As winter sets in, many Canadians will head to warmer climates and that includes places that don't have the clean and fresh water we're used to at home.

But if your trips take you off the beaten path, and bottled water isn't close by, a portable invention called the LifeStraw can be. New to North America, the award-winning personal filtration system was invented in 2005 by a Swiss Company, Vesergaard Fransden. It's filtration technology has been used by millions of people in...

The state's most recent attempt at developing standards for water quality in lakes, rivers and estuaries is under attack from critics who say the draft rules are too weak and won't satisfy the Federal Clean Water Act.

Members of the state Environmental Regulatory Commission next week are scheduled to review the Department of Environmental Protection's newest proposed rule to regulate the amount of allowable pollution in Florida fresh water. The proposed rules were updated ea...

"The Future of Water, A Startling Look Ahead" by Steve Maxwell with Scott Yates, American Water Works Association, 165 pages, $29.95

Water, one of the most precious resources on Earth, is also the most abundant, covering about three-quarters of the planet. Yet the prized, fresh, clean water that humans need for life is becoming increasingly scarce, polluted and expensive.

This book explains all about this increasingly dangerous situation and should be read by poli...

Sacramento-area water agencies have been awarded more than $400,000 in federal grants to improve their water conservation efforts.

The grants from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation total about $3.5 million statewide. They are expected to result in water conservation or efficiency improvements equal to 161,000 acre-feet annually, or enough water to serve about 300,000 average homes.

• Natomas Central Mutual Water Company: $154,000 to construct a weir, slide gates, and au...

Between 2005 and 2050, the western Lake Michigan area is expected to see a 38 percent growth in population. And if water consumption continues at the same rate it has been, many communities will find their groundwater supplies depleted.

That’s why representatives from five counties have banded together to put forth a plan for water conservation. Formed in September 2010, they call themselves the Northwest Water Planning Alliance, and as Engineer Pete Wallers explaine...

BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 19, 2011 - St. Andrews Country Club has received certification in Water Conservation from the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses (ACSP), an international program administered by Audubon International designed to help landowners preserve and enhance the environmental quality of their property. This most recent certification follows the Environmental Planning achievement earned in August. St. Andrews Country Club is seeking t...

Chris Brown/CC BY 2.0

In 1969, a river caught fire.

People of a certain age probably remember when it happened. The Cuyahoga (pictured above), which runs through northeastern Ohio and outlets into Lake Erie in Cleveland, was heavily contaminated -- so much so that stretches of the waterway contained no life at all. It was thick with pollutants; Time called it the river that "oozes rather than flows." The ooze ignited on June 22.

That fire wasn't the river's first. It was ...

The latest review of water pollution data in California shows substantial jumps in toxic and pesticide contamination, the number of dirty beaches and tainted fish. But federal regulators attribute the rise to improved monitoring and data collection by the state rather than a tide of new pollution.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, states are required to monitor water quality and periodically submit the results to the Environmental Protection Agency. California's 2010...

BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- China will continue to increase its investment in water conservation infrastructure construction and accelerate its pace of building water conservation projects, a senior official said Wednesday.

China had invested nearly 260 billion yuan (40.63 billion U.S. dollars) in water conservation infrastructure construction by the end of September, with the central government's investment reaching 113.9 billion yuan, Jiao Yong, vice minister of water ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (October 11, 2011) – In 1972, the Clean Water Act was passed and so began the regulatory control of pollutants pouring into the nation’s rivers. What has 40 years of cracking down on water pollution in the Missouri River, where Kansas City draws its drinking water, done for our community and its citizens?

On Thursday, October 13, John Dunn, environmental engineer with the Environmental Protection Agency, will address the regional impact of the Clea...

Clean Water Action, a national environmental organization, has awarded two North Shore groups the John O’Connor Grassroots Leadership Award, one of them to a Swampscott based group.

Swampscott's HealthLink and the Salem Alliance for the Environment (SAFE) were recognized at the  Clean Water Action of Massachusetts’ 17^th Annual Benefit on Oct. 1, at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Martha Dansdill, a Swampscott resident and executive director of He...

from Boston.com

BURLINGTON, Vt.—Prosecutors say a New Hampshire gravel company is going to pay a $200,000 penalty following a series of violations of the federal Clean Water Act at facilities in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The Environmental Protection Agency began its investigation of Newport Sand & Gravel and Carroll Concrete Co. of Newport, N.H., after a routine inspection of the companies' facilities in New Hampshire.

The EPA's Jeffrey Kopf says that led to inspections of other facilit...

Gov. Jerry Brown said Friday he has signed a cluster of bills aimed at giving Californians better access to clean water.

One of the measures, AB 1292, will allow a state agency to sell revenue bonds to help pay for improvements to drinking-water systems throughout California.

Another, AB 1221, will allow state water-pollution cleanup funds to be provided to a nonprofit group and Native American tribe.

AB 938 expands the information required to be provided in languag...

(Reuters) - A federal judge has approved a far-reaching settlement giving Montana until 2014 to clean up polluted streams and lakes in 28 watersheds across the state, capping nearly 15 years of legal battles, officials said on Monday.

The deal covers more than 17,000 miles of rivers and streams and 461,000 surface acres of lakes, requiring them to meet water-quality standards set for uses such as drinking, swimming and fishing, under the federal Clean Water Act.

The settlement...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved water quality standards for the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa after the tribe exercised its sovereign rights under the Clean Water Act to develop the standards.

According to information released by the Band, the standards build on the tribe's tradition of conservation and recognition of clean and healthy water being "an inherent human right and the foundation of life" that connects past, present, and ...

American Rivers has partnered with Green for All and the Economic Policy Institute to compose the report“Water Works: Rebuilding Infrastructure, Creating Jobs and Greening the Environment”.

The results of the research that was put into the report show that investments in our water infrastructure would yield 1.9 million American jobs and add $265 billion to the economy.

The report was released Oct. 4 at the Clean Water America Alliance's Urban Waters SustainabilityL...

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, convened a hearing to discuss the causes and impacts of nutrient pollution in the United States and various approaches toward mitigating its effects. Nutrient pollution, caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus, has negatively affected more than half of the water bodies in the United States, causing harmful algal blooms, hypoxia, declines in fish and wildlife an...

Save Our Water Program Offers Tips and Ideas on Ways to Conserve Water This Fall and Winter

With highs in the 50s predicted for Albuquerque later this week, water officials are reminding residents to cut back on watering.

Katherine Yuhas, conservation officer for the Albuquerque and Bernalillo County Water Authority, says plants need only half as much water as they needed in September, which means residents should cut watering times in half. Yuhas says reducing watering times helps plants get ready to become dormant for the winter.

The Water Authority is ...

We’re in deep trouble if things continue as they are.

Every five years, the Texas Water Development Board publishes a water plan for the state. The 295-page draft of the 2012 plan, published last week in the midst of the worst-ever single-year drought Texas has ever experienced, is a sobering read.

“The primary message of the 2012 state water plan is a simple one,” the introduction states. “In serious drought conditions, Texas does not and will not have enough w...

Athens-Clarke County tweaked its outdoor watering restrictions Monday to match up with surrounding counties.

"We're now consistent with Jackson, Barrow and Oconee counties," county Water Conservation Coordinator Marilyn Hall said.

A miscommunication with the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority, the four-county partnership that operates Bear Creek Reservoir, led Athens-Clarke County on Friday to ban some types of outdoor watering that the other counties allowed, Hal...

MILWAUKEE, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Conservation groups say they are being kept in the dark as U.S. and Canadian negotiators hammer out a bi-national Great Lakes water quality agreement.

A coalition of 41 environmental groups says the public has not been allowed to see details of the draft plan, while government negotiators respond it has to be that way, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday.

"While the constraints of international negotiations prevent us from sharing a draft of t...

A consortium of three international companies will carry out the largest sewage treatment project in Bahrain at a cost of BD250 million ($663 million), said a senior government official.

Work on the Busaiteen project in Muharraq Governorate will start by the end of the year and will be completed in three years, Works Ministry Under-Secretary Khalifa Al

Mansoor is quoted as saying by our sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej.

The project, part of Bahrain Economic Vision 2030, in...

“My name is John Hammerstrom and I drink my rainwater,” said the president of the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association as he introduced himself at the organization’s national conference.

A crowd of more than 200 people soaked up the the specifics in how to gather, treat, move and use r...