water welling

Nestle's makes a water mess.

2009-02-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

While the prior piece focused on problems caused by a tiny half invisible drilling company for a small Caribbean island nation, this examines the coast to coast run of conflicts and scams Nestle has visited upon water supplies around the US. As is typical of a huge clumsy multinational corporation, the footprint is large and sloppy.

Moreover the whole neo moron phenomenon of paying for bottled tap water with an evocative brand slapped on it is the closest a corporation gets to the holy grail of something for nearly nothing. And the growing array of bottled water opponents rightly point out that the collateral impact has been to undermine public confidence in water systems even as the bottlers further stress them.

My favorite ridiculous Nestle story involves substantial use of the MWRA water supply in Framingham to concoct 'Ice Mountain". It's grotesque inflation of 'Poland Spring ' riled Maine residents in several communities who are pushing back on Nestle's mining operations there while another controversy visits the small semi rural towns of Western and Central Massachusetts. Versions of the conflict have also occurred in Michigan, California and Washington State .

Toronto is one of a number of Canadian cities that have decided to elminate bottled water vending from their facilities. New American Dream and Think Outside the Bottle both offer a wealth of information about the whole preposterous phenomenon.

Water finding or water mining?

2009-01-28T06:32:00.001-08:00

In the first of several pieces on the impact of ethical lapses and general avarice on water resources, I've focused on an odd controversy in the West Indies involving a search for subsurface aquifer water on Nevis Island.

On December 10th, the Hon. Senator Mark Brantley delivered a speech on the Budget debate in the Nevis Island Assembly and allocated a significant portion of it to complications and confusions attending a megawatershed drilling project that drifted away from its proposed purpose, finding new water for the island and ended up just drilling a deeper bore hole into the existing water supply aquifer whereby it now mysteriously controlled the islands water supply as the island water authority decided to inactivate its own wells.

The upwelling of exasperation turned on the mysteriousness and secrecy surrounding agreements the Government made with an under the radar drilling outfit called BEAD, (Bedrock Exploration and Development Technologies). It appears that BEAD made claims about prior experience that could be seen as misleading and then, over the course of an exploration that commenced in October of 2007 and mainly made dry boreholes in the area targeted for new water, BEAD switched it's game plan over to merely augmenting the existing water supply aquifer with deeper boreholes to improve flow rates.

This more modest improvement somehow resulted in its proprietary control of the island's water supply. This in turn has the opposition party, the Concerned Citizens Movement, seething and Senator Brantley's riposte is an effective and lucid summary of the problem.

Last week’s Observer newspaper stunned many with its investigative reporting on the shadowy dealings with water. We were told by this government that it had signed a deal with BEAD for BEAD to drill, find and sell water to the Govt and people of Nevis. Like geothermal, the precise terms of the deal are shrouded in mystery. Like geothermal Junior Minister Powell is at the centre of the mystery.

From what we have been told, BEAD was to find an additional 1 million gallons of water to be put into the system. Mr. President the word “additional” is critical for it means that the water from BEAD would add to the water the Govt was already getting from its own wells which had been supplying water to the whole of Nevis well before we had ever heard of BEAD.

I applaud the Govt for looking at expanding the water supply but again I ask why the secrecy? Why the shroud of darkness over a Govt which claims to be in the sunshine?

The piece in the Observer set out 2 things: 1. BEAD had found so called new water by tapping into the same aquifers that the Govt already tapped into with the Govt wells. 2. The Govt had shut down its own wells and was now buying water from BEAD’s wells.

If that is correct Mr. President then BEAD has NOT found any new water and has NOT put any additional water into the system. BEAD has drilled into already known water sources and our Govt has closed its wells which have been serving Nevis faithfully in preference to buying our own water from BEAD. This sounds like the Flintstones Mr. President. It beggars belief so I did my own investigation and found that it is true that Govt wells have been closed in favour of buying water from BEAD.

I would have thought that it would have made more sense for the Govt to continue producing its own water and then buy extra water from BEAD as and when BEAD finds it. But again Mr. President this water deal defies logic. By closing the Govt wells, the Govt guarantees BEAD that it will buy its water. Why? To whose benefit? Obviously not the people of Nevis!

Has BEAD found new water as the Government claims or has it merely tapped into known existing aquifers? Again I went to GIS. Sometimes I think the Govt forgets what it tells the people of Nevis.

In an article published by the Govt on 29th Oct, 2007 the Govt told us this:

“Under the BEAD contract the company is expected to develop one million gallons of ground water per day to compliment the current water supply now available to the island.”

The Govt went further and assured us in that article that:
“new wells would be located away from existing wells”

Mr. President we have been mislead and hoodwinked by the Govt and by BEAD. There is no doubt that the water we are getting from BEAD is not additional as we have closed our own wells. And there is no doubt that BEAD has tapped into known aquifers right in the area of existing wells despite its promise to drill away from existing wells and therefore find truly new water. How do I know this Mr. President? We go back to GIS.

In an article dated July 1st 2008 the Govt celebrated the new well at Maddens and the water situation had become so dire in Nevis that we all celebrated with the Govt. But this is what the Govt’s water engineer and expert said to us:

“The quality [of the water] is excellent but in fact the same quality of water as the existing Maddens and Butlers wells. Obviously it is in the same aquifer that same underground system, although BEAD has managed to tap into a more direct free flowing part of the aquifer.”

This is the Govt’s own engineer confirming for the world that BEAD had merely tapped into the same aquifer at Maddens and Butlers. That must make it clear that there is nothing new about this water Mr. President. It must also be clear that BEAD did not drill away from existing wells as it claimed but tapped into the same water source, the same aquifer, the same underground water, that the Govt was already tapping into.

If this deception was not bad enough Mr. President we were told by the Junior Minister just last week that the Govt had extended the contract with BEAD. We are told that the terms are similar. Since we don’t know what the terms were in the first place, that doesn’t help very much. Again a shroud of secrecy.

But what was the stated reason for the extension of BEAD’s contract? Again we researched the matter and here is what Minister Powell told the press:

“All the people of Nevis know that when we have water challenges, the people in Hamilton are some of the hardest hit. So we are putting the new well in the Hamilton area where we hope to get another half a million gallons of water.”

But Mr. President that sounds exceedingly odd to me as the first drilling for water was done in Hamilton when the first contract to BEAD was provided. In an article on GIS website on 29th October, 2007 the Govt and BEAD told us that:

“drilling would commence this week at the first drill site in Hamilton Estate which is at high elevation … We are going to drill the first well up at Hamilton, that’s an area which needs water, it’s on high elevation and we should be done drilling that location in about 2 weeks.”

On 29th November, 2007 Minister Powell told the Nevisian people:
“On Thursday afternoon while we were in Cabinet session I received the kind of telephone call that we had been waiting on that BEAD in their first drill site in Hamilton had found some water.”

Mr. President that what we were told in October 2007. Yet in December of 2008, more than a year later, the same Junior Minister now tells us that he has extended the BEAD secret deal for the purpose of drilling in Hamilton, drilling that was done over a year ago and drilling that the same Minister told us was successful a year ago.

Mr President somebody is fooling somebody but it’s not me and the CCM. But am not done with water yet. In a GIS article dated 5th February, 2007 when the secret contract was awarded to BEAD, a Michael Miville of BEAD stated:“The capital cost to the NIA is zero. BEAD takes on the responsibility of all capital expense in return for a 10 year contract with the government to sell the water to the government at a fixed rate”.

Incidentally the article has a picture of the Junior Minister smiling sweetly at the pronouncement. I smiled too for which of us wouldn’t like the idea of zero cost to the Government for finding additional water for the people of Nevis?

But that too Mr. President seems to be false. For the new exploration for water that BEAD has now been given an extended contract by the Govt, we see a figure of $2.5 million. To quote from the Budget delivered yesterday at para 43:

“Significant allocations to capital expenditure for 2009 are for the Water Drilling Project $2,500,000.”

So how come Mr. President we have moved from the promised zero capital cost to us to a budgeted figure of $2.5 million? If we are paying BEAD to find more water in Hamilton or elsewhere in Nevis then why should we still turn around and buy the water that we paid them to find from them?

Again Mr. President I ask who is fooling whom?

The island newspaper of record, The Saint Kitts-Nevis Observer provides a reasonably lucid history of the controversy.

NEVISIANS GAGGING ON WATERY PROMISES

By Kenneth Williams

(12/05/2008)

The people of Nevis are having to fork out thousands of dollars in these hard economic times to pay for water provided by a company that received favourable treatment from the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), when half of the contracted amount of water can be provided by government owned wells.

Bedrock Exploration and Development (BEAD) signed a secret contract with the Nevis Island Administration in late 2006 and despite calls from the media the contents of this agreement have never been released to the media or to the public.

The Junior Minister in the Ministry of Communications, Works, Public Utilities and Post in several statements claimed that BEAD has contracted to supply one million gallons of water per day.

A government source speaking to The Observer on condition of anonymity said that the contract called for BEAD to source and supply previously undetected groundwater from the bedrocks of the earth. This water was to be sourced using satellite imaging and mapping and drilling into the crust of the earth. According to the source that is not what BEAD has done. Instead, BEAD simply drilled high up into the known aquifers of the government’s existing wells.

A government water department document that The Observer has obtained shows that nine (9) of the Government’s existing wells have been turned off and padlocked. This, our source said, was an order from the Administration. Since BEAD wells were drilled into the existing government aquifer, that means the government and BEAD are sharing the same source of water.

Our government source who is familiar with the contract between BEAD and the Administration told The Observer that their action is in total violation of the agreement. The agreement, he said, calls for BEAD to find new water from previously undetected sources.

He said, “The government will pay millions of dollars for water it already had. Government would have had the same result with regard to gallons per minutes had they taken their existing wells deeper.”

The same source continued, “What you have there is some sort of cooked up arrangement between the Administration and BEAD so that BEAD could reach its contracted amount of water by the government turning off nine of its wells which pumped around 500,000 gallons per day. This is half of the amount BEAD was contracted to begin pumping water into the government water system in mid 2007.”

Drought and water shortages plagued Nevis while none of BEAD ‘s time lines were met. Water rations, which have not since the 1960s, hit Nevis up to July 2008 while BEAD drilled into the government’s known water aquifers and the government turned off nine of its own wells.

Statement of BEAD’s success elsewhere in doubt Minister Powell in a statement the day he flipped the lever for the commencement of BEAD’s drilling told the press: “This company is very experienced in this type of drilling having done exactly the same thing in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the Eastern Caribbean."

The Observer checked this statement out and discovered that Nevis is an experiment for BEAD. The man behind BEAD was one of many scientists on the Tobago project which was done by another company. Dr. Hoag was ”one of about a dozen scientists on the project here,“ a Trinidad and Tobago official told The Observer. More importantly, Dr. Hoag branched off and formed BEAD in 2005, three years after the Tobago project.

Another area where BEAD’s work did not leave a good track record was in Grenada . According to Grenada Government officials Bedrock signed a contract with the Grenada Government on September 16, 2005 but failed to fulfill the contract. This along with BEAD’s claim to have done the Trinidad and Tobago project when at the time of that project BEAD did not exist creates doubt as to whether BEAD and/or Powell set out to deliberately mislead the people of Nevis.

This leads to a riposte from Dr. Hoag that does little to offer a corroborative framework of participation from impartial arbiters.and takes refuge in technical jargon blended in equal measure with obfuscation and bald denial.

Dear Editor:

I am writing this letter to the (e)ditor in order to correct the record as recently printed in the December 5th issue of The St. Kitts-Nevis Observer (“Nevisians Gagging on Watery Promises”). I feel obligated to respond to this article in the interest of the public.

Once again The Observer has made false accusations based on no factual information pertaining to the water development programme undertaken by BEAD for the NIA. I find the article the misleading and I welcome the opportunity to offer some facts relating to the various false accusations and to enlighten the public.

Contrary to The Observer’s statement that the contract was signed in late 2006, the contract award was announced in February 2007 but was not signed until May 2007. Drilling began in November 2007, which was six months from the contract signing. During that six-month period, we planned and executed extensive geological and geophysical exploration islandwide, with more than 21 miles of resistivity lines being laid, surveyed, and analysed.

In an effort to locate the drill sites in close proximity to existing storage reservoirs and due to the fact that the western side of the island was underlain by hot water due to geothermal activity, the area of investigation was severely limited. In spite of these limitations, BEAD drilled 3 wells in the western portion of the island in an effort to find potable water.

As is often the case in nature and real life, the wells were insufficient in their performance. These wells were of low yield and fairly high temperatures, and some had water quality problems. Consequently drill targets on the eastern side of the island were selected. Extreme care was taken to locate these wells so as not to impact the existing NIA wells while being close enough to existing NIA storage reservoirs so that the water found could be easily pumped into the NIA distribution system.

The article claims that BEAD’s newly installed wells are in the same aquifer as NIA’s existing wells. That accusation is completely false. BEAD’s wells are located in completely different aquifers, which were unknown prior to the BEAD exploration program. In fact, they are one-half to a mile away and are over 600 feet deeper than the NIA wells. These wells are located in volcanic intrusive rocks, which obtain their recharge from Mt. Nevis, which has very high rainfall, whereas NIA’s wells extract water that infiltrates into the “apron” of volcanic debris that surrounds the island.

The evidence that the BEAD wells are in completely different aquifers includes not only data from the well logs and geophysical surveys but the differences in the water quality of the two sources. The BEAD wells have a TDS (total dissolved solid) content of 210 to 230 mg/l whereas the NIA wells have TDS ranges from 300 to 900 mg/l. (The World Health Organization guideline is a maximum TDS of 1000mg/l.) This very low TDS for the BEAD wells indicates that the recharge to this aquifer is very rapid and the residence time from recharge to discharge is very short. The diagrams below show the geological relationship of the Maddens Heights and Fothergill’s Tank wells and NIA’s existing wells.

I am appalled at the accusation that I lack the credentials necessary to successfully develop groundwater resources in the Caribbean. I have been the senior technical scientist and/or project manager for all projects conducted in the Caribbean for Earthwater Technology, HydroSource Associates, and BEAD. I managed a team of professional scientists, designed the exploration program that was appropriate on each island, and personally located most of the successful wells drilled in the Caribbean over the last nine years. In fact, I have authored seven professional articles and have been co-author of four others that describe the results of my success in developing groundwater throughout the Caribbean.

Bedrock Technologies LLC spent many thousands of dollars in Grenada prior to learning that the government officials could not guarantee payment. As a result, Bedrock Technologies could not complete the project and consequently Bedrock’s business there became non viable and the project was abandoned.

With reference to the geothermal project of West Indies Power, BEAD graciously allowed me to use my experience and BEAD’s equipment for the initial exploration activities for West Indies Power. Many of the techniques used for developing groundwater supplies are applicable for the development of geothermal resources. Consequently the combining of exploration activities for both projects resulted in a much more detailed understanding of the subsurface geology of Nevis than would have been possible if separate entities conducted the work independently. This effort is not “shrouded in mystery” as has been stated in The Observer. I authored and delivered a paper at the 2007 Caribbean Water and Wastewater Conference (CWWA), held in St. Kitts in October 2007, entitled “Simultaneous Development of Water and Energy for Sustainable Growth in Nevis.”

The fact is that the current and future water supply of Nevis is far better and more secure than thought possible by many until now. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the water development project and my professional expertise and credentials with the media and public alike.

In closing, I would once again like to publically thank the many government ministers, Nevis Water Department staff, subcontractors, and the general public for their continued support and encouragement during the water exploration and development process.

Thank you for publishing this letter.

Dr. Roland Hoag, PhD

Executive Vice President

BEAD(Nevis)Ltd

Assuming that BEAD has been an honorable godsend to the Nevisians, it still has huge appearance problems. There is confusion as to the provenance of its prior drilling experience in Tobago, confliciting reports about its actual accomplishments in Grenada and implications of incompetence and desperation in the conduct of its operation on Nevis. None of this is improved by the absence of impartial third party auditors or observers.

Nor is it helped by BEAD's remarkable lack of a public presence online in a time when any restaurant can have a website. One would think that an entity of this caliber would want broader knowledge of its capabilities and track record. But, no, the only reference one finds in a common search, beyond news clips is from an entity, GWRI, (Global Water Resources International), which purports to be a kind of fund raising subsidiary.

So until BEAD emerges from behind the curtain with greater transparency, it will be dogged by problems of its own making and tend to reinforce the assertions made by its array of detractors. It also suggests a need for third party oversight in these situations where small island nations are vulnerable to exploitation by purveyers of technical expertise from the developed world.

Water Ethics or Doing it Right.

2009-01-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

The water resource world couldn't be more different from the oil industry and yet elements of the oil world occasionally barge into water world with potentially troubling effects on the clients, usually poor third world nations. Oil is an international commodity to be sold on the spot markets for whatever the current price is. Water is a local resource essential to the lives of the local inhabitants.

While there are many attempts to make a commodity of water, it is still plentiful enough in much of the world to lack any real impetus to sell it by a per barrel price. And yet various entities from the water bottlers to struggling oil drillers are fishing for ways to make a questionable buck on it.

I will be working on providing examples of these various ill considered forms of exploitation and foolishness in a consequent post but I thought it would be useful to gather some examples of water ethics aspects from several levels.

This excerpt is from the Water Encyclopedia.

The Challenge of Ethical Decision-Making

"Rational ethical judgment by professional water managers is important because of the significant implications of their decisions to society. They make decisions that affect the environment, allocate water resources, influence public health and safety, distribute public monies, and affect the lives of future generations.

Ethical conduct, or professional decision-making, is a necessary requisite to being called a professional. A professional must be able to properly balance competing values in making decisions that affect both society and the client, especially where personal, societal, and cultural values conflict. The value issues must be properly balanced within the framework of economic, political, and sociological constraints. Mature ethical decision-making is not easy, and the professional often is criticized by those who feel adversely affected by the decisions."
The Example of Sustainable Development.

"Sustainable development, which is development that meets current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, involves numerous value conflicts: namely, the freedom of the current generation to use resources that a future generation may need for survival, and the need for the current generation to practice self-discipline so that the environment will remain healthy for future generations. Freedom, survival, self-discipline, and health are all values. Similarly, clean and safe waterbodies are one concern of water professionals in meeting their ethical responsibilities to sustainable development. Here, the words "clean" and "safe" require value judgements. A water manager who does not respect competing values and does not have the ethical maturity to properly weight them in decision-making cannot be considered a professional."
The Example of Wetland Preservation.

"The preservation of wetland systems is often in value conflict with economic development of the land. Worthwhile values are legitimately associated with both sides of the issue. The difficulty in quantifying the worth of public amenities provided by wet-lands often complicates decision-making. The water professional who supports wetland development may appear unethical. It is difficult to quantify the value of a wetland to fish and waterfowl in terms that can be compared to the economic value of transforming the wetland into a shopping mall that will be used daily by thousands of people. Would a code of ethics lead a water professional to preserve the wetland for reasons of public welfare, or to develop the land and thus serve the client and the public with fidelity?"

Codes of Ethics

"Codes of ethics are the value guidelines that a professional must follow in order to remain registered as a member of the profession. Codes are not a list of do's and don'ts. Therefore, to a young professional, they may appear to be vague statements. For example, a code might state that the professional should hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, or that they should act as faithful agents in professional matters for each employer or client. The emphasis on values is evident through the terms "public safety" and "faithful."

When one is confronted by decisions related to water resources issues, such as sustainable development and wetland systems, interpretation of these guidelines is not always clear-cut. Differences of opinion can lead a professional to blow the whistle. Misinterpreting the codes or ignoring them can result in a person's losing his or her job, or even being expelled from the profession. Thus, understanding value issues and being able to make mature value decisions are just as important to the water resources practitioner as is technical knowledge."

Richard H. McCuen

Then we have this excerpt from UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme.

ETHICS AND WATER RESOURCES
CONFLICTS
J. Martin Trondalen and Mohan Munasinghe
UNESCO International
Hydrological Programme

World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

"Traditionally, the definitional question of the water resources and rights in question are being analysed from either an upstream or a downstream perspective. From an ethical and practical perspective, however, an interest-based perspective is quite different from the conventional upstream-downstream doctrine. This more modern viewpoint subsumes the earlier approach, and is based on the concept of sustainable development. As described, it relies on a balanced application of three of the most important principles dealing with international resources – the principles of:
1. Social equity;
2. Economic efficiency; and
3. Environmental protection.

Social aspects
• Identify all stakeholders as well as the incidence of costs and benefits of water
production and use among them (including externalities).
• Allocate costs and benefits equitably:
- polluter pays and victim is compensated,
- gainers compensate losers to help build the consensus.
• Compromise between two polar extremes for re-allocation of water benefits:
- grandfathering, based on past usage patterns,
- equal right to meet basic human needs (e.g. on a per capita basis).
• Costs of supplying water to be adjusted to make basic water needs affordable to the
poor.

Economic aspects
• Consider all costs and benefits of water production and use from the two rivers
(including shadow costs of externalities) for each individual nation.
• Maximise net present value (NPV) through project and policy interventions in the
three countries concerned (water will tend to be allocated to the highest valueadded
uses in each nation).
• Costs of supplying water to reflect full long run marginal costs (LRMC), including
externalities.

Water and ethics
Environmental aspects
• Water to be treated as a scarce environmental resource – not generally substitutable;
• Both depletion and pollution to be minimised based on dynamic/long term considerations."

And from the American Academy of Water Resource Engineers we find a further perspective.

"Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession
by:
1. using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare and the
environment;
2. being honest and impartial and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and
clients;
3. striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession; and
4. supporting the professional and technical societies of their disciplines.

Fundamental Canons
1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and shall
strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in the performance of
their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful
agents or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest.
5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and
shall not compete unfairly with others.
6. Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity,
and dignity of the engineering profession.
7. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers,
and shall provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers
under their supervision."

The International Institute for Environment and Development offers this summary.

"Freshwater ecosystem services – the benefits obtained by people from rivers, swamps, floodplains and groundwater systems – are central to human well-being. But these ecosystems are being degraded, water problems are increasing, and the poor are being hit hardest. Climate change is likely to worsen these problems."

"Many promising solutions to water ecosystem problems exist. In many cases, these solutions appear to be dependent on governance – the range of issues associated with how decisions are made about water ecosystem services. "

* Establish appropriate and sustainable water delivery and sanitation systems.
* Empower local communities to govern and manage their water resources.
* Strengthen understanding and sustainable management of water resources through environmental protection and conservation.
* Address transboundary issues in water basin management.
* Strengthen integrated water resource management policy and legislation with respect to tenure of land and water resources.
* Build capacity and understanding among the relevant authorities to support participatory and accountable decision making.
* Share information on the successes and failures of water interventions.
* Facilitate inter-governmental coordination and cooperation.

This aggregate of statements from a number of the leaders in the field provides a good overview of the best practices and guiding principles for water resource assistance to many struggling client nations. In a post to follow, I will provide examples of problematic aspects of planetary water needs and the outcomes that result when this array of principles and ethical guidelines are not implemented.

The Real Truth About Groundwater, Water Exploration & Water Resources

2009-01-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

So much effort is given to worry over the availability of one liquid mineral, Oil, in developed nations, that the far more essential liquid mineral, Water, is overlooked.

We will move beyond the fossil fuel model one day but water will always be essential.

This blog will therefore focus on the array of water issues from the ethics of water exploration to the controversies over water bottling. We will look at elements such as waste water source reduction, the role of deep aquifers and how technological advances can alleviate water scarcity in arid lands.

Moreover, the element of enhanced utility will ensure users will have a full array of links organized into clear and useful subject headings to serve the broadest possible constituency.