Water Supply Problems

Now Plague Much Of The US

By Joan Lowy - Scripps Howard News Service

http://www.texnews.com/1998/2000/local/water0710.html

7-11-00

Along with backyard barbecues and family vacations, drought and water shortages have increasingly become a rite of summer for many Americans.

Damaged crops, dead landscapes, stinky water, higher water bills and, in some areas, mandatory water restrictions have become all too common. This summer, much of the Southeast, the Southwest, parts of Texas and Hawaii are in the throes of moderate to severe drought. Conditions in Georgia, north central Florida, and parts of Louisiana and Alabama are especially harsh.

"For parts of the Southeast, this was as bad a drought as they've ever experienced," said Michael Hayes, a climate specialist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska.

In Texas and northern Mexico, the difficulty is not so much the severity of the current drought, but the cumulative impact of drought over five of the last six years. In the parched Rio Grande Valley, reservoirs have dropped to a record low of 19 percent of capacity.

Most climatologists, environmentalists and water experts agree it is becoming more difficult and expensive for many communities to meet increasing demands for water created by population growth and economic development. In times of drought, meeting those demands becomes even tougher.

"There is no question that we, as a nation, are taxing the available water resources that we have," said Doug Marsano, a spokesman for the American Water Works Association, which represents local water utilities. "Without widespread conservation efforts and better monitoring, the impact of droughts when they hit will be more intense and insure more hardship."

Although nearly three-quarters of the earth's surface is covered with water, only 3 percent of the world's water is fresh. Two-thirds of that is frozen. By global standards, the U.S. is water rich. It has 4 percent of world's population' but 8 percent of its fresh water. But the availability of fresh water varies widely by region and several trends have combined to make it increasingly difficult for many communities to expand existing supplies.

More people, less water

Nearly all the nation's easily and cheaply accessible fresh water is already spoken for. And shifting population growth in recent decades to more arid Sunbelt communities has increased water demand in the regions least able to meet those demands. "That makes them more vulnerable to a drought situation than they might otherwise be," Hayes said. "In some areas of the country we are definitely heading toward a point where it will take just a minor drought to cause major problems."

Rapid population growth in Sunbelt cities such as Atlanta and Phoenix taxes not only the water supplies in those urban centers, but also in neighboring states and communities who compete with them for water. With new water sources harder to obtain, communities and water utilities are increasingly stressing conservation as the main solution to coping with supply.

Water demand in Los Angeles, for example, has remained flat despite increased population for the past two decades primarily because of conservation, said Steven Erie, an expert on water supply issues in Southern California.

"The problem is that we're now talking about adding two and a half new Chicago's to Southern California," he said. "Just the sheer numbers are going to drive up demand even with all the conservation that we've had."

As a consequence, thirsty communities in Southern California, Colorado and elsewhere are increasingly buying up water currently used for agriculture. Nationally, less than 10 percent of water use is residential. About 35 percent is agricultural and 55 percent is industrial, including power generation. But in California, 80 percent of the water used irrigates crops.

"What we'll see in the U.S. is what we have already begun to see, that is, a reallocation of water. I do not think we can continue expanding the supply as we have in the last 50 to 100 years," predicts Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project and author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?

Some farmers are also conserving more water using recent innovations in irrigation. Instead of sprinklers that spray water into the air with significant evaporation losses, more farmers are using drip irrigation and special sprinklers that target particular areas and keep water closer to the ground.

Serious consequences

Sometimes water transfers from agriculture to cities have serious consequences. In eastern Colorado, when water has left prairie farms, the land has dried up and farm communities have evaporated.

For years, Southern California has been significantly overdrawing water from the Colorado River -- 5.1 billion acre-feet of water instead of the 4.2 billion acre-feet the state is permitted under interstate water agreements. Seven states and parts of northern Mexico rely on water from the river, which often runs dry before reaching the ocean.

An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons, enough water to supply three households of four people each for a year.

One potential solution that is being given greater consideration is desalting seawater. But desalinization has serious drawbacks. Plant construction is expensive, the process consumes vast amounts of energy, and disposal of leftover salt is an environment concern. Still, advances in technology have brought the price of desalinization down. Some coastal communities are beginning to plan desalinization plants.

"It reminds me of the way we thought about nuclear power 30 years ago - that it would become too cheap to meter," Postel said. "Of course, it never happened." Another serious supply problem is ground water depletion. The Ogallala Aquifer, which spans parts of eight states -- South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas -- is one of the world's biggest aquifers. But with the introduction of powerful centrifugal pumps after World War II, farmers and communities have been draining water from the aquifer far faster than it can be recharged. That has caused water levels to drop precipitously, making water withdrawal more difficult and more expensive.

As a result, in some parts of the aquifer -- particularly northwest Texas -- farmers have begun to shift to more dryland farming, to less thirsty crops or to abandoning farming altogether.

"While they have been doing a good job of improving their efficiency, they are still not in a balance situation with the aquifer," Postel said. "They are still depleting it, and in a drought year they have to pump even more."

A flood of water woes Water woes are not limited to the Sunbelt. The record-shattering drought that crippled Middle Atlantic states last year has focused more attention on water supplies and conservation. The Northeast is also beginning to experience the kind of legal battles over water that have been commonplace in the arid West for decades. Residents concerned that plans to increase water withdrawals from the Shebaug River would harm streamflows, fisheries and recreation successfully sued the town of Waterbury, Conn.. Boston's plans in the mid-1980s to divert more water from the Connecticut River were abandoned in favor of greater conservation after protests from environmentalists. The bottom line, said Hayes, is that "droughts have always been a problem. They are problem now and they will continue to be a problem regardless of what the climate is going to be in the future. So we need to take steps to prepare for that." Contact Washington Bureau writer Joan Lowy at <mailto:lowyj@shns.comlowyj@shns.com. Check out our Web site at <http://www.waterwoes.com/www.waterwoes.com