HORIZON INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS SITE

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on 7 December 2011 announced it will provide up to $1.8 million for projects across the country to protect Americans’ health and help restore urban waters by improving water quality and supporting community revitalization. The funding is part of EPA’s Urban Waters program, which supports communities in their efforts to access, improve and benefit from their urban waters and the surrounding land. Urban waters are canals, rivers, lakes, wetlands, aquifers, estuaries, bays and oceans.

In a bid to improve the health and well-being of millions of people worldwide, the United Nations on 21 June 2011 launched a major push to accelerate progress towards the goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

The world has seen seven global cholera outbreaks since 1817, and the current one seems to have come to stay. Rising temperatures and a stubbornly persistent, toxic bacteria strain appear to have given the disease the upper hand.

Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak received the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize at a Royal Award Ceremony and Banquet during the World Water Week in Stockholm on August 20.