While in the following pages I will recount a number of serious localized water shortages, I can tell you at the outset, this will not be another gloom-and-doom scenario to which you are treated daily in your local and national news sources. Now, in my 54th year of professional effort in the field of water resource development and protection, I can tell you that while many areas face severe water shortages, none are without solutions and no blood will be shed over its distribution. Aaron Wolfe in his brilliant 2,000-year study of water conflicts proved the latter, and my experience in groundwater development, water conservation, irrigation technology, biotechnology and municipal supply enhancement will convince you of the former.

Wolfe showed that for the past 2,000 years of human history, with but only a few exceptions, folks that hate each other will ultimately sit down and reason together over water rights issues. Farmers who have nonsensically sprayed water up into the air in order to wet their crops below, and municipalities who have seen a third of their water supply disappear through leaky pipes, have finally gotten their acts together in less wasteful water delivery techniques.

Everywhere we look there is more, not less, ground water than we thought. Deeper wells are tapping larger groundwater watersheds. Perhaps our biggest remaining obstacles are so-called endangered species, where a snail may take precedence over people. This was definitely a root cause of Atlanta’s recent water shortage in the southeastern drought of 2007, where much-needed water from Lake Lanier, its primary reservoir, was sent down stream to insure the comfort of a lowly mollusk, while Georgians went thirsty.

And, if you read the words global warming or climate change in an article about water shortages, stop right there, because there is nothing else worth reading in that article. When a writer leans on those terms to make a scary case for water shortages, you can be sure his knowledge of Hydrology, the science of water, is quite limited. And it makes no difference whether or not you believe man is causing the earth to warm, anyone basing water shortages upon it surely knows little about water resources.

It may surprise most readers to learn that the very first national article ever written about US water shortages appeared in US News & World Report in April of 1954. From that point, concern picked up steam to where numerous schemes were suggested in the 1960s to accomplish large-scale water transfers between major basins. The best known was the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) devised by the Ralph M. Parsons Company of Los Angeles to divert 36 trillion gallons of water per year from the Yukon River in Alaska through the Great Baer and Great Slave Lakes southward to 33 states, seven Canadian Provinces and northern Mexico, with hydropower dams set up along the way. On February 22, 1965, Newsweek magazine hailed the plan as the greatest water project in history, but nationalist sentiment in Canada put an end to it before any earth was moved. Such mega water projects could never pass environmental scrutiny today, yet the Great Lakes states are still attempting to pass national legislation to prevent the government from ever giving southwestern states the right to tap the Great Lakes or for that matter any nearby towns that do not lie in the drainage basin.

As we in water-rich countries take our daily showers, water the lawn or laze about in the pool, it is easy to forget that fresh water is a life or death issue in many parts of the world. Of a population of roughly 6.3 billion, more than one billion people on the planet do lack access to potable water. In China, 1.26 billion people in 300 cities are short on water and they must divert water from agriculture, which will mean that they will import more food. India, home to one billion people, is clearly over-pumping key aquifers.

Drinking water supplies, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry all require large quantities of water and will compete with each other in the future. Water reuse can help to expand these traditional approaches by matching the quality of water supplies to needs and substituting nontraditional water for freshwater where appropriate. Recycling water, use of waste water and brackish groundwater, even seawater and extracted mine water will help mitigate shortages.

A lack of access to adequate clean water supplies often has more to do with a lack of investment in the basic infrastructure required to treat and deliver water, than actual water scarcity, overuse or drought. Because water has long been considered to be a free right of the citizenry, money for development has been lacking. Simply put, it has proven difficult to get a significant high return on investment delivering a basic good such as water to the poorest segments of a population.

At least 36 states are expected to face water shortages within the next decade according to government estimates. California uses about 23 trillion gallons of fresh water per year. The United States as a whole uses more than 148 trillion gallons for all purposes including agriculture.

While Florida has no shortage of rainfall, widespread draining and paving of the region’s natural wetlands has left the water unable to drain back into the soil. As a consequence, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of water into the ocean to avert floods. Florida, however, leads the nation in water reuse by reclaiming some 240 billion gallons annually. Currently, the state uses 2.4 trillion gallons of water, but an increasing population is expected to increase demand to 3.3 trillion by 2025. The state contains the largest desalination plant in the US, producing 25 million gallons a day from Tampa Bay at its $156 million dollar facility. Smaller plants are in operation throughout the state.

Many boundary disputes over water rights have developed as a result of shortages. The drought that has gripped Georgia for more than a year has them battling Tennessee over rights. Legislators are going so far as to press old claims that the state border should extend farther north, giving them access to water from the Tennessee River. The Supreme Court will eventually settle this dispute.

In both Florida and Georgia, subdivisions are laying dual water lines to bring treated wastewater to homes for watering lawns, landscaping and gardens. The reusing of treated wastewater is an effective and mature technology. With growth and drought straining water supplies, it is a waste to dump treated wastewater.

In the West, Indian tribes are beginning to exercise the water rights granted to them by the Supreme Court in 1908. This will eventually leave non-Indian agriculture either short of water or paying more for it. Along the Rio Grande River, our southern border with Mexico, water has been in dispute for decades.

Photo Caption: Nikonite/Dreamstime Boat marooned in marina due to receding water

But in the West, no city stands out more than Las Vegas for the difficulty in matching the water needs of an exploding city and the limited resources of an arid desert. Its population has doubled since 1990 to 570,000 and 90% of its water comes from the Colorado River which is in the throes of a severe drought.

The city and the Southern Nevada Water Authority are proposing to build a 285-mile pipeline to haul groundwater from six different valleys in eastern Nevada, drawing water from 200 production wells drilled to depths as great as 1,700 feet. This $2 billion project hopes to bring 50 billion gallons of water to Las Vegas each year.

In a day of mind-numbing and fear-mongering, even Canada has attempted to get into a water crisis mode, which is difficult to support in the face of their yet copious supplies.

So what does it all mean for those of us in the field of rehabilitating once valuable land and buildings so they can again be useful to our nation and our communities? Surprisingly, the answers are plentiful and simple. Adequate water supplies do not require the wisdom of rocket scientists or brain surgeons; but they do require a level of common sense not often seen in the establishment of the initial supplies that supported the very development now in need of rehabilitation. New projects should definitely utilize dual supply lines so that water used for matters other than personal hygiene or human health need not be purified to drinking water standards. Concurrently, water once used for health-related purposes can be reused as greywater at a variety of locations.

One clever plan for delivering cooling water in a factory requires simply transmitting the water through pipes in the cool earth rather than in the hot elevated ceilings of a building. Another consideration is the recycling of water from one use to another when appropriate quality allows it, and the actual treatment of used water to facilitate recycling. Perhaps the easiest analysis is an inventory of water needs followed by a study of where and how water usage can be decreased without hampering the operation of the land or building usage.

Wasting water should be a thing of the past since water is in short supply. New sources are not likely to be found, but technology and conservation have allowed us to reduce water usage in the United States by 9% over the past thirty years. We are not now, and will not likely be, in a crisis over water in this nation in the foreseeable future, but intelligent water supply protocols should be a high priority for all of us in brownfield development.

Jay Lehr is Science Director at the Heartland Institute, a non-profit public policy research organization.

JAY’S TIPS
• Greywater should be used for items such as toilets and air conditioners. Use higher quality drinking water for sinks, tubs, and drinking fountains only
• Excess drinking water, bath water, etc., should be recycled into greywater
• Sinks in public bathrooms should not have continuous flowing taps, but rather those you press, which run for a set number of seconds
• Showers and toilets should be of the low-flow type
• A wide variety of rainwater catchments can be used on building roofs in order to funnel it into a greywater system for use (some even reduce air-conditioning bills in upper floors)