enrolled,” according to the BBC.

The project won a Local Champions Adaptation Award last year from the Global Center for Adaptation.

This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

33,000

Number of dwellings, in both Cape Town suburbs and settlements, that have been damaged or destroyed after a days-long deluge battered the South African coast, Reuters reports. Per the Associated Press, at least 4,500 people have been forced from their homes amidst the extreme weather and water flows, which were made worse by high winds. Swellendam town’s Breede River swelled to flow at more than 1,000 cubic meters per second, while Floriskraal Dam reached 118 percent capacity, prompting emergency warnings for downstream communities. Along the shoreline, waves exceeded 16 feet.

The number of weeks in 2021 that the Eastern Beaufort Sea’s eastern edge was navigable by ship, compared to 27 weeks in 2007, Yale Environment 360 reports. The decrease in sailing availability coincides, perhaps counterintuitively, with the decline of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. A new study suggests that the melting of Arctic sea ice is actually making routes through the Northwest Passage more dangerous as older, thicker chunks of sea ice that once floated nearer the poles are breaking up and drifting southward into sailing routes.

On the Radar

A new study led primarily by Texas Tech and Duke University researchers found high levels of bis-FASI — a class of PFAS used in lithium ion batteries — in waterways and soils outside manufacturing facilities in Minnesota, Kentucky, Belgium, and France. The researchers also identified bis-FASI in remote areas across the world and suggested the chemical’s toxicity to living organisms, the Guardian reports. Unlike other global regulatory agencies, the EPA does not include bis-FASI as a substance required to be monitored in U.S. waters — a particularly troubling fact, as the transition to greener energies and electric vehicles production has meant an increased demand for lithium ion battery production. Landfills were a major source of bis-FASI pollution, the researchers found, leaking and spreading into nearby waters after batteries were discarded.

More Water News

DIY Wetlands: In the UK, where a significant number of rivers and waterways are polluted with sewage and effluent, local conservation groups are building their own wetlands to act as natural filters for chemicals and runoff, BBC reports.

Negro River: Researchers have found that the river, the second-largest tributary to the Amazon, has been found to be in “largely excellent” condition in a benchmark study for the health of the Amazon itself, Mongabay 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.