Experts Fear Much of U.S. Could Face Water Shortage

[Bill Rotella]

Experts Fear Much of U.S. Could Face Water Shortage
Friday, October 26, 2007

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

Across America, the picture is critically clear - the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

"Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the Denver-based American Water Works Association.

Water managers will need to take bold steps to keep taps flowing, including conservation, recycling, desalination and stricter controls on development.

"We've hit a remarkable moment," said Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The last century was the century of water engineering. The next century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency."

The price tag for ensuring a reliable water supply could be staggering. Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years.

"Unfortunately, there's just not going to be any more cheap water," said Randy Brown, Pompano Beach's utilities director.

It's not just America's problem - it's global.

Australia is in the midst of a 30-year dry spell, and population growth in urban centers of sub-Saharan Africa is straining resources. Asia has 60 percent of the world's population, but only about 30 percent of its freshwater.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, said this year that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages.

The U.S. used more than 148 trillion gallons of water in 2000, the latest figures available from the U.S. Geological Survey. That includes residential, commercial, agriculture, manufacturing and every other use - almost 500,000 gallons per person.

Coastal states like Florida and California face a water crisis not only from increased demand, but also from rising temperatures that are causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Higher temperatures mean more water lost to evaporation. And rising seas could push saltwater into underground sources of freshwater.

Florida represents perhaps the nation's greatest water irony. A hundred years ago, the state's biggest problem was it had too much water. But decades of dikes, dams and water diversions have turned swamps into cities.

Little land is left to store water during wet seasons, and so much of the landscape has been paved over that water can no longer penetrate the ground in some places to recharge aquifers. As a result, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of excess into the ocean to prevent flooding.

Also, the state dumps hundreds of billions of gallons a year of treated wastewater into the Atlantic through pipes - water that could otherwise be used for irrigation.

Florida's environmental chief, Michael Sole, is seeking legislative action to get municipalities to reuse the wastewater.

"As these communities grow, instead of developing new water with new treatment systems, why not better manage the commodity they already have and produce an environmental benefit at the same time?" Sole said.

Florida leads the nation in water reuse by reclaiming some 240 billion gallons annually, but it is not nearly enough, Sole said.

Floridians use about 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year. The state projects that by 2025, the population will have increased 34 percent from about 18 million to more than 24 million people, pushing annual demand for water to nearly 3.3 trillion gallons.

More than half of the state's expected population boom is projected in a three-county area that includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, where water use is already about 1.5 trillion gallons a year.

"We just passed a crossroads. The chief water sources are basically gone," said John Mulliken, director of water supply for the South Florida Water Management District. "We really are at a critical moment in Florida history."

In addition to recycling and conservation, technology holds promise.

There are more than 1,000 desalination plants in the U.S., many in the Sunbelt, where baby boomers are retiring at a dizzying rate.

The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is producing about 25 million gallons a day of fresh drinking water, about 10 percent of that area's demand. The $158 million facility is North America's largest plant of its kind. Miami-Dade County is working with the city of Hialeah to build a reverse osmosis plant to remove salt from water in deep brackish wells. Smaller such plants are in operation across the state.

Californians use nearly 23 trillion gallons of water a year, much of it coming from Sierra Nevada snowmelt. But climate change is producing less snowpack and causing it to melt prematurely, jeopardizing future supplies.

Experts also say the Colorado River, which provides freshwater to seven Western states, will probably provide less water in coming years as global warming shrinks its flow.

California, like many other states, is pushing conservation as the cheapest alternative, looking to increase its supply of treated wastewater for irrigation and studying desalination, which the state hopes could eventually provide 20 percent of its freshwater.

"The need to reduce water waste and inefficiency is greater now than ever before," said Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency. "Water efficiency is the wave of the future."

[Cave Ranger]

If you aren't drinking it, using it for the purpose of hygene, or using it to grow food, then you are wasting it, IMO.
I work for a water wastewater utility. We have "residential" customers that use 500,000 to over 1,000,000 gallons of water a month just for the irrigation of there Floritam lawns and lush non-native plants. Don't even get me started about the golf courses. If there has ever been a waste of land and water resources a golf course would certainly qualify.
The days of this sort of frivolous waste of water are numbered but if you try and talk to any of the above users about the issue they feel entitled to use as much as they want and to hell with anything else.
Soon we will all be using water for nothing more then survival. What about your lawn you ask? You should have planted Bahia. When it rains it's green....when it doesn't it's brown. Welcome to the hydrologic cycle.

[Spareparts06]

Desalinasation (for those of us that don't know what it is) Removing salt from salt water. We are surrounded by the ocean instead of waisting our precious fresh water supply why don't we start using the salt water that is all around us. After we use it we can put it back in the ocean or better yet in our shrinking lakes after filtration obviously. Then we will have more fresh water. And as for expence people are already paying more per gallon for water than gas so will they really notice.

[Mike Edmonston]

You should have planted Bahia. When it rains it's green....when it doesn't it's brown.

What a great friggin quote...

[metaldector]

Since we all use water, and cave diving is total use of water, we are preaching to the choir. We've all seen the changes to the aquifer and to the cave systems. Recently I was listening to a Florida radio station that had a representitive of the water management districts on this very topic. Interestingly, he stated that water usage for personal use, toilets, washing, showers is only 25% of the water used per family. Fully 75% is used to water lawns, bushes, and ordiamental plants. So if we can just get the population of Florida and elsewhere to recognize that green grass is not desireable the problem would be reduced tremendously. Can that happen? Yes! Look at the issues of smoking, roadside trash, recycling and others that have taken hold in the minds of Americans from grass root action over a 30 year period. Talking about it here will change somebody's perception on water usage and that will be one more person who will think about using this most precious resource.

[MORGAN]

Yesterday a water conservation expert whose name I don't recall was on National Public Radio's " Fresh Air" program.

He said that it takes approximately 3 liters of fresh water to produce the plastic bottle for a liter of bottled water. This doesn't count the other production costs, transportation, or the liter of water in the bottle.

And I did so enjoy the Publix brand bottled water that says Ginnie Spring on the label! And the Deer Park water from Madison Blue! Guess I'll have to stick with Guinness from now on.

Mike

[skip]

Soon we will all be using water for nothing more then survival. What about your lawn you ask? You should have planted Bahia. When it rains it's green....when it doesn't it's brown. Welcome to the hydrologic cycle.

when i bought my house it had a nice green grass lawn, flat and even and just like a bright green carpet all around. but I don't water and I mow only when the city leaves a nasty note on the door. Last time they said they were going to mow it in five days if I didn't, and charge $30.00 - I called them and said what a deal, please go for it whenever you want! They said I was supposed to do it myself, the threat was just an attempt to get me to do it. I told them that to be a threat they needed to make it $130.00!

but i digress. the neighbors complained about the tall grass, the "weeds" growing, the unkempt yard, so I applied to the Feds to make my yard a "residential wildlife refuge." there are a few rules, but the best one is that you let the yard go natural (no more planting nonnative grasses, bushes, trees). It is amazing how much insect life, bird life, frogs, turtles, snakes and such show up! and this yard is small - postage stamp size. and it's surrounded by similar sized homes (most with those unnaturally blue/green carpets of well-manicured grass). the distance between me and neighbors is the width of a one-car driveway. (50feet x 150ft lots, more or less). And yet so small of a yard went of nearly lifeless to so full of life that kids come over to collect samples for science classes!

today the yard takes care of itself, a rabbit lives in the backyard (which the dog has fun chasing in circles), frogs come up on the patio at night, and yesterday I almost stepped on a box turtle in the driveway as I went to get in the car. the yard is not flat, not carpet and so full of little colored flowers in the spring that it looks almost psychedelic. Most of the time it's a mess of weeds with a few bunches of johnson grass here and there (and lots of dirt/mud spots), small bushes, little tree-like things trying to go, and the ever-present ivy, wild strawberries, and a renegade population of morning-glories.

With the current drought here in Tennessee (nearly as bad as Georgia and Florida) the yard is yellow and brown! The winter rains have so far been light, but some green is returning....


-skip

... a few bunches of johnson grass ...

Okay, now you're just making stuff up.

[JDostal]

I've kinda done the same to my lawn. No water, no fertilizer...mow it when it needs it. I like it when it goes brown, I don't have to take care of it anymore then

[skip]

... a few bunches of johnson grass ...

Okay, now you're just making stuff up.

yeah, you're right! there is a bunch of bunches!

but the rabbit keeps 'em trimmed nicely...really. I thought we lost the rabbit, stopped seeing it over morning coffee at the breakfast table, then one day there it was again! Bigger too. I have no idea what a rabbit/bunny is doing in town, smack in the middle of residential (we live two blocks from a hospital, two blocks from two schools, two blocks from a university). But then we do have a tiny piece of nature here. totally fenced in with trees and brush all growing up to hide the fencing for the most part (and the neighbors). My guess is that it escaped from a local child, although it is brown, not white. poor thing must think it's the only one in the world. And our dog...well if she ever actually caught it, I suspect it would break her heart (the dog's not the bunny's, although...). It's about the only exercise she gets (the dog, not the bunny) and she always seems so happy when she comes back in the house (the dog, not the bunny, who lives in a hole in the ground inside our delapilated tool shed).

-skip