WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2021 - WATER -PART I

 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2021 - WATER -PART I

While this chart is older it seems to be a reasonable display of water usage.  And, it is for HOME usage (and a lot of water is used in agriculture and industrial processes).

On my recent trip, I drove across a part of the United States that is dry, desolate, desert.  Parts of western Texas and southern New Mexico are isolated.  There were signs along Interstate highway 10 in New Mexico warning of dust storms and the potential for zero visibility.  The vegetation was sparse and yet able to survive in those arid and unfriendly ground.

And, on the trip, I drove past cotton fields - where irrigated water helps grow cotton. The soil was good enough so that with water, the desert blooms!!!

I live in the Austin Texas area and it does get hot here - and dry in the summer.  Every summer I have lived in this area, there are watering restrictions.  Sometimes it drops back to only one watering of your grass per week.  Television weathercasts give the water level of Lake Travis (the main reservoir).  What would happen some summer if Lake Travis reached a superlow level that could only support a bare minimum of water needs like the amount needed for putting out fires or flushing toilets.  And, even with the flushing toilets, people are encouraged to not flush every time.  

No grass watering (just let the grass die); no clothes washing (but everybody will be walking around with dirty clothes).  Thirsty?  Get bottled water (bottled in some other place).  No washing of cars.  Maybe it could stop the building process (concrete needs water).  Most (if not all) farming in Texas could be at a standstill.  Time to butcher the cows rather than have the cattle barely surviving on arid ranches.  

California seems to always need water.  Over the years, California has bought water from the Colorado River.  Droughts affect trees and forests with devastating forest fires.  

*****

Water is a zero-sum object.  In other areas where humans can control things, we can make more houses, we can make more cars, but making more water (theoretically possible by combining two parts hydrogen with one part oxygen) is the same.  In effect, the water that is on the earth today is the same water that was here a million years ago.  More people mean more water consumption.  

Can we satisfy the demand for water, in areas that don’t have sufficient water sources?

That is a tough question

Wars have been fought over oil (and oil/gas pipelines), and wars have been fought over water rights.  Take this statement “Water is Life”.  Water is needed for growing anything.  Sometimes water comes naturally in the form of rain or snow.  For some areas, water comes unnaturally from underground aquifers or from water sources miles away (through pipes).  

Texas supposedly has one natural lake and all the rest are reservoirs.   

In the Austin area, more water-saving and conserving measures exist.  Some businesses take rain runoff and store it in “silos” for use for landscaping.  New building sites are required to have retention dams. 

Explanation - when rain does fall in central Texas, the rocky soil cannot absorb it. Flash floods can happen. Retention ponds take the excess rain and keep the flooding under control.  Houses in the Austin / central areas do not have basements (that was a surprise to me coming from areas that always had basements).  

So, how can we solve water issues?

There is the possibility of desalination of ocean/saltwater, strict conservation, and moving water from point A to point B.

The ocean makes up 70 percent of the earth’s surface and accounts for 96 percent of the water on the planet. The problem is, this water can’t be consumed. It’s oversaturated with salt.  The main problem is that it is very expensive, requiring a lot of energy and infrastructure (pipes and pools) - and then what do you do with the extra salt?  (Maybe the adage “back to the salt mines” could be appropriate.

To be continued tomorrow.

LOVE WINS - even with water and energies issues.

Karen