[Vision2020] Water wars loom as the US runs dry

[Art Deco]

  <http://ad.doubleclick.net/N6831/jump/NewScientist/ns_section_environment;key=environment,mg21729043.900,sbscrbr;tile=6;sz=900x60;ord=1234567890?>
 *New Scientist*

Home <http://www.newscientist.com/>
|Environment<http://www.newscientist.com/section/environment>
| News
<http://www.newscientist.com/section/science-news%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20>
|Back
to article<http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043.900-water-wars-loom-as-the-us-runs-dry.html>
 Water wars loom as the US runs dry

   - 13 February 2013 by *Sara
Reardon*<http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Sara+Reardon>and
   *Hal Hodson* <http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Hal+Hodson>
   - Magazine issue 2904 <http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2904>. *Subscribe
   and save*<http://subscribe.newscientist.com/bundles.aspx?prom=6005&term=1Y&intcmp=SUBS-nsarttop&promcode=6005>
   - For similar stories, visit the *Climate
Change*<http://www.newscientist.com/topic/climate-change>and
   *US national
issues*<http://www.newscientist.com/topic/us-national-issues>Topic
Guides

   [image: Lake Michigan's receding waterline <i>(Image: Alessandro
Co/Contrasto/Eyevine)</i>]

Lake Michigan's receding waterline *(Image: Alessandro Co/Contrasto/Eyevine)
*

1 more image<http://www.newscientist.com/articleimages/mg21729043.900/1-water-wars-loom-as-the-us-runs-dry.html>

THE blizzards that hit the north-east US may have dominated the headlines
last weekend, but across much of the country the most widespread drought in
more than half a
century<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/drought/index.html>is
still biting – especially along the nation's iconic waterways (see
diagram <http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2904/29043901.jpg>
).

Last week, lakes Michigan and Huron hit their lowest levels on
record<http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2013/02/06/lake-michigan-lake-huron-record-low-levels-drought/1896603/>.
In Illinois, the US Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging the
Mississippi and blasting away rock
formations<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/rock-blasting-puts-mississippi-river-ship-shape>on
the riverbed in a bid to maintain the 3-metre depth that barges need
to
ferry exports to the coast.

Growing urban water demands have long clashed with the needs of agriculture
and navigation, and climate change is expected to ratchet up the tension,
causing wilder swings between drought and flood even in regions that may
not get drier overall. Water shortages are only likely to intensify,
setting states at one another's throats. "There isn't and never will be
enough water," says Douglas
Kenney<http://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=87>,
a specialist in water-resources law at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The US's "water wars" are being fought in the courtroom, rather than on the
battlefield (see "map"), but only lawyers stand to gain if states and water
districts sue to maximise their share of this precious resource. Can
science and technology come to the rescue, in the form of "smart" water
distribution and better modelling of supply and demand?

Previous big droughts of the 1930s and 50s saw conflicts settled by huge
engineering projects like the Hoover dam
<http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/>on the border of Arizona and
Nevada. Engineering solutions are still being
considered in some places. Dredging the St Lawrence river to open shipping
channels from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic has contributed to the lakes'
lowering levels, and now the International Joint
Commission<http://www.ijc.org/en_/>,
which manages waters shared by the US and Canada, is putting together a
recommendation on how to improve things. This could include weirs and gates
to control how much water drains away.

Elsewhere, budgetary constraints and concerns about the environmental
impacts of big engineering projects have taken such options off the table.
The stalled Lewis and Clark Regional Water System is a case in point. In
1989, leaders from 20 cities in Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota proposed a
system of pipelines that would draw water from the Missouri-Elk Point
aquifer in South Dakota. Nine of the cities involved have little hope of
ever getting the promised boost to their water supplies, now that federal
funds, which covered 80 per cent of the $550-million price tag, have dried
up<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-27-water-project_N.htm>.
"We have no way forward," says project director Troy Larson.

So states will have to produce better estimates of future supply and demand
– and work out how to conserve what nature provides. Leading the way is the
US Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand
Study <http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/crbstudy.html>, which has
modelled a watershed that supplies some 40 million people across seven
western states. It suggests an annual average mismatch of supply and demand
of about 4 trillion litres by
2060<http://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=41645>
.

Faced with numbers like that, finding ways to save water is a top priority.
New techniques must go beyond asking people to water their lawns less
frequently, and instead deploy smart delivery systems to cut wastage.

There are big opportunities to cut demand in agriculture. Tom
Gill<http://www.usbr.gov/research/projects/researcher.cfm?id=15>,
a water engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, is working on a
project in Imperial valley, a former desert in southern California that has
been turned into rich agricultural land. His simple goal is to turn off
irrigation as soon as a field is fully watered.

To do this, a box is buried halfway across the field. Sensors detect when
it fills with water and send a radio signal back to another unit that
controls the flow, allowing the same amount of water to be applied again
before automatically shutting off. Studies run with Khaled
Bali<http://ucanr.edu/?facultyid=95>at the University of California's
Desert Research and Extension Center in
Holtville show that the method reduces water use by about 10 per cent.
"We're freeing up water through efficiency, rather than dams or pipelines,"
says Gill.

The US Geological Survey found in
2005<http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1344/pdf/c1344.pdf>that there were
about 12 million hectares of farmland across the US
irrigated using the methods that Gill is improving. Achieving the same
savings nationally could cut 1.5 per cent of the country's total demand –
but results will vary with soil type.

Gill is also working to prevent spillages in channels that move water
around. The Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona
recently replaced manual channel gates with motorised ones that are opened
remotely before water backs up and spills out. It has cut its losses
through spills from about 10 per cent to almost zero.

Cities are similarly starting to use smart distribution to cut their
consumption. Charlotte, North Carolina, plans to reduce the amount of water
its business district uses by 20 per cent over the next five years by
giving building managers real-time information about their usage, using
smart water meters with flow monitors.

Water use for cooling in power generation is another target for cuts. A study
conducted for the seven states of the Colorado river
basin<http://waterplan.state.wy.us/BAG/green/briefbook/Final_Augmentation_Study.pdf>indicated
that switching the region's power plants to air cooling could
save 200 billion litres of water per year – 5 per cent of the shortfall
predicted by 2060.

All of these approaches, and more, may be needed to avert shortages and
costly legal battles. "The cheapest water is going to be the water we can
save, and we have a long way to go," says Denise
Fort<http://lawschool.unm.edu/faculty/fort/index.php>,
an environmental lawyer at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

*This article appeared in print under the headline "Water wars loom as US
runs dry"*
 Pressure points

*See diagram*<http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2904/29043901.jpg>
Catawba river

*South Carolina vs North Carolina*
Concerned that North Carolina's proposed hydropower plant on the Catawba
river would reduce flow, and harm water quality and wildlife, neighbouring
South Carolina objected. The US Supreme Court ruled in South Carolina's
favour in 2009, blocking construction of the plant.
Lake Michigan

*Multiple cities and states*States bordering the Great Lakes have drawn up
a legal compact to share the water that feeds the lakes. Now the city of
Waukesha in Wisconsin wants to divert more water to its supply, citing
drought. If that application gets the go-ahead, and too many other cities
follow suit, tensions are likely to mount.
Rio Grande

*Texas vs New Mexico*
Texas and New Mexico are in dispute over their shares of water in the Rio
Grande, governed by an agreement dating from 1938. The Lone Star state,
which is downstream from New Mexico, has asked the Supreme Court to
intervene.
Missouri & Mississippi rivers

*Northern plains states vs shipping interests*
The shipping industry wants Congress to order the release of more water
from the Missouri river into the Mississippi, to keep navigation channels
open in the face of drought. That could trigger lawsuits from upstream
states including North and South Dakota, which rely on high water levels in
the Missouri for agriculture.
Red River

*Texas vs Oklahoma*
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from the Tarrant Regional Water
District in northern Texas, which wants Oklahoma to supply it with water
from tributaries that flow into the Red river, on the border between the
two states. Success for Texas could spark further lawsuits between
neighbouring states.
Chattahoochee river

*Georgia vs Alabama and Florida*
Atlanta's ever increasing demands for water from the Chattahoochee river in
Georgia have angered downstream Florida and Alabama. Since 1990, there have
been multiple lawsuits. Currently, the US Army Corps of Engineers is
studying how best to allocate water among the three states. Expect more
tension in future.
____
Note:  Georgia is now suing Tennessee to change the two states' boundaries
in order to claim more water from particular watersheds.

http://www.wsbradio.com/news/news/bill-change-georgias-border-tenn-moves-forward/nWT8z/


______

And where will the money come from?
-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20130305/4adb70b7/attachment-0001.html>