U.S. water supplies rapidly drying up*

Government projects at least 36 states will face shortages within five years

The Associated Press
Updated: 3:15 p.m. PT Oct 30, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - 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.

Global issue

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
fresh water.

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.

Wasted water

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.

Official: Florida not doing enough

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 freshwater a year, as well
as an uncounted amount of treated and desalinated saltwater for
consumption and for tasks such as cooling power plants.

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 freshwater 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.”

Technology holds promise

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 fresh water 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.”