Water—Cool, Clear Water

We generally don’t think of it that way but the history of the growth and spread of the population in the United States is the history of water management. In an op-ed this morning in the Washington Post Robert Glennon, professor of law at the University of Arizona, paints a rather bleak picture of our water problems:

In 2008, metro Atlanta (home to nearly 5 million people) came within 90 days of seeing its principal water supply, Lake Lanier, dry up. Rainstorms eased the drought, but last month a federal judge ruled that Georgia may no longer use the lake as a municipal supply. The state is now scrambling to overturn that ruling; but Alabama and Florida will oppose Georgia’s efforts.

In Florida, excessive groundwater pumping has dried up scores of lakes. In South Carolina, a paper company recently furloughed hundreds of workers because low river flows prevented the company from discharging its wastewater. That state’s battle with North Carolina over the Catawba River has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Water has become so contentious nationwide that more than 30 states are fighting with their neighbors over water.

Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes, is too shallow to float fully loaded freighters, dramatically increasing shipping costs. North of Boston, the Ipswich River has gone dry in five of the past eight years. In 2007, the hamlet of Orme, Tenn., ran out of water entirely, forcing it to truck in supplies from Alabama.

while making a plea for an improved water policy:

Think of our water supply as a giant milkshake, and think of each demand for water as a straw in the glass. Most states permit a limitless number of straws — and that has to change.

The West, one of the thirstiest parts of the country, is developing a system that should lead the way: the use of market forces to reallocate water. In eastern Oregon, along the Middle Fork of the John Day River, the Oregon Water Trust persuaded third-generation ranchers Pat and Hedy Voigt to turn off their irrigation system each year from July 20 until the end of the growing season. The 6.5 million gallons per day that would have been diverted to grow alfalfa now augment river flows and improve the habitat of endangered salmon and steelhead trout. The $700,000 paid to the Voigts allowed them to make substantial on-farm improvements.

He also points out something I haven’t seen much notice of before: that the dog in the manger on bio-fuels production is the availability of water. It takes a lot of water to produce bio-fuels in the quantities that people are talking about.

I completely support moves, especially market-conscious moves like the one described above, towards better management. For example, I think the federal government should be auctioning pumping rights to the water from the Colorado to the states and the states should in turn be auctioning the water to the competing interests.

However, I think there are two, fundamentally different ways of looking at problems. You can view problems like water management as ones of less—fewer swimming pools in people’s backyards, fewer cars, fewer single-family homes, less farming, less industry, less population. Or you can view problems as one of more: mainly more energy. With enough cheap energy a nearly infinite number of solutions to the problems that water poses for us are possible. Without it management alone won’t be enough.

Of course we should be in favor of prudent stewardship of resources. That should not seduce us into the belief that the solution to our problems is less or policies based on that belief. Wealth isn’t measured solely in dollars. It’s measured in people as well and I believe a society oriented towards restriction will inevitably be poorer not to mention less free than one oriented towards growth.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that, except in areas of the country like the Southwest and the Southeast where water is already a problem, long before water management problems have reached disastrous proportions here they will have have boiled over in other parts of the world with problems significantly more severe than our own. The conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians isn’t just about history or religion. It’s also about water, as any hydrological map of the region will show you.

Populations have grown enormously over the last 50 years in the Arab Middle East. These countries are experiencing some of the fastest population growth in the world and when the oil has run out the people will still be there and they’ll still need water. It isn’t just the Middle East. The availability of water is at crisis levels already in parts of China, India, and various countries in Africa. Not to mention Mexico which has problems caused by the water drawn from the Colorado by American states upstream.

Water and energy are problems that go hand in hand.

One closing note. If you want to read something guaranteed to make your blood boil, I suggest Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the American West. While you read it you can listen to Vaughn Monroe and the Sons of the Pioneers singing their 1948 hit: Cool Water.