Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
that perhaps aren't as valuable, but don't require as much water,
experts agree. How realistic such societal shifts are depends on
whom you ask. Remember second-generation Utah farmer Jerald
Anderson, who opposes the proposed removal of Snake Valley water
by the Southern Nevada Water Authority? Anderson and many fel-
low Utah farmers fear the removal of water from their shared, cross-
border aquifer will dry their fi elds and destroy their livelihoods.
“Many people here who can survive in this lifestyle really don't have
alternatives if their fi elds dry up and farming doesn't work,” says
Anderson.
Tennessee hydrologist William Waldrop, an expert in ground-
water fl ows, also points to another, less widely recognized pollu-
tion threat from irrigation in the naturally low-water West. When
an area like Southern California irrigates year after year, naturally
occurring salts in the water accumulate and eventually will pollute
the soil to the point that it may not be able to sustain agriculture
because there isn't enough rain to wash the salts away.
These and other water issues will continue to worsen until we
make some major changes in our use patterns, says Waldrop. “If you
fl y over Phoenix, Arizona—essentially a desert—it seems like every-
one has a swimming pool. But if you live in the desert, I don't know
that everyone can afford [water-wise] to have a pool. These kinds of
quality-of-life issues have to be prioritized.”
Planning Makes a Difference
El Paso, Texas, once was fast running out of water. In fact, in 1979
the Texas Water Development Board warned the city that its pri-
mary water supply, the Hueco Bolson aquifer, would run dry by
2020 if groundwater pumping continued at current levels.
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“That's not the case anymore,” says El Paso's water administra-
tor, Ed Archuleta. “We practice what I call total water management
in El Paso. I believe that water is water. It may not be the quality
you want, so you may have to treat it. It may be owned by somebody
else, so you have to acquire it. It may not be where you want it, so
you have to move it. But conservation is at the heart of everything
we've done, to the extent that if we can conserve more water, that
takes demand off the future water supply.”
