How the Market Can Mitigate Water Shortages in the American West
Author: Peter Culp
Author: Robert Glennon
Author: Gary Libecap
Publisher: Island Press
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often reward aplenty!
It began to pour with rain last night where I live, which makes it deliciously ironical that I'm reading this today! It’s long been my feeling that within the next fifty years there are going to be two major crises in the USA (and elsewhere in the world): water shortage, and energy shortage (this ignores more unpredictable problems such as acts of terrorism and disease outbreaks), so when I saw this book which addresses one of these serious issues, I was very interested in reading it.
When I say water shortage, Earth doesn’t have a water shortage per se - seventy percent of the planet is covered in the stuff for goodness sakes, but clean fresh water with no salt in it? Not so much! As the authors point out in a great summary which opens this book, the USA southwest is in major crisis, and has been for well over a decade.
Living in Texas (home of the Rio Sand) as I do, where we have routine water restrictions every single summer, they didn’t have to remind me of a problem which, as they point out, has over time caused nearly thirty billion dollars worth of economic damage, but perhaps for others it has been far less front and center. It certainly hasn’t been a major talking point in politics or in the news.
As the authors make clear, it’s not just ranching and agriculture which are hit by the shortage. Silicon valley is right in the middle of the dry zone, and their water needs are dramatic. Of course, with a lot of US electronics manufacturing going to the sweat-shops (nay, sweat cities!) of China and other so-called "low cost" areas, the problem is nowhere near as large as it could be, but there is still significant electronic production here in the USA, and it requires copious amounts of water. There is also, as the authors highlight, a significant demand (in both water and energy) in the growing use of "server farms" - massive facilities containing nothing but Internet server and storage computers for corporations like Google
California is worse off than Texas and unlike Texas (and as the authors note), California produces about half the USA's fruit, nut, and vegetable needs, yet their water shortage is far worse even than Texas. There is no sign of improvement. The authors seem to look forward to a time when the crisis will alleviate ("Even after the current drought ends…" p8), but personally, I'm far from convinced that it ever will! Climate change is now in the driving seat, and all bets are off, but whether this drought ever does alleviate or not, the water shortage is not going away. Like the energy shortage, it needs to be addressed now.
The authors give a disturbing example on page nine, of how ridiculously bad the situation is. They relate that the level of the Sacramento river became so low this year (2014) that salmon fry could not navigate it downstream to reach the sea. Believe it or not, thirty million fry were transported in climate-controlled tankers, hundred of miles to the ocean! How they'll ever find their way back, having had their exposure to their home river severely curtailed, is anyone's guess. The authors also offer more heartening examples of cities (such as Phoenix, Arizona, the Yuma area, and Santa Fe, NM), which have sustained growth by expertly managing their water use, so it's not all bad news.
The text deals only with what is, not what could be, and by that I mean the authors admirably address current issues and offer examples of solutions that are already being explored or in place. One thing which they didn’t cover was the obvious one: those areas in the southwest which are experiencing the worst of the drought, also receive copious and regular sunlight, and are next-door to the ocean. Solar-powered desalination plants would be expensive to build, but economical to run, and would solve the water crisis in these areas.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we can ignore other solutions, or that we should do nothing but build desalination plants, but it would have been nice to have seen this option explored and put on the table. Some 16,000 desalination plants throughout the world already provide water for 300 million people - coincidentally, about the population of the USA. Israel produces 40% of its water from this method. A plant in El Paso, Texas, produces over 27 million gallons a day at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant which is, this being Texas, the world's largest inland desalination facility, but it produces only 4% of El Paso's water. California has 17 plants "in the works". Texas has 44 such plants and is planning on building ten more, and these don't even use sea water, but saline ground water. This isn’t prototype or experimental science any more.
However, this book does a great job in exposing and exploring a real problem, and in considering real solutions to it. I recommend it. Right now (as of this blog post) the book is free on Amazon. Go get it!!!
