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Via Alternet …

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An EPA Report, “National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change“, describes the impacts of Global Warming on water. It ain’t pretty and it’s going to be quite a challenge for local governments and utilities to protect our drinking water in the face of these changes. According to the report Global Warming will affect our water in several ways:

• More intense storms will threaten drinking water systems and increase polluted runoff.
• Shorelines will move inland from rising sea levels
• Changes in ocean chemistry will alter aquatic habitat and fisheries.
• Warmer water will likely change contaminant concentrations in water.
• New patterns of rainfall and snowfall are expected to alter water supply for drinking and other uses.
• Heavier precipitation in tropical and inland storms will increase the risks of flooding, expand floodplains, increase the variability of streamflows, increase the velocity of water during high flow periods and increase erosion.
• These changes will have adverse effects on clean water and aquatic ecosystems.
• Intense rainfall will result in more pollution, pathogens, and toxins being washed into waterbodies.

As a result, the strategy advises, city and county water managers will need to plan for extreme weather resulting in excess of water or a lack of water. EPA’s “National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change” describes steps for managers to adapt their clean water, drinking water, and ocean protection programs, but it is not a rule or regulation and is not legally binding. The new strategy focuses on 44 specific actions for the National Water Program to take in responding to climate change. They fall within five topic areas — mitigation, adaptation, research, the education of water program professionals on climate change issues and management of climate change work within the National Water Program.

To view the 119-page National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change, go HERE.