United States Facing Climate Change Severe Water Stress / Commodities / Climate Change
Whisky is for Drinking; Water is for Fighting Over
The problemof severe water stress in the United States - and elsewhere - is serious andgetting worse. Water stress is what happens when the demand for water exceedsthe amount available, or when poor quality restricts its use. It most commonlyoccurs in areas where available water supplies have been over-exploited, oftendue to agriculture or urban development.
Depending on diet and lifestyle, a person needs between 2,000 and 5,000litres of water a day to produce their food and meet their drinking andsanitation requirements
Most peopleare unaware that the amount of fresh water globally is extremely limited.Ninety-eight percent of the world’s water is in the oceans – which makes itunfit for drinking or irrigation because of salt. Just 2% of the world’s wateris fresh, but the vast majority of our fresh water, 1.6%, is in a frozen state,locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Our available fresh water (.396%of total supply) is found underground in aquifers and wells (0.36%) and therest of our readily available fresh water, 0.036%, is in lakes and rivers.
A worldwide problem
The WorldWater Development Report warns over 5 billion people could see water shortagesby 2050, leading to conflicts over water unless actions are taken to reducestress on rivers, lakes, wetlands and reservoirs, states The Guardian.
“Whisky is for drinking; water isfor fighting over.”
-Mark Twain
But we don’thave to wait until 2050 to see this is already happening. In 2008 Barcelona,Spain had to ship water in on tankers. People in Melbourne lived under theconstant threat of water cuts during a prolonged drought from 1998 to 2010. In2015 Sao Paulo, Brazil suffered its worst water crisis in a century, with theamount of rainfall cut in half. In October 2014 its main reservoir, Cantareira,was under 7% full - barely enough to last a month.
How Cape Town Defeated Day Zero—for Now
GlobalHealth NOW
This year itwas Cape Town, South Africa’s turn. A combination of population growth,over-development and climate change conspired to bring about the worst droughton record, in the country’s most popular tourist city. Officials warned thatunless drastic conservation measures were taken, by summer the city’s 4 millionresidents would be forced to cue up for drinking water surrounded by armedguards. “Day Zero”, when taps would be turned off due to perilously lowreservoir levels, was originally predicted for July 2018 but has now beenpushed back to 2019.
Cape Town is not alone. In February 2018, The BBC compiled a list of 11 cities with recurring water supply problems.They are: Sao Paulo, Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Moscow, Istanbul,Mexico City, London, Miami and Tokyo.
An estimated 2/3 ofthe world’s population lives in drought conditions for at least one month everyyear.
The problemof water stress is closely connected to climate change. A report from the UNIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes developing countries like Indiaare likely to be worst hit by climate change due to the frequency of droughts,which will lead to water shortages and problems with food production.
For more readour The day they turned off the taps (Part4 of a five-part series on climate change)
TheStockholm International Water Institute has kindly provided some statistics weshould all be aware of:
The10 largest water users (in volume) are India, China, the United States,Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico and the RussianFederation.Withrapid population growth, water withdrawals have tripled over the last 50 years.According to the United NationsDepartment of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the world population ispredicted to grow from 6.9 billion in 2010 to 8.3 billion in 2030 and to 9.1billion in 2050. At the same time, urban populations are projected to increaseby 2.9 billion, to 6.3 billion by 2050. An estimated 90% of the people expectedto be added to the population, by 2050, will be in developing countries, manyin regions already in water stress where the current population does not havesustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.Waterwithdrawals are predicted to increase by 50% by 2025 in developing countries,and by 18% in developed countries.Waterfor irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures onfresh water resources. Agriculture accounts for around 70% of global freshwaterwithdrawals, even up to 90% in some fast-growing economies.Feedingeveryone in 2050 could require 50% more water than is needed now.Thedietary shift from predominantly starch-based food to meat and dairy, whichrequire more water, is the greatest to impact on water consumption over thepast 30 years. Producing one kg of rice requires approximately 3,500 liters ofwater while one kg of beef requires 15,000 liters. Producing that one kg ofmeat requires as much water as an average domestic household uses over 10months (50l/person/day).Estimatesindicate that there will not be enough water available on current croplands toproduce food for the expected population in 2050 if we follow current trendsand changes towards diets common in Western nations (3,000 kcal produced percapita, including 20% of calories produced coming from animal proteins).The US is running out of water
Zeroing in onNorth America, the United States is running out of fresh water resources.According to the EPA, four out of five state water managers expect watershortages in some part of their states over the next decade.(2014 report)
A majorconcern is over water levels in the Ogallala Aquifer under the US Great Plains.The Ogallala is the world's largest known aquifer having an approximate area of450,600 square kilometers and stretches from southern South Dakota throughparts of Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and northernTexas.
TheOgallala Aquifer was formed roughly 10 million years ago when water flowed ontothe plains from retreating glaciers and streams of the Rocky Mountains.
Themain culprit is agriculture - farmers have been drawing water from the aquiferfaster than it can be replaced, and now it’s not being recharged at all.
Fromthe late 19th century until 2005 the US Geological Survey estimates irrigationpulled 253 million acre-feet from the aquifer - about 9% of its total volume.From 2011 to 2017 it reportedly shrank twice as fast as it had over theprevious 60 years. In three leading grain-producing states - Texas, Oklahoma,and Kansas - the underground water table has dropped by more than 30 meters.
Over-useis exacerbated by extended droughts caused by global warming. Precipitation isshifting from the mid-latitudes to the low and high latitudes - wet areas arebecoming wetter and dry areas drier. Less rainfall in the mid-latitudes meansless new water to refill the aquifers that are being depleted the fastest.
Thispast summer, large swaths of the southern plains experienced drought rangingfrom “severe” to “exceptional” as seen by this map from Drought Monitor.
A recent study states that droughts arecreating a feedback loop whereby the lack of soil moisture raises temperatures,and as the air heats up, it further desiccates the soil. If the aquifer isdepleted, it could take 6,000 years to recharge, according to Scientific American. Theworst-hit state is Kansas. Farming there is likely to reach a peak around 2040 due to waterdepletion, and decline after that.
California’sCentral Valley is another part of the United States under serious water stress.As home to two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts, California is heavilydependent on agriculture, deriving more revenue from farming than any otherstate. However, farming has also put severe pressure on the water supply,especially since the state is in a prolonged drought. Eighty percent ofCalifornia’s water is used for agriculture. That was fine before 2000, buttimes have changed:
“Once upon a time, much of the state ofCalifornia was a barren desert. And now, thanks to the worst drought in modernAmerican history, much of the state is turning back into one. Scientists tellus that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of Californiahad seen in 1000 years. But now weather patterns are reverting back tohistorical norms, and California is rapidly running out of water.”
- Michael Synder, The EconomicCollapse
Over-use ofunderground water supplies in California’s Central Valley has resulted in theloss of almost 50% of the storage capacity in all of California’s reservoirs.
AStanford University report says that nearly 60% of the state’s water needs arenow met by groundwater. That’s up from 40% in years when normal amounts of rainand snowfall.
Inmany areas, wells that used to draw water from 500 feet, are now being drilledto 1,000 feet and more, costing upwards of $300,000 for one well.
TheSan Joaquin Valley is reportedly sinking - driven by theover-exploitation of groundwater. In some areas the water table has droppednearly 10 meters.
In theMidwest, the huge sandstone aquifer underlying the Illinois-Wisconsin border,which supplies Chicago and Milwaukee with water, is currently overtaxed and maybe depleted in the near future. The 2015 Illinois State Water Survey reported the state’s sandstone aquifers are not being used sustainably, thathigh-capacity wells could be unusable in 15 years, and that many more wellscould be dry by 2050. Just over three-quarters of the population ofnortheastern Illinois - including northern Chicago - rely on groundwater.
Streams,rivers and lakes are almost always closely connected with an aquifer. Thedepletion of aquifers doesn’t allow these surface waters to be recharged; lowerwater levels in aquifers are reflected in reduced amounts of water flowing at thesurface.
The US usesso much water from their river systems that in some, nothing reaches theriver’s destination. No water reaches the mouth of the Colorado River - low levels could force water shortages in Arizona, Nevada and Mexico by 2020.
The largestUS man-made reservoir, Lake Mead, is only about 38% full. The Colorado RiverBasin which feeds Lake Mead and Lake Powell (48% full) has been drying out overthe past two decades. Demands from farms and cities, compounded by growingpopulations, drought and climate change, are straining the Colorado River andits reservoirs, notes The Denver Post.
“I want people to know that what’s going on at Lake Mead is very, veryclosely tied to what’s going on Lake Powell,” Doug Kenney said, the group’schair and a professor at the University of Colorado. “We’re draining Lake Powellto prop it up.”
The OcoceeRiver in the southeastern United States has a large stretch of the river dry oncertain days, Nebraska's Platte River is drying up and so is thenot-so-mighty-anymore Mississippi.
Clean Technica reports the next three large US citieslikely to face a Cape Town-like water crisis are Los Angeles, Salt Lake Cityand Miami.
Canadian water diversion
Canadahas been blessed with numerous lakes and rivers – we have 7% of the world’srenewable supply of fresh water.
Thishas our friends to the south eyeing our water supply with envy. The idea ofwater leaving Canada for the United States has been a conception since at least1909, when the Boundary Waters Treaty was signed. The treaty aims to resolvedisputes that may arise over waters that straddle the US-Canadian border. Itestablishes the free use of boundary waters for commerce and navigation, andgrants federal, provincial or state governments jurisdiction over the use,obstruction and diversion of those waters.
Butthe Boundary Waters Treaty doesn’t say anything about water exports, which isan emerging theme since the United States began to fall into drought early onthis century. President George W. Bush first mused about it in 2001, when hesuggested talking to Ottawa about a framework for international trade toalleviate fresh water shortages. The idea was quickly dismissed by thethen-environment minister, David Anderson.
Atthe heart of Canada’s worry is that once water is opened up for trade withinNAFTA (renamed the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, USMCA), it cannot betaken out of the agreement. In other words, Canada couldn’t turn off the tapsif it didn’t like how much water the US was buying, or diverting, from Canada.
Publicopinion is on the side of leaving Canadian water alone. A poll taken a fewyears ago found 61% of Canadians thought fresh water was our most importantresource ie. not for sale. All provincial governments except New Brunswick havepassed laws banning bulk water transfers.
Howeverdespite opposition to the idea, there have been numerous proposals abouttransferring large amounts of fresh water from Canada to the United States.These have largely remained under the radar - unreported by the mainstreampress. Following are breakdowns on three of the most ambitious plans conceivedto date:
TheGreat Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal of North America (GCNA)was designed by Newfoundland engineer Thomas Kierans to alleviate NorthAmerica’s fresh water shortage problems. As Kierans originally conceived it,the GRAND Canal plans called for the damming and rerouting of northern riversystems in Quebec in order to bring fresh water down into the Great Lakes wherethe water could then be pumped into the American Midwest and the US Sun Belt.
Fresh water run-off fromprecipitation would be collected in James Bay by means of a series ofoutflow-only, sea level dikes, constructed across the northern end of JamesBay. These dikes would capture the fresh water before it mixes with the saltywater of Hudson Bay and create a new source of fresh water equivalent to 2.5times the flow over Niagara Falls.
The NorthAmerican Water and Power Alliance (NAWPA) was designed to bringwater from Alaska and northern British Columbia to the US.“NAWAPA was a grand plan. It proposed to tap some of thecontinent’s largest rivers — including the Yukon in Alaska, and the Peace andFraser in British Columbia — and store most of it in an enormous valley thatruns the length of British Columbia, turning the much of the valley into areservoir 500 miles long. (Lake Mead on the Colorado River, the largestreservoir in the United States, is 112 miles long when full.) A canal wouldcarry fresh water from British Columbia 2,000 miles east to the Great Lakes,diluting their polluted waters and, not incidentally, opening a commercialwaterway from Vancouver to Lake Superior. Other canals, tunnels, and pumpswould send water from the reservoir in British Columbia to some of the driestregions of the United States and Mexico: the inland Pacific Northwest, theGreat Basin, Southern California and the desert Southwest, and the northernMexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.”
TheCentral North American Water Project (CeNAWAP) consists of a series of canalsand pumping stations linking Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake in the NWT toLake Athabaska and Lake Winnipeg and then the Great Lakes.Avariation on the CeNAWAP is the Kuiper Diversion Scheme which links the majorwestern rivers, - the Mackenzie, the Peace, the Athabasca, North Saskatchewan,Nelson and Churchill rivers - into a mega water diversion scheme.What is needed now is an army ofpatriots to unite around a plan that is: a) sound and capable of mobilizing thequickly evaporating skills and capabilities of our once great economy, b)reminiscent of our great acts of national pride and cultural progress, and c)will serve to restore the public credit of the United States as a source forproductive investment.
With a master plan of this kind tochange the direction of the nation, a patriotic movement can be formed, even atthis late date, which can create the rallying point for the election of aqualified President. The planenclosed, called NAWAPA XXI, meets these criteria. NAWAPA XXIis based on the original 1964 North American Water and Power Alliance proposalfor continental water management1 , but has been updated and expanded tospecifically address today’s economic needs, including the necessaryre-establishment of the U.S. public credit system.
Conclusion
Theissue of Canada diverting part of its fresh-water resources to the US has neverbeen on, or has long since faded off most Canadians’ radar screens.
Climatechange (science says the Earth is going to continue to warm)is going to put Canadian water back on every North American’s radar screen. Iswater on yours?
Ifnot, maybe it should be.
By Richard (Rick) Mills
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