“Australia experienced the worst and most consistent dry period in its recorded history over much of the past decade. The Murray River failed to reach the sea for the first time ever in 2002. Fires swept much of the country, and dust storms blanketed major cities for days. Australia’s sheep population dropped by 50 percent, and rice and cotton production collapsed in some years. Tens of thousands of farm families gave up their livelihoods.” Scientific American, Devastating Drought Seems Inevitable in American West, Peter H. Gleick, and Matthew Heberger, January 5, 2011.
American scientists point out that the southwestern U.S. looks very much like Australia did before its nine-year drought. The so-called Australian Millennium Drought did have one benefit: it got people’s attention, including in America. Australian citizens and the government responded to these extremes with a wide range of technical, economic, regulatory and educational policies. Urban water managers in Australia were forced to put in place aggressive strategies to curb water use and to expand sources of new and unconventional supplies. Water rationing became the norm. The government subsidized efficient appliances and fixtures such as dual-flush toilets, and launched public educational campaigns to save water. Between 2002 and 2008 per capita urban water use—already low compared with the western U.S.—declined by 37 percent. Other efforts have focused on tapping unconventional supplies, such as systems that reuse gray water, cisterns to harvest rooftop runoff, and sewage treatment and reuse. The country’s five largest cities are spending $13.2 billion to double the capacity of desalination, enough to meet 30 percent of current urban water needs. The Australian government announced more than $6 billion in aid to improve irrigation infrastructure and make it more productive.
America can, and indeed, must adopt similar changes of attitude and performance. There is nothing to prevent the U.S. and its citizens from following Australia’s example except inadequate will power and a willingness to endure some inconveniences and even minor privations in order to ensure our future. At least in the West, we may live to see the near disappearance of green lawns, summer car washing, and the appearance of different toilets, water meters that shut off supply once a specific maximum day’s usage is exceeded. Water rationing will be the order of the day and a routine part of living in the American West. Water wasters will feel the heavy hand of government including pricing systems that charge heavy water users more per gallon. We will no longer be able to ignore scoff-laws.
The drought suffering region of the American West looks at a future of growing population and shrinking supplies. Many cities are trying to adapt, and many are facing realities of austerity. A brief description of water policies indicates a growing success in conservation.
•Education, like Denver’s Water Campaign, with humorous billboards to catch the public’s attention and voluntary cooperation.
•New law enforcement divisions to police water use—a water patrol with full enforcement capabilities. This includes the enforcement of laws prohibiting such things as ornamental fountains unless they recirculate water. Dumping of toxins into water supplies on purpose should be regarded as a felony with very severe punishment attached. Accidental dumping must be controlled by the exacting of serious fines as an educational inducement for better management.
•Require industries such as nuclear power plants to use only reclaimed waste water from their inception and to refit their systems if already established.
•Improved water use equipment—free water conservation hose nozzles, dual flush and low water capacity toilets. Some cities require replacement of all toilets installed before 1993, and subsidize or provide new and better toilets for free to encourage cooperation. Water efficient washing machines are available, and citizens could be rewarded for switching to them. Educate the public and provide rainwater harvesting equipment on a mandatory basis.
•Be willing to bear the cost of maintaining water systems, including pumps, pipes, and connections to avoid leaks. Maintain very strict scrutiny of dams to ensure no leaking and no disruptions of the dams’ integrity.
•Action regarding reports of violators—including rewards to neighbors calling the drought police.
•Reclaiming reservoirs.
•Reusing grey and sewage water which requires larger and improved water-purification plants. This should include reinjection of purified (and usually pharmaceutical-free) water back into aquifers.
•New pipelines from water-rich to water-poor areas.
•Limitations in migration to already over-populated (water-wise) areas such as Las Vegas by increased taxation and fees on new building.
•Requirements for reuse of water in hotels and golf courses. Las Vegas has had considerable success in passing and enforcing strict regulations. The entire Las Vegas Strip uses only three percent of its water resources.
•Statutory limitations on high water use recreation facilities. Preparing an 18-hole golf course for four golfers to play a single round requires as much water as a typical American family uses in a month.
•Statutory limitations on the total amount of lawn grass permitted around residences and recreational areas. This must include both new construction and old established sites—no grandfathering. Some cities reward citizens to substitute xeriscapes and artificial turf for lawn.
•Mandatory rules tying allowable growth directly to the amount of water available for the specific project including individual family homes.
•Building, and where necessary, subsidizing desalinization plants where there is access to salt water.
•Institute strict rainwater preservation measures through the populated areas—residential, industrial, and recreational areas.
•Institute major forest fire prevention measures such as controlled burns and forest thinning to protect reservoirs. Fires dump ash and toxins like arsenic into and ruin reservoirs.
•In cities with heavy storm runoff into oceans and lakes, cities need to install water filtration/purification facilities to collect the water and to make certain that our oceans, lakes, and reservoirs are no longer polluted with the toxins that wash into them at present. Los Angeles is considering such a system on a major basis.
•Learn from successful cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona. Despite a 15 percent population growth rate in Phoenix over the last fourteen years and a population of 1.3 million, per capita water use has gone down. One important facet of improvement in those cities has been the use of rebates and cash incentives to the public to improve their water use.
The desert peoples of the Middle-East who are oil-rich and water-poor have long known that water is more precious than petroleum. Life depends on water. It is self-evident that the above described measures will be costly, but the benefit versus cost and risk ratio is solidly in favor of water conservation and efficiency. We, The People of the United States, will accept the inconveniences and cost, or our economy in the West will gradually fail. What we have been doing is unsustainable. Too many people live in the deserts. Too many people are moving there. And there is too little water for even a reduced population. It is time posthumous to do something.