Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
money, the resources, the technology, and the institutions to man-
age these problems,” he says. “I'm not saying we do manage them,
but we could.” At the moment, however, Gleick cites underinvest-
ment, state-to-state confl icts, serious ecosystem degradation, and
the risks of growing climate change as factors affecting water supply
that need addressing.
“We are up against the limits of supply in the western United
States,” he adds. “We still think about water in the western
United States the way we thought about it one hundred years ago,
which is 'let's just fi nd another aquifer to tap or another river to
dam.' That kind of thinking will not get us out of our problems.
Potentially, we could have a very serious water crisis if we don't do
things differently.”
Let's look at some potential solutions and ways of doing things
differently, along with the associated costs, conundrums, and
confusion.
RECOGNIZING THAT THE PROBLEMS EXIST
The biggest obstacle to solving the nation's water problems is refus-
ing to admit they exist. Even now in the face of serious concerns
and in places like Southern California where they're gasping for
water, many people won't admit to the problem, let alone change
their water habits. It's soak the lawn, run the water, dump the waste
as usual.
To be fair, many aspects of the national water crisis are invis-
ible. When you turn the faucet, water comes out. No one can see
arsenic, atrazine, or antibiotics in the water, or leaking sewers leach-
ing away good water with the bad. People often fail to realize, until
it's too late, that children are being poisoned by lead in old pipes,
or that a well has run dry, or that out-of-sight underground pipes
are crumbling. Neither do they see the standing water in the cor-
ner parking lot's expanse of asphalt as anything more than a nui-
sance and habitat for mosquitoes. (More important, it's also a red
fl ag that underground water supplies aren't being replenished.)
Lush green lawns and growing water-intense crops in arid climates
fed with millions of gallons of potable water also remain standard
operating procedure for most as opposed to the exceptions they
