I saw this interesting article posted over at GICC. My questing is this: Will those of us living in the Midwest go to war with those who live in the Southwest when they try to take "our" water just so they can have lush green lawns and golf courses?

Monday, July 9, 2001

Parched Southwest cast envious eye at Midwest

By Tim Martin Lansing State Journal

Folks are flocking to Nevada faster than any other state. And if the pace continues, there might not be enough water for all of them.

Wells are running dry near Pahrump, a desert town 60 miles west of Las Vegas, as residents withdraw water faster than nature replenishes the supply. Some of the region's wells are flowing with just 5 percent as much force as a few decades ago.

Nevada and other portions of the Southwest - the fastest-growing region in the nation - are the shortest on water. There could come a day when the Great Lakes region - with 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply - comes under pressure to share the wealth.

"I see that happening, somehow, sometime," said Tom Buqo, a hydrologist based in Blue Diamond, Nev. "Demographers say the people are going to keep coming. We'll have to get the water from somewhere."

Nevada's population grew 66 percent in the 1990s, dwarfing the U.S. average of 13 percent. Pahrump, a town of about 25,000, uses about 9.8 billion gallons of water each year - about 10 percent more than is naturally replaced by rainfall.

It'll get worse before it gets better. Pahrump's population could quadruple in the next 50 years, urban planners say.

The town already is planning ways to tap water supplies 30 miles away. But the hunt is complicated because some available water might be on federally protected lands, or worse, located near an old nuclear weapon test site that scientists expect will sooner or later contaminate possible drinking water supplies.

Buqo says hydrologists are literally searching for the last drop of water in Nye County.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Colorado, Southern California and West Texas are among the other sites ranking as the thirstiest in the United States.

States are studying how to better distribute their own water supplies within their borders. Texas A&M researchers, for example, say the state should have enough water to supply its own population for another 50 years.

"It's just not in the right places," said Charles Gilliland, a university researcher.

The western half of Texas is the most needy, researchers say. State officials have debated ways to tap the Mississippi River region for extra water, but those efforts have stalled.

Nevada and Southern California want bigger portions of water from the Colorado River for its populations.

Other states likely would tap the Missouri and Ohio rivers before directly tapping the Great Lakes because they are closer to the neediest areas.

And while not as severe, there are potential water shortages in communities closer to Great Lakes shores.

The city of Akron is involved in a court fight to sell some of its water to suburbs lying just outside the Great Lakes plain.

Last month, the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission reported 12 townships could face water shortages by 2020. The rapidly growing region, including much of Kane County, is just outside the Chicago region already served by Lake Michigan - a network including 200 communities and private utilities.

Use of the water is limited by a Supreme Court ruling and an agreement between states bordering the Great Lakes. But as the population climbs and the available water supply drops, pressure to tap the world's largest fresh water reserves will grow.

"We want your water," Buqo said of the Great Lakes' bountiful supply. "We're running out in lots of places."

http://www.lsjxtra.com/news/010709OTHER0.9.html

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Answers

Well, Jim, it sure IS worrisome. However, having just read the post by David before this, I am hesitant to say much about it. We've had the controversies before: Is it TOO MANY people or TOO MUCH wasting of "resources"? Then there's a big fight about it. That's depressing.

Maybe I can talk about here "at home" where water still seems to be abundant. No one seems too interested in conserving water around here, except for whatever impact it may have on their water bill. I remember having a drought here in 1988. I watered my lawn extensively (I was still using a lawn service with chemical treatments and synthetic fertilizers, and they recommended the watering). My bill was huge, and I was really cheesed off that I was billed commensurate sewer charges for the water used, since that water was NOT going into the sewer, it went into the ground! But that's a digression.

Here, if you don't water the grass during a drought, it gets dry and brown, but the roots are still alive, they're just dormant. It comes back green when the rain returns. Yes, it's stressful for the grass. But the grass is not native to this area, which will have longish dry spells. I hope the grass specialists keep working on the low-water, slow growing species, and I hope they replace the waterhog grasses so common now.

I just spent four days out in the country (in my area) at a place where all the open areas are planted in native grasses and prairie plants. The trees and bushes, for the most part, are natives (there are the ubiquitous but non-native common buckthorn and Tartarian honeysuckle). It's just as dry out there, and guess what? None of the plants are wilting or looking stressed. The only downside was that there are ticks out there. I found one getting ready to chow down on me -- fortunately a woodtick, not a deertick (which carry Lyme's disease).

But still, people insist on having their extensive landscaping and expanses of lawn. We do have an abundance of water (for now). But why waste it? Not to mention all the time spent on it. I'm not objecting to small areas of plantings that need extra care. I have an "heirloom" forsythia bush myself, and you bet I give that extra water in the dry times. But this large scale wastage of water for the lawns and gasoline for the mowers to cut it just makes me shudder!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Don't feel lonesome, Central Florida is running out of water too. As a matter of fact the area just west of Orlando now had gained dirt bike pathes and tracks where the water used to be. 33% of the population is foreign born and they just keep comming. Developers keep paying off politican and lawyers, citrus groves have failed due to lack of water. So they bring on the bulldozers, put in more houses, widen the tax base, completely unchecked. It is so severe that water management is planning on pumping sewage into the aquifier just to try to keep it from failing totally. Welcome to Florida, our most resently formed desert.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

There's been plans for years to run water from the Columbia down to California. There's stuff even off the drawing boards. However, they will have to come get it! I doubt that anyone will let them even get close b/c first they'll have to get through Oregon. With the drought in the Klamath Basin, though, the Oregonions might just join up with the Californians....that would be a first!

We don't water our lawn and as mentioned myriad times, we also harvest rain water off our roofs. This year, I am starting a perennial garden. Probably the dumbest year I could consider it, but I have the time and inclination. I am trying to select hardy perennials, though. I just need more watering this year to help them get established.

On a side note, our water district guy was just here this morning. Mr. S. had called them last night b/c our water delivery was "pulsing"...no problems this a.m., though, and when I asked him about any water restrictions, he just replied that it is recommended to water every third day, just like the publication we received this spring indicated. Guess that cool spring and more snow helped out a lot.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Well heck, Joy. If us so-called leftist, touch-feely, enviro whacko watermelons can't talk about these issues on our own forum then I don't know where we'll talk about them. ;-D

The two threads where people got a little snippy recently here on BTS didn't devolve into extreme nastiness, IMO. I would have stepped in if the need had arose and reminded people to be civil, but I didn't think it was necessary because folks calmed down and - for the most part - apologized for their behavior. That was good because it shows that people *can* act like civilized adults when they care to.

I really don't want BTS to be a rival to Countryside (with us *only* talking about homesteading issues and nothing else). I really created this forum so that us "eccentrics/free thinkers" could talk about things that may not always have a direct bearing on homesteading (although homesteading issues/questions are fine here, too).

It was my hope that the Freedom forum would allow conservatively- leaning people the same opportunity to talk about their issues that were important to them, too. That way Countryside could move back to dealing with specific homesteading issues without devolving into warfare every couple of months. Am I naive (sp?) for thinking this?

What do the rest of you on this forum think about this? Am I wrong in my assumptions about this being a wide-ranging issues forum? Is BTS a homesteading only forum or is it a place where we can talk about a myriad of things that interests us - even if we don't all agree on the particulars? I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts on this matter...

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

I must have posted at the same time that mitch and sheepish posted because I didn't see either of your posts when I hit the submit button...

Sheepish: We don't currently harvest rainwater but it's definitely in our future plans. We've been without *any* rain now for over three weeks and I'm starting to get a wee bit worried. I've been using well water to water the vegetable beds but I really don't like doing that for various reasons. My hope is to eventually collect rain off of our garage roof and store it in large tanks to use later in the season when the rains inevitably go away.

We're following the *exact* same weather pattern this year as the last three years. We get heavy rain (too much rain, really) in the Spring and then practically nothing in Summer or Fall. We've also been having temps in the upper 80's to low 90's for quite a while now, too. When it comes to rain it's been feast or famine these last few years...

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

I should add that we don't water our grass, either. Why would I want to water my lawn just so I can turn around and spend six hours cutting it? Ack!

And that's something else that has GOT to change quickly for us. We want to put more of the lawn into native plantings to eliminate as much grass cutting as possible! It is one of my least favorite "jobs" on our homestead...

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Jim sez:
Well heck, Joy. If us so-called leftist, touch-feely, enviro whacko watermelons can't talk about these issues on our own forum then I don't know where we'll talk about them. ;-D

The two threads where people got a little snippy recently here on BTS didn't devolve into extreme nastiness, IMO. I would have stepped in if the need had arose and reminded people to be civil, but I didn't think it was necessary because folks calmed down and - for the most part - apologized for their behavior. That was good because it shows that people *can* act like civilized adults when they care to.

Point taken, Jim. Besides, we can always turn fascist and delete any posts we don't like! :-P Okay, folks, that's sort of a joke -- I wouldn't do that without consulting with Jim and Cindy first!

So, I'll say what I was thinking the first time -- we have WAY too many people and we all use way too many resources, some of us more than others, admittedly. Yep, this will probably be unpopular, but I think even the most earth-sparing amongst us could trim down their use of resources. Which is not to denigrate any of the more frugal -- at least they're trying. I sure need improvement myself. I keep working on it.

Modern culture is against us at every turn and makes the changing more difficult. I wish everyone would read Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and wake up to what we're doing.

Oh ARGH! I'm the one getting upset now -- I think I'll go pet the dog!

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Jeez, gone for a couple a days and theres something I missed I guess. Which threads are ya'll talkin about?

Jim: I like BTS just the way it is but the more folks that come here the greater likelyhood there will be of spats.

And that leads to the thread topic and Joys comments. I agree---too many people in too small of an area but with that in mind you'd think the "immigrants" would be able to see they're stressing the infrastructure and local environment and would take steps to conserve water and other resources but self restraint and "sacrifice" ain't the American way.

Here in Wisc there was a big hoopla about Perrier drilling into a big aquifer in Adams Co for a new bottling plant. There was enuf ruckus here that from what I understand Perrier pulled out.

As to taking water from the Great Lakes, I recall not too long ago that Japan was thinking about getting water out of the Great Lakes and tanking it to Japan. I think that was squashed by the great lakes governors. I hope they'll have the guts to do the same for others who wanna do the same.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Oh, I HOPE that Perrier is gone for good!!! Who needs them!?!? Not us. And I was really cheesed that the state was going to PAY them, in effect, to come in and please pump out millions of gallons of water and package it up in plastic (fossil fuel...) disposable bottles to ship all over the world to make a big profit for Perrier. The PR people were trying the big snow job about how it would add a whopping 200 or so jobs to Wisconsin's economy. Quite a drop in the bucket, pardon the pun, compared to what they'd be taking out in terms of lowering the water tables. I heard that either Perrier or another company had tried a similar deal with buying up a lake in Minnesota, and they put the brakes on that one. Last Iheard, the company had gone to Canada and bought up a lake from them to pump the water out and sell.

It will also be interesting, given the problems last year with Great Lakes shipping and the low water situation in the Lakes, as to what will transpire. Boats (the big shipping and ore boats, not dinky little pleasure craft) couldn't get to the docks because there wasn't enough water in the lakes. Not that the southwest would care about commerce in the midwest or the people living here.

On the other hand, there are a lot of abuses of the Lakes locally, like using it as a sewer for the cities along the shore. Perhaps they could stick a pipe in to suck out the sewage going into the lakes and send that on off to Florida, etc. Hearing about Florida pumping SEWAGE into the aquafir is one of the most disturbing things that I've heard in a while. Ah yes. Growth for the sake of growth - - the ideology of the cancer cell.

It was also interesting to me (or maybe depressing is a better word) when I visited a friend in California in the San Francisco area and she was complaining bitterly about how those people over in Arizona were stealing THEIR water. I was perplexed by that one, and I asked what in the world they would want to pump seawater to Arizona for. No, not seawater, the freshwater out of the river. I couldn't remember anything about any big rivers in California and said so. The Colorado River. I asked if that didn't come out of Colorado? Well, yes it did. Then I supposed that it must be COLORADO's water, and they could sell it to whoever they liked. That didn't seem to penetrate -- California had always gotten their water from Colorado and now Arizona was diverting THEIR water. I have heard it postulated that the next wars will be fought for water, and I don't doubt it.

Well, aside from depressing myself on that note, just what the heck WAS that intended insult about watermelons all about anyway? I guess I haven't kept up my subscription to Insulter's Quarterly, or whatever.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

julie: From what I can deduce, a "watermelon" is someone who is green on the outside (eco-lover) and red on the inside (communist). Don't ask me where that definition came from because I don't have the foggiest clue... :-/

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Seedy or seedless?

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Julie, it actually *is* California's water, in all likelihood! The allocation of this resource was decided in a way that would make us all appalled at the stealth and dastardliness of it. Talk about the ideology of a cancer cell! The way S. California (i.e.: Los Angeles) got it's water is just freaky....stealing the water from Owen's Valley and grabbing up a big chunk of the Colorado. Great for real estate values, though.... Read "Cadillac Desert " by Marc Reisner for the story of water in the West (U.S.) ( I have mentioned this before as a great book, and one that I actually made time to read!) Or if you are less inclined to do so, just re-rent "Chinatown" with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway (one of my favorite movies) for a Hollywood version, at least the L.A. part of the story, more or less.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Seedy or seedless?

LOL! I have no answer to that question, sheepish. :-D

BTW, thread drift warning here. You mentioned Cadillac Desert (which I'm putting on my "to read" list) so I'll throw out a book recommendation, too:

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

From Amazon's review:

On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry's drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America's diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world's largest flavor company) and "what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns." Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is--literally--feces in your meat.

Schlosser's investigation reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants as he reveals the almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. His searing portrayal of the industry is disturbingly similar to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, written in 1906: nightmare working conditions, union busting, and unsanitary practices that introduce E. coli and other pathogens into restaurants, public schools, and homes. Almost as disturbing is his description of how the industry "both feeds and feeds off the young," insinuating itself into all aspects of children's lives, even the pages of their school books, while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. Fortunately, Schlosser offers some eminently practical remedies. "Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior," he writes. Where to begin? Ask yourself, is the true cost of having it "your way" really worth it?

I *highly* recommend this book...

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Yikes!!! I too scared to read that book, Jim! The review is pretty thrilling in and of itself! Actually, it looks like a very good read. I'll put myself on the reserve list at the library when we get back from vacation mid-August.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2001

Hi, Sheepish, You mentioned the proposal to pipe Columbia River water down to so cal. You also implied that Oregon would have objections to doing so, and between the lines, it sounded like you thought Washington State would be the one selling the water to socal.

Who do you suppose "owns" the water in the Columbia? I've never paid much attention to what the water rights laws are between Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, much less the federal fish cops.

Personally, I'll never suggest that we try to tap into it, down here in so. Oregon. More water seems to equal more people, here in the west. And we've got plenty of people already, as far as I'm concerned.

As a matter of fact, I'm in favor of sending water to SoCal from the Rogue River. Yep. But only at the point where it's about to get mixed into the ocean, and only when the flow is high enough to send them some without doing any ecological damage.

I'd charge them plenty for it, too: enough to improve our school system, maybe smaller classes, and maybe enough for a few other good projects as well.

The problem is, as I see it, that the Californicators will start migrating here even faster than they already are, if they run short of water down there. Let's keep them supplied.

If you want to ace us Oregonicators out on this, and steal my plan, and send the LAites some of the Columbia, be my guest. The Rogue is closer, though!

JOJ

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

JOJ: Well, actually, *I* own the water in the Columbia! Okay...I don't know for sure! I think the salmon do, at the moment. Seriously, I would imagine that BC, WA, and OR own it together, but I have no idea how it's allocated. ID has a big stake in the Snake, which is a big trib., so maybe they have some downstream rights.

I just thought OR would never want to do any favors for CA! (But I know that's not true b/c of the reciprocity for power anyway.) So much for humor!

Say, what's the latest on those Klamath farmers? And the sheriff who let them spill the water? That's not particularly funny!

And how's the fire danger down your way? Did Hendo get moved?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

I thought Hendo was going to move up the road from me a year or two ago. Is he really moving this time?

I'm pretty amazed about the Klamath farmers. Today I read that the cops that be, even the fish cops, stood by while the farmers installed a pump, and bypassed five or ten cfs around the gates. They said something like people's safety was more important than fish. Interesting. I wish they would take that attitude when dealing with other criminals, especially victimless criminals.

Here's George Dubya: Hey, like, we should arrest you for smoking that bowl, but since you might get violent, and maybe get hurt, we'll just ignore your illegal smoking problem. Have a nice day!

Or: Hey, dude, you can't steal money from this bank, dude! Oh, well, I guess it's ok this one time; wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, or even offended. What would dad do?

I didn't say I was willing to do any FAVORS for the Californicators, sheepish. I said I'd be willing to sell them water, after we're all done with it. For a small fee. Or not so small. Heh heh.

JOJ

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001