Water situation could eclipse oil situation?
Many states seen facing water shortages
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 26, 9:24 PM ET 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." https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071027/...Cwc2i0hMFH2ocA Thanks a lot, breeders! :thumbup: |
just like w/ oil, we need alternative technologies. tampa bay has it right, but can we go larger scale(national/international) quickly enough?
and quit using water in beer making! |
Thanks for pointing out why Canada's sovereignty is so threatened... ;-)
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I think Kuwait has the largest desalination plants on the planet (perhaps a good model to look at) -- all of their water comes from those plants. But in very interior regions, it becomes really expensive to move that water. But it doesn't address the cavernous aquifer situation (sinkhole danger)...
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theclencher -
My Dad used to talk about the population bomb in the '70's being the number one problem of humanity. Just googled more of the same : WATER WARS - FOREIGN POLICY NUMBER 82 SPRING 1991 https://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/...4/006-304.html Quote:
Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (Paperback) https://www.amazon.com/Water-Wars-Pri.../dp/089608650X Quote:
Water Wars https://www.mideastnews.com/WaterWars.htm Quote:
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theclencher -
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CarloSW2 |
heh heh
the roiling masses don't and won't give a flying .... until it hits 'em at home. and it has to be harder than a love tap too ta get their attention. and i'yme not too sure that edjikashun makes em think- unless they can work secret edjikashunol subliminal messages into sports broadcasts and shopping mall music? and by golly even the nerds are makin em. lordy lordy i'yve seen lotsa - i think they were :confused: - women pushing strollers around and thought to myself "there's no way i could get drunk enough to do that". https://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...miles/puke.gif On 60 minutes last week they had a story about "plumpynut", a peanut/sugar concoction for the malnurished kids in africa that saves loads of em. why one mommy had a couple kids on this stuff and it was helping- they're doing better than the four dead ones she had already that died of malnutrition. it seems they consider dead kids "collateral damage" or just the cost of doing "bidness". so now what's gonna happen? instead of children dieing from malnutrition, adults will? Quote:
https://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3386661.shtml |
theclencher -
The History channel will have "Mega Drought" on Mega Disasters this Tuesday. Drink it up! CarloSW2 |
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YOU GOTTA TELL THEM! IT's made of PEOPLE!!!! Soylent Green... err, I mean Plumpynut is made of PEOPLE..... Quote:
It's easy for us to say "just stop having children" -- because our families don't depend on our children helping their family to survive if/when they get old enough... I'm not saying the situation is good by any means (it's a pretty bad cycle) - just putting some perspective on why they have so many children :/ We as a race do tend to grow faster than our support system can handle... then engineer ourselves solutions to extend our existence :/ |
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