Monday Morning Water Cooler

by: JayinPortland

Mon May 18, 2009 at 04:44:46 AM PDT

• India can coordinate a nationwide election for over 700 million eligible voters, yet "the world's largest democracy" doesn't seem to be too concerned with the fact that it still can't ensure access to clean water for its rural poor -

  That incredible coordination doesn't translate to the treatment of water. India still lacks sanitation facilities for about 700 million people. On top of that, 200 million don't have access to drinking water. Those that do have no guarantee it is actually safe.

• Great piece from my old hometown paper, The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger, on the federal crackdown on oceangoing cargo and cruise ships that use our oceans (because they do belong to all of us...) as their illegal waste dumping grounds.

• The Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit against US EPA under the Clean Water Act for failing to recognize the impacts of ocean acidification.

• A "voluntary" (uh-oh...) plan has been struck amongst six Asia-Pacific nations to protect the threatened Coral Triangle.

• The more things 'change', the more they stay the same.  EPA has just signed off on 42 of 48 new "mountaintop removal" mining permits.  Appalachian Voices provides us a tour of just one such site in West Virginia.