Let Them Drink Almonds: How California Is Exporting Its Most Precious Commodity, Water, to China

The recent reports underlining the true severity of California’s water shortage brought on by prolonged drought have inspired the state’s lawmakers to consider severe rationing of water to homes and businesses, especially limiting the use of water for home landscaping. While any water saving is laudable and important, an East Bay Express article explains that the state’s real water gluttons, corporate farmers, are seldom mentioned when cutbacks are proposed.  Below is an excerpt from the article.–Hardly Waite.

Environmentalists say the proposed regulations fail to address the state’s largest water waster: Big Agribusiness. In fact, California’s agricultural interests use 80 percent of the available water in the state each year (even though they represent just 2 percent of California’s economy). “But there’s no target [reduction] for agricultural use,” noted Tom Stokely, a water policy analyst for the nonprofit California Water Impact Network. Instead, Stokely pointed out that the state is just targeting urban and suburban water users in its rationing plan, even though they only consume about 20 percent of the California’s available water each year.

It’s one of the great illusions in the Golden State. When we think of wasting water, we think of emerald lawns, lush gardens, and backyard swimming pools. And while it’s true that many households and businesses are still wasting lots of water — and we need tougher rules to stop them — the true water wasters are large agricultural interests that are increasingly growing water-intensive crops, particularly almonds, in extremely dry sections of California, including the western San Joaquin Valley (see “California’s Thirsty Almonds,” 2/5/14).

In the past decade, the number of almond orchards in the state has grown by roughly 50 percent — primarily because tree nuts are highly profitable for farmers. And while growing nuts in the wetter northern Central Valley makes sense, it is irresponsible to plant tens of thousands of acres of almond trees in areas that don’t have enough water.

According to state data, California’s almond crop now consumes more water than all outdoor watering combined. You read that right. Even if every Californian stopped watering their gardens tomorrow, it would not save as much water that which is used for almonds in the state. “As a consumer, it makes you ask, ‘Why should I conserve water when they’re planting 40,000 acres of almonds in the desert?'” Stokely said.

Environmentalists, however, are concerned the current record-drought conditions will only lead to dumber decisions about water. They’re worried that instead of calling for the end of water-intensive farming in the desert, Governor Jerry Brown and state water officials will double-down on their plan to build two giant water tunnels underneath the delta so that it will be easier to ship Northern California water to the dry San Joaquin Valley. “They don’t want to do what really needs to be done,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of the conservation group Restore the Delta, referring to ending water-wasting practices by Big Ag in California.

Environmentalists are also concerned that Brown and other centrist Democrats, such as US Senator Dianne Feinstein, will join with Republicans in calling for the weakening of our environmental laws in order to send water shipments to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley — even if it means driving some fish species to extinction. “At what point to we accept that we’re overusing a limited supply?” said Bill Jennings, executive director of the conservation group California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.

For their part, agricultural interests have argued that they shouldn’t be subject to rationing because they’re too important to the state. After all, they say, how would we eat without the state’s bountiful farms?

But environmentalists rightly note that no one is calling for a cutback on water use for the state’s essential food supplies. The problem is the water wasted on non-essential crops. Right now, California is producing far more almonds than state residents can consume. So much so that at least 70 percent of the state’s almond crop is now exported — much of it to China. In other words, we’re essentially exporting our water to China.

That’s absurd. And if Governor Brown and California water officials are ever going to get serious about conserving water, then they need to abandon crazy business practices — like growing water-intensive crops in the desert and spending $25 billion on water tunnels to make it happen so we can sell more nuts to China. That’s especially true now that we’ve only got one year of water left.

Reference: “California Targets Wrong Water Wasters,” East Bay Express.

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Our new AerMax installation kit mounts the air pump on the tank itself. 

The traditional AerMax that we’ve sold for many years now comes with an optional installation kit. With the traditional AerMax unit, the air pump is wall mounted beside the treatment tank.  The new optional installation system, pictured above, allows the air pump to be installeed on top of the tank itself, providing a more compact, vibration-free mounting.  The vertical mount system is now available, as is a timer control that makes installation much easier than previously.  Please call 940 382 2814 for details.

 

Death of the lush, green lawn

by Jim Hightower

Introductory Note:  Unlike High, whom you’ll meet below, I have never been addicted to the lush lawn.  In fact, I take some pride in being way ahead my time in this.  Many years ago, when lawn adoration was virtually a social necessity, watering, mowing, and bagging grass were never among my interests. I have always mowed just enough to keep Code Enforcement from my door. Several years ago our city government started an anti-bagging campaign to save landfill space. They actually gave awards and cash prizes to people who swore off bagging. There was no award for me, who have never in my life bagged a single blade of grass. Nor have I ever received an award for not watering my lawn or for not mowing it, though these save water and energy and reduce pollution. Being ahead of one’s time isn’t easy.–Gene Franks.

My father was an early member of a group now known disparagingly as “ultra-lawn people.”

“High,” as everyone called him, was dedicated, body and soul, to the Sisyphean task of trying to maintain a lawn full of lush St. Augustine grass in hot, dry Texas. He planted, watered, fertilized, watered, mowed, watered, fought bugs and brown patch, watered, re-planted, watered… ad nauseum. Some years he won, in other years, nature rolled him.

High departed his lawn and this Earth well before climate change turned Texas from merely hot & dry into scorched & parched. I know he would’ve denied it at first, but I think even he would’ve finally given in to today’s new reality: In our drought-ravaged Southwest, the lush lawn is dead. Literally and ethically.

From Texas to Southern California, city after city is adapting to nature. They’re policing neighborhoods to impose big fines on excessive lawn watering, paying homeowners and businesses to rip out grass and replace it with desertscapes, and even outlawing grass yards in new developments. And, it’s working. A pioneering 2003 turf-removal rebate program in Las Vegas, for example, has now pulled 168 million feet of thirsty lawn grass out of the area, saved more than 9 billion gallons of water, and cut water use by a third, even as the population has mushroomed.

Such an effort would’ve been treated as heresy only a decade ago, but now it’s simply considered the right thing to do. This is not merely an environmental adjustment, but a fundamental ethical shift, especially among younger people. The idea that green lawns are exercises in ecological narcissism has taken root in this arid and politically conservative region – demonstrating that conservatism really can be about conserving. Mother Nature and future generations will be grateful.

Source: JimHightower.com.

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Is Science’s “More Is More” Bias Skewing our Understanding of BPA?

by Gene Franks

A recent Newsweek article (“BPA Is Fine, If You Ignore Most Studies About It”) reveals the telling fact that eleven of eleven chemical industry funded studies on the safety of BPA, the much suspected ingredient of things from plastic water bottles, to tin can liners, to heated copy papers, have found BPA to be perfectly safe, while 109 of 119 studies that had no industry funding (92 percent) found bad effects from BPA.

The outcome of the industry-financed research comes as no surprise; we’ve come to expect researchers to become the whores of whoever is paying the bill. Nor is it surprising that findings on BPA become confused and meaningless because of Big Science’s stubborn refusal to put aside one of its sacred beliefs–the unquestioned assumption that large doses of any substance are more powerful than smaller doses.  The Newsweek author, Douglas Main, explains:

Several dozen studies in the past five years or so have found average human blood serum levels of BPA in the low range, around 1 part per billion (ppb). Many of the negative health effects in animal studies have been shown to occur at these levels, says Laura Vandenberg, who researches endocrine disruptors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. But the established methods for testing the toxicity of substances—the degree to which they can harm the human body—assume that the toxic impact is more or less proportional to the amount ingested. Endocrine disruptors like BPA, which act like hormones, don’t “play by the rules,” says Patricia Hunt, a geneticist at Washington State University. Hormones can have very different effects at low and high levels. An estrogenic chemical can induce cell growth at low levels but inhibit it at high concentrations, for example. Regulatory agencies have begun to recognize this but still “keep relying on standard toxicology tests,” Hunt says.

The FDA has recently concluded that there is not sufficient evidence linking BPA to behavior disorders like hyperactivity and obesity for it to be banned, although “to date, there have been around 1,000 animal studies on BPA, and the vast majority show that it causes or is linked to many health problems, from alterations in fertility to increased risk for cancers and cardiovascular problems to impaired brain development.”

What kills more women than AIDS and breast cancer? Dirty water.

By Maria Caspani

Diseases spread through dirty water and poor sanitation are the fifth biggest killer of women worldwide, causing more deaths than AIDS, diabetes or breast cancer, researchers say.

Nearly 800,000 women die every year because they lack access to safe toilets and clean water, said the development organization WaterAid, which analyzed data from the Seattle-based Institute of Health Metrics research center.

“This completely unacceptable situation affects women and girls’ education, their health, their dignity and ultimately, in too many cases, results in an early and needless death,” WaterAid CEO Barbara Frost said in a statement.

The only conditions more fatal for women than the lack of decent sanitation are heart disease, stroke, lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the report.

More than 1 billion women, or one in three women around the world, do not have access to a safe, private toilet, while 370 million – one in 10 – do not have access to clean water, according to WaterAid.

More than 2 billion people gained access to clean water between 1990 and 2012, but nearly 750 million remain still lack what the United Nations recognizes as a human right.

Dirty water and poor sanitation are at the root of problems such as maternal and child mortality, and sexual violence.

Many women in developing countries give birth at home without access to clean water, exposing themselves and their babies to infections.

Without safe toilets, women and girls have to venture outdoors to relieve themselves, often at night, putting them at risk of sexual harassment and assault.

Moreover, in many poor countries fetching water is considered a the responsibility of women and girls, who spend hours each day trekking to and from wells, keeping them from attending school or caring for their families.

Source: Reuters.

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Installing the Bottom Drain in the Vortech Dome Hole Bottom Drain Tank from Pure Water Products

Referring to the pictures will make the installation easier.

 

After the tank has been removed from the box,

 

1. Lay the tank on its side on a table and remove the base from the bottom of the tank. This is usually accomplished easily by tapping downward on the base with a small hammer. Work around the circumference of the base, tapping until the base comes off.

 

2. Install the IN/OUT tank head (it should have a plug preinstalled in the “out” port) into the bottom hole of the tank and tighten until you have a firm fit. (Get it as tight as you want it now, because when the base is in place, it will be difficult to tighten it more.) Do not tape the threads on the tank head. The seal is made by the O ring on the head. The easy way to tighten the head is to screw the 5″ pipe nipple temporarily into the empty (IN) port of the head to use as a handle. Remove the nipple when the head is installed.

 

3. When the head is installed, put the base back on the tank. Be sure that the hole in the In/Out head is centered in one of the windows on the base, because you’re going to have to install the valve assembly through the window. The easy way to reinstall the base is to start it in the correct position, then set it upright and tap it against the floor. The weight of the tank will drive the tank into the base.

 

4. Assemble the remainder of the system. using teflon tape on all threads. The metal garden hose fitting can be installed if you want to hook to a garden hose; if you prefer to hook to a pipe, leave the garden hose fitting off.

 

The ball valve should stay in the off position (with handles at right angles with the pipe). To drain the tank, turn off the inlet water, remove the “dome hole” plug near the top of the tank to release the vacuum, and open the drain valve.

 

The bottom drain assembly installed.

View from the bottom.  

How the pieces go together.

 

Water loss: seven things you need to know about an invisible global problem

by Sarah LaBecque

A staggering 46bn litres of drinking water are lost globally every day. What can consumers, business and governments do?

  Iraqis fill drinking water and wash clothes at a broken water pipeline in a Shia district of Sadr City, Baghdad. 

While concerns over water conservation, access and hygiene feature high on the news agenda, the problem of water loss often gets overlooked. Yet this vital issue affects millions of lives. A recent live discussion hosted by Guardian Sustainable Business looked at the role business and government should play in addressing global water loss and where things are set to go next. Here’s what you need to know.

What do we mean when we talk about water loss?

Water loss is often referred to as non-revenue water (NRW) – water that is produced in a network but never reaches the consumer. This might be due to aging networks which haven’t been properly managed, metering inaccuracies, theft or unmetered authorised consumption, like water used from fire hydrants.

It’s not a problem restricted only to the developing world either – Montreal, for example, loses 40% of the water it produces (pdf).

But Louise Whiting from WaterAid was keen to make sure the word “lost” is properly defined. “Very often”, she said, “water is used but then returned to the system in virtually the same quantity”.

So when we speak of water loss in an industrial sense, we’re referring to that which is not returned to the system through natural processes like, for example through plant transpiration.

There isn’t a one-size fits all reason which explains water loss

Plain, old-fashioned leaky pipes have much to answer for in explaining why NRW costs utilities about $14bn (£9bn) per year, but Marco Fantozzi, water loss regional representative for south east Europe for the International Water Association, says not all NRW is due to leakage.

Distribution systems in many parts of the world are not efficient enough, he says, and there is a lack of “state of the art technologies, not enough awareness of best practice methodologies and not enough training”.

So addressing this global issue means looking at infrastructure, but also at utilities, and if they’re embracing new technologies and investing in staff training.

Newer cities might have better rates of loss as well, like in the US where most distribution systems are younger than 100 years. These systems “may have less loss due to improved materials of construction and better construction techniques”, said Dale Jacobson, governor of the World Water Council.

Consumers have a part to play in this issue

In the UK, the majority of consumers feel that their utility is not doing enough to reduce leakage – 70% in fact, according to Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water. This perspective in turn affects consumers’ motivation to conserve water themselves.

“Two thirds of water customers feel their efforts to save water make little difference when so much is being lost through leakage”, offered Smith. At the end of the day, industrial water loss is a public policy issue which must be addressed by business and government, but consumers can put the pressure on. And they can do their part when it comes to conserving water at home and when on holiday.

Governments should be imposing targets on utilities to reduce losses

In the UK, OfWat, which is responsible for regulating water usage, has targets in place which water companies must meet as regards water loss reductions. Fantozzi mentioned that this was something European governments should be replicating. “UK utilities are in general more efficient than the average European utility,” he said.

The very fact that water loss isn’t a widely known or understood problem means policymakers and government need to integrate targets into country and international-level agreements, but political will sometimes lacks.

Technologies and solutions are available

First of all, you must address the more “low-hanging fruits” – active leakage control and pressure management, said Morten Riis, business development manager at Grundfos. Maintaining stable pressure in pipes within a distribution network “has proven to have a positive and immediate effect on reducing the water loss.” And technologies like intelligent water pumps and distributed sensor systems for leak detection offer great opportunities for efficiency improvements.

Jacobson also highlighted water audit programs offered by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and the International Water Association (IWA). “The IWA/AWWA Water Audit Method features sound, consistent definitions for the major forms of water consumption and water loss encountered in drinking water utilities. It also features a set of rational performance indicators that evaluate utilities on system-specific attributes such as the average pressure in the distribution system and total length of water mains.”

The private sector will play an important role in reducing water loss in the developing world

Governments in the developing world don’t necessarily have the financial resources to invest in network infrastructure – their efforts would more likely be centred around issues of hygiene or access. Indeed, Leong Ching, senior research fellow at the Institute of Water Policy, University of Singapore says the likelihood of developing countries being able to finance new and impoved infrastructure developments is slim. 7% of the world’s population was served by private water companies in 2009, whereas that figure is projected as 23% for 2015, she says.

Jacob Tompkins, managing director at WaterWise said: “There is a big role for public-private sector collaboration, but … the key is appropriate regulation of this process – this is where NGO and community group involvement is essential.”

Are corporates getting involved?

Selma Spaas, program leader of the International Water Leadership Programme at Nyenrode Business Universiteit brought up this important question. The burden of managing water loss is often naturally pinned to utilities and government, but corporations can get their feet wet too, or dry in this case. “I won’t mention them by name,” said Smith, but there are “‘major retail household brands’ operating in the UK and overseas” who have done a lot. In an effort to save money and as part of their corporate social responsibility strategy, Smith mentions that supermarkets in particular are communicating to their customers about water conservation.

Hannah Greig, private sector advisor at WaterAid was a bit more sceptical, however. “Corporates are recognising water is an increasing risk but action isn’t yet following at the same pace – and even fewer corporates are including the impact on communities as part of their risk assessments,” she said.

Considering the World Economic Forum ranked water crises as the top global risk in its 2015 Global Risks Report, business would be wise to engage in reducing water loss.

Source: The Guardian.

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 Gazette Technical Wizard Pure Water Annie Takes on the Persistent Questions about TDS Measurement in Home Reverse Osmosis Units

 How do I know when to change my RO membrane?

Some sellers say every two years, other say every three.  Actually, the only really good way to know is to own a TDS tester, test the water from the unit once or twice a year, and change the membrane when the meter tells you it’s time.  Membranes can last many, many years, and there is no reason ever to change a membrane that is performing well.

What does TDS mean, and what’s a TDS meter?

TDS stands for “Total Dissolved Solids.”  It is basically a measurement of all the “solids,” or minerals, dissolved in the water.  The “dissolved solids”  consist mainly of calcium and magnesium (hardness minerals) and sodium, chloride, and sulfate.  A TDS tester for home use is a small electronic tester that measures these solids by passing a weak electrical current through the water and determining how well the water conducts electricity.  The higher the dissolved solids content, the more easily the water conducts electricity and the higher the number shown on the meter.

 

Does my RO unit remove the TDS from the water?

Yes, a healthy RO membrane will normally “reject” 90% or more of the dissolved solids and send them down the drain pipe.  RO units and distillers lower dissolved solids. as do “deionizers.” Filters don’t removed dissolved minerals.  No matter how many sediment filters or carbon filters you run the water through, the TDS reading will remain the same.

Is TDS bad?  How high should it be?

Within the normal range of fresh water, TDS isn’t a big health issue.  The EPA sets a limit of 500 parts per million Total Dissolved Solids as a drinking water standard, but many US cities violate that and their citizens do fine. Obviously, there is a point where water starts tasting bad. This varies depending on which minerals are involved. Naturally soft water with a TDS of 500 that’s mainly sodium, for example, can taste very good.  There is, of course, a limit: sea water is over 30,000 parts per million and is undrinkable. When water gets over 1000 ppm TDS you normally won’t like the way it tastes.

My local tap water is 250 ppm Total Dissolved Solids.  If you’re saying this isn’t “bad for me,” why bother to measure my RO unit’s dissolved solids performance?  What does it matter whether the RO unit reduces the TDS or not?

TDS measurement is the standard way of evaluating overall performance of the RO unit.  The assumption is that if the unit is making a 90% reduction of calcium and sodium, it’s also reducing arsenic and fluoride with equal effectiveness.  As it loses its ability to reduce TDS, it loses its ability to remove chromium. In other words, TDS readings are taken to determine how well the membrane is working.

What does “% rejection” mean?

Percent rejection is a calculation used to express how well the RO unit is working.  It is determined as follows:

TDS of the feed water (determined by testing your tap water at the kitchen sink) minus the TDS of the permeate (the water that comes out of the RO unit’s faucet) divided by the TDS of the feed water and multiplied by 100.

So, for example, if your tap water reads 280 and your RO product water reads 15, you determine the percent rejection of the RO unit by subtracting 15 from 280 to get 265, dividing 265 by 280 to get 0.946, then multiplying by 100 to get 94.6% rejection.  Your RO unit is running well.

You actually don’t have to work through this whole formula to know if you’re RO unit is running well.  If the RO water tests 1/10 or less of the tap water, it’s doing fine. If your tap TDS is 280 and the RO water reads 28 or less, leave the membrane alone.

At what TDS reading should you change the membrane?

That’s a personal choice and there isn’t a specific answer that fits all situations.  Consider, for example, that if your tap water TDS is only 65  you might want to cut your membrane some slack and not stick strictly to the 10% rule.

Are there factors that affect TDS readings that should be considered?  

First, never test your TDS immediately after changing your filters.  You’ll get an artificially high reading because of impurities that your eye can’t see being put out by the new post filter.  Also, keep in mind that cold water reads lower than warm and a stopped up pre-filter can rob the membrane of pressure and diminish its performance. Lots of things can affect TDS readings, so don’t pull the plug on your membrane if you get one bad test reading.

 

Major Study in Great Britain Links Fluoride in Water to Hypothyroidism, and A New US Study Links Fluoride ot ADHD in the United States

Gazette Introductory Note: A bad week for promoters of water fluoridation saw two significant research publications.  One, from the prestigious British Medical Journal, reported a significant increase in hypothyroidism in fluoridated areas in the UK as compared with unflouoridated; the second, from the journal Environmental Health, revealed a rise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder  (ADHD) in American children exposed to artificial water fluoridation.  These studies both received wide press attention at a time when fluoridation is being rejected or discontinued in a growing number of American cities.–Hardly Waite.

A major new fluoridation study was published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health–a British Medical Journal (BMJ) publication—and it has already received major media attention.  The study, entitled Are fluoride levels in drinking water associated with hypothyroidism prevalence in England?  A large observational study of GP practice data and fluoride levels in drinking water, is the first study to ever look at fluoridation and hypothyroidism in a large population (in this case, England).  The study found a relatively strong and statistically significant effect, with General Practice (GP) areas being 62% more likely to have high rates of diagnosed hypothyroidism if their drinking water fluoride levels were above 0.7ppm compared to areas with fluoride levels below 0.3ppm.  This was after researchers had accounted for key variable, which are other factors that influence hypothyroid rates.

In an additional comparison of two large metropolitan regions, one that is artificially fluoridated at a level of about 1.0 ppm (greater Birmingham area), and the other which is nearby and similar demographics but is not artificially fluoridated (greater Manchester), the study found a 94% greater probability that GPs in fluoridated Birmingham would have high hypothyroidism rates compared to Manchester.

For all of England, the prevalence rate of hypothyroidism was almost 10% greater in.those GPs with higher fluoride levels compared to those with lowest levels .

The findings led to the researchers calling for a “rethink of public health policy to fluoridate the water supply,” adding “consideration needs to be given to reducing fluoride exposure, and public dental health interventions should stop [those] reliant on ingested fluoride and switch to topical fluoride-based and non-fluoride-based interventions.”

Read the report of the study.

Additional studies on thyroid and fluoride:

Here are other media articles reporting on the BJJ study:

-The Telegraph, Fluoride in drinking water may trigger depression and weight gain, warn scientists

-Newsweek, Water fluoridation may increase risk of underactive thyroid disorder

-The Yorkshire Post, Fluoride in water increases risk of thyroid illness ‘by 30 per cent’

-Boots WebMD (Boots is the largest pharmacy in the UK), Scientists call for rethink on fluoride in water

-The Telegraph, The extent of water fluoridation in the UK

Just when you thought we wouldn’t get any more bombshells this week, a study was published later in the week linking fluoridation to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the United States.

The study entitled, “Exposure to fluoridated water and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder prevalence among children and adolescents in the United States: an ecological association,” was published in the journal Environmental Health.  According to the authors:

“State prevalence of artificial water fluoridation in 1992 significantly positively predicted state prevalence of ADHD in 2003, 2007 and 2011, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.

A multivariate regression analysis showed that after socioeconomic status was controlled each 1% increase in artificial fluoridation prevalence in 1992 was associated with approximately 67,000 to 131,000 additional ADHD diagnoses from 2003 to 2011. Overall state water fluoridation prevalence (not distinguishing between fluoridation types) was also significantly positively correlated with state prevalence of ADHD for all but one year examined.

Conclusions: Parents reported higher rates of medically-diagnosed ADHD in their children in states in which a greater proportion of people receive fluoridated water from public water supplies.” 

Reference: Fluoride Action Network.

A Thirsty, Violent World

by Michael Specter

 

Angry protesters filled the streets of Karachi last week, clogging traffic lanes and public squares until police and paratroopers were forced to intervene. That’s not rare in Pakistan, which is often a site of political and religious violence.

But last week’s protests had nothing to do with freedom of expression, drone wars, or Americans. They were about access to water. When Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Minister of Defense, Power, and Water (yes, that is one ministry), warned that the country’s chronic water shortages could soon become uncontrollable, he was looking on the bright side. The meagre allotment of water available to each Pakistani is a third of what it was in 1950. As the country’s population rises, that amount is falling fast.

 

Dozens of other countries face similar situations—not someday, or soon, but now. Rapid climate change, population growth, and a growing demand for meat (and, thus, for the water required to grow feed for livestock) have propelled them into a state of emergency. Millions of words have been written, and scores of urgent meetings have been held, since I last wrote about this issue for the magazine, nearly a decade ago; in that time, things have only grown worse.

The various physical calamities that confront the world are hard to separate, but growing hunger and the struggle to find clean water for billions of people are clearly connected. Each problem fuels others, particularly in the developing world—where the harshest impact of natural catastrophes has always been felt. Yet the water crisis challenges even the richest among us.

California is now in its fourth year of drought, staggering through its worst dry spell in twelve hundred years; farmers have sold their herds, and some have abandoned crops. Cities have begun rationing water. According to the London-based organization Wateraid, water shortages are responsible for more deaths in Nigeria than Boko Haram; there are places in India where hospitals have trouble finding the water required to sterilize surgical tools.

Nowhere, however, is the situation more acute than in Brazil, particularly for the twenty million residents of São Paulo. “You have all the elements for a perfect storm, except that we don’t have water,” a former environmental minister told Lizzie O’Leary, in a recent interview for the syndicated radio show “Marketplace.” The country is bracing for riots. “There is a real risk of social convulsion,” José Galizia Tundisi, a hydrologist with the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, warned in a press conference last week. He said that officials have failed to act with appropriate urgency. “Authorities need to act immediately to avoid the worst.” But people rarely act until the crisis is directly affecting them, and at that point it will be too late.

It is not that we are actually running out of water, because water never technically disappears. When it leaves one place, it goes somewhere else, and the amount of freshwater on earth has not changed significantly for millions of years. But the number of people on the planet has grown exponentially; in just the past century, the population has tripled, and water use has grown sixfold. More than that, we have polluted much of what remains readily available—and climate change has made it significantly more difficult to plan for floods and droughts.

Success is part of the problem, just as it is with the pollution caused by our industrial growth. The standard of living has improved for hundreds of millions of people, and the pace of improvement will quicken. As populations grow more prosperous, vegetarian life styles often yield to a Western diet, with all the disasters that implies. The new middle classes, particularly in India and China, eat more protein than they once did, and that, again, requires more water use. (On average, hundreds of gallons of water are required to produce a single hamburger.)

Feeding a planet with nine billion residents will require at least fifty per cent more water in 2050 than we use today. It is hard to see where that water will come from. Half of the planet already lives in urban areas, and that number will increase along with the pressure to supply clean water.

“Unfortunately, the world has not really woken up to the reality of what we are going to face, in terms of the crises, as far as water is concerned,” Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change, said at a conference on water security earlier this month. “If you look at agricultural products, if you look at animal protein, the demand for which is growing—that’s highly water intensive. At the same time, on the supply side, there are going to be several constraints. Firstly because there are going to be profound changes in the water cycle due to climate change.”

Floods will become more common, and so will droughts, according to most assessments of the warming earth. “The twenty-first-century projections make the [previous] mega-droughts seem like quaint walks through the garden of Eden,” Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said recently. At the same time, demands for economic growth in India and other developing nations will necessarily increase pollution of rivers and lakes. That will force people to dig deeper than ever before into the earth for water.

There are ways to replace oil, gas, and coal, though we won’t do that unless economic necessity demands it. But there isn’t a tidy and synthetic invention to replace water. Conservation would help immensely, as would a more rational use of agricultural land—irrigation today consumes seventy per cent of all freshwater.

The result of continued inaction is clear. Development experts, who rarely agree on much, all agree that water wars are on the horizon. That would be nothing new for humanity. After all, the word “rivals” has its roots in battles over water—coming from the Latin, rivalis, for “one taking from the same stream as another.” It would be nice to think that, with our complete knowledge of the physical world, we have moved beyond the limitations our ancestors faced two thousand years ago. But the truth is otherwise; rivals we remain, and the evidence suggests that, until we start dying of thirst, we will stay that way.

Source: The New Yorker.

 

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