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Peter Gleick: Mining California Groundwater – The Cadiz Project

Dr. Peter Gleick — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:37:18 +0000

A private company, Cadiz Inc. (Cadiz), has revived plans to mine groundwater underlying land in the delicate Eastern Mojave Desert. This project revives fundamental questions about how we manage our precious water resources, and in particular, whether in the 21st century it is appropriate, or even necessary, to use renewable water resources in a nonrenewable and unsustainable way, for short-term profit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

The idea for the Cadiz project is simple: mine groundwater faster than nature refills it and sell it to urban centers in Southern California for profit. The full proposal seems more complicated – the owners might try to temporarily replace the lost groundwater with extra water from the Colorado River, if it is ever available (which is highly unlikely), but they propose to pump out this water and sell it, too, so the economics of the project really just depend on the water removed through unsustainable groundwater mining. Without that water, the project fails economically.

The project is located in the desert of southern California, east of Los Angeles and San Diego, in an area with very low precipitation. The owners intend to remove at least 50,000 acre-feet of water a year (and if they can get away with it, 75,000 acre-feet per year in the early years) for 50 years and sell it to local water agencies, including the Santa Margarita Water Agency (SMWA), Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Suburban Water System, Golden State Water Company, Jurupa Community Services, and California Water Service Company. Scientists estimate that nature, in contrast, only refills the basin with around 5,000 and 32,000 acre-feet per year, with most independent estimates at the very low end. This means the groundwater levels will drop and drop, like taking more water out of a bathtub than you put in. This is, simply, unsustainable.

If there were no adverse consequences of this kind of water mining, and if all that mattered was money, then perhaps using up this stock of water and turning it into a private good would make sense – at least to the project owners. But there are adverse consequences for other humans and for the local environment. This is cut-and-run water management: take a non-renewable resource that will last a short time, turn it for a profit, and leave a degraded landscape, mimicking the classic boom-and-bust cycles that characterized much of the mining industry in the western U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Here are some of the other consequences:

The water supply is unsustainable – it is not a permanent source of water and new sources would have to be found when it is no longer economical to pump.
The project produces water that is already more expensive than saving the same amount of water through improving urban conservation and efficiency programs.
Other local landowners and businesses believe their water availability or quality will be affected by the project in ways neither fully understood nor mitigated by Cadiz.
There are unresolved questions about the quality of the water and how the project might worsen water quality for other users over time.
And perhaps most important, water in the desert is a rare thing, and the desert pools, ephemeral seeps, natural springs, and playas support delicate ecosystems dependent on the ability of groundwater to reach the surface. This project would draw down that groundwater, leading to the inevitable disappearance of surface water with highly uncertain, poorly understood, but almost certainly negative ecological consequences. And even the project owners admit in their draft Environmental Impact Report (dEIR) that we don’t know enough about the science to fully understand the consequence for centuries to come – long after they’ve left the scene.

In a mathematical sleight of hand, the project argues that water is “saved” by the project because it might reduce evaporative losses when water ponds on the surface during some wet periods. Yet it is precisely this water that local ecosystems rely upon for survival. Another piece of mathematical magic is the claim that the project is actually sustainable because they assume the project life is 100 years long: thus they pump like mad for the first 50 years and take their money and leave, acknowledging that the groundwater might or might not recharge to its original levels over the next 50 years after pumping stops. That’s like saying that fossil fuels are renewable, because nature might make them again in the future. Under the lower (and perhaps more accurate) estimates of natural recharge, there is a real risk of permanent damage to the groundwater basin through subsidence of land or contamination of the aquifer with salts, and it may never fully refill. And the draft environmental impact report says nothing at all about how the real risk of climate change might alter the desert hydrology.

Finally, there are natural springs in nearby valleys that may be connected to the groundwater basin in Cadiz. In a remarkable grammatical sleight-of-hand, the draft environmental impact report states that a field survey done by their consultants concluded that “there is no information demonstrating a physical connection of the identified springs in the local mountains to [Cadiz] groundwater.” Note the wording: “there is no information.” They use that to discount any risks to local springs. But absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence. An honest assessment of the science would conclude that, at best, we don’t know if there is a connection. And in fact the hydrologic assessment does show that if there is any connection, the mining of groundwater would ultimately affect the springs, perhaps long after pumping began. This means that if there is a connection, once it is ultimately noticed, it would be too late to prevent the springs from drying up.

We need new thinking about water in California and new innovative solutions. We must modify how we use water, and we must find new sources of supply. But the Cadiz Project is old thinking, based on the pillage-and-run philosophy of the past centuries, where water was seen as a resource to be mined and consumed, not managed in a sustainable way. This project is an insult to the idea of sustainability, to the efforts to protect the Eastern Mojave’s beauty and unique nature, and to the idea that resource development should respect more than just narrow economic gain. The good news is there are excellent alternatives, including recycling and reuse of water, improved efficiency of use by our cities and farms, smarter and renewable groundwater use and recharge projects, and even desalination of brackish waters or the ocean if the economics and environmental challenges can be properly overcome. Cadiz might have made some sense a century ago when we didn’t know better, but today it is neither appropriate for California nor necessary, and it should be cancelled.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by the Huffington Post on January 24, 2012.

Peter Gleick: Climate Change, Disbelief, and the Collision between Human and Geologic Time

Dr. Peter Gleick — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:11:31 +0000

Geologic time scales are long – too long for the human mind to really comprehend. Over millions, and tens of millions, and hundreds of millions of years, the Earth has changed from something unrecognizable to the planet we see on maps, plastic globes, and photos from space. The Atlantic Ocean didn’t exist eons ago and it will literally disappear in the future as the continental plates continue to move inch by inch. A visitor from outer space millions of years ago would have looked down upon land masses and land forms unrecognizable today. As John McPhee notes in his book, Assembling California, “For an extremely large percentage of the history of the world, there was no California.” Or North America, China, Australia, Hawai’i, Mt. Everest, Grand Canyon, or any of the other landforms and natural symbols we think of as immutable.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

Humans cannot relate to these changes. Our perception of time is short — measured in days, months, years, or decades, not millennia or eons. And our perception of the world around us is similarly driven by events with human time scales. Again, John McPhee:

The two time scales – the one human and emotional, the other geologic – are so disparate. But a sense of geologic time is the most important thing to get across to the non-geologist: the slow rate of geologic processes – centimetres per year—with huge effects if continued for enough years. A million years is a small number on the geologic time scale, while human experience is truly fleeting – all human experience, from its beginning, not just one lifetime. Only occasionally do the two time scales coincide. When they do, the effects can be as lasting as they are pronounced.

Nowhere is this collision of time scales more pronounced than in the current climate change debate. There are a variety of reasons why a few people still find the reality of human-caused climate change to be inconceivable. Leaving aside those who are unfamiliar with or ignorant of the science, those who simply shill for the fossil-fuel industry, and those who for political reasons must toe an ideological line that contradicts scientific conclusions, there remain some whose world view prevents them from accepting that humans can influence something so vast and global as the climate. Coupled with the fact that the Earth’s climate fluctuates naturally, this group has never been able to accept the reality of human-caused climate change. For regular readers of the blogs of climate contrarians (or their comments on this and other essays on climate change), this sentiment will be familiar. Here are a few examples:

I don’t deny that the climate changes, it’s been changing since there has been an atmosphere to change. And it’s common knowledge that the earth goes through cycles of climate, what is not known is the exact causes of these changes or cycles.

Observed climate changes since 1850 are linked to cyclical, predictable, naturally occurring events in Earth’s solar system with little or no help from us.

Global Warming, Global Cooling and Global Climate Change have been happening for millions of years – long before any possible human influence – Climate Change is natural and nothing new.

This is a manifestation of the collision that McPhee describes, the conflict of human and geologic time scales.

Climate does change naturally for reasons well understood by scientists. But it does so over thousands or tens of thousands of years – time scales so slow as to be imperceptible to humans. The causes of these natural climate changes are the cumulative result of tiny but cosmic changes, including incremental shifts in the orbit of the planet around our star, the tiny but real wobble of the Earth’s axis, and variations in the output of energy from the Sun. These natural factors lead to changes in the Earth’s climate. They cause the ice ages, and they cause the warm interglacial periods. But they happen slowly – in geologic time unseen, unperceived, and unfelt by humans. The peak of the last ice age was 20,000 years ago, long before human civilization existed. The next ice age isn’t expected to start for thousands of years and may not peak for tens of thousands of years, and who knows what kind of civilization will exist then.

Human-caused climate changes are different. As the planet’s population has grown to 7 billion people, and as we have learned how to mobilize vast quantities of carbon-based fossil fuels (ironically, created over geologic time scales) to satisfy our short-term energy demands, we have become powerful enough to overwhelm slow geological cycles. We are, for the first time in the 4+ billion year history of the Earth capable of altering the largest geophysical system on the planet – the climate – and we are doing it on a human time scale of years and decades, with consequences we are only just beginning to comprehend. And ironically, our effect on the climate is still slow enough for policy makers, climate contrarians and skeptics, and those simply not paying attention to either actively deny it or to just look the other way, committing the planet to more and more change. [There are other examples of human influences on a global scale: our construction of dams and storage of massive quantities of water behind reservoirs has literally, albeit modestly, altered the rotation of the planet. But none are as significant as our effect on the climate.]

Some will never be able to accept this, no matter the evidence. They will continue to conflate geologic and human time scales and assume that what is occurring today must be what has always occurred in the past — natural. But the inability to comprehend the planetary influence of humans isn’t based on reviewing and rejecting the scientific evidence, which is clear to 97-98% of climate scientists publishing in the field. It is based on ignoring or disbelieving it, just as some dogmatically refused to abandon their belief in a geocentric universe for reasons that had nothing to do with science. And alas, these modern-day dogmatists are unlikely to change their minds, at least not on a human time scale.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by Forbes on January 19, 2012.

Peter Gleick: Zombie Water Projects (Just when you thought they were really dead…)

Dr. Peter Gleick — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:54:15 +0000

Zombies are big business, in more ways than one. Zombie books, movies, costumes, make-up, computer games, and more are probably worth billions to our economy, not to mention the value of extra sales of axes, chainsaws, and shotguns to people who never hunt or cut down trees.

But not all zombies are fictional, and some are potentially really dangerous – at least to our pocketbooks and environment. These include zombie water projects: large, costly water projects that are proposed, killed for one reason or another, and are brought back to life, even if the project itself is socially, politically, economically, and environmentally unjustified.

Here are four kinds of zombie water projects that have been repeatedly beaten down for a variety of reasons but that keep rearing their ugly heads. Keep those chainsaws lubed and fueled:

1. Water transfers from the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River or Alaska and Canada to the arid southwestern U.S.

These are perennial favorites: people look at the vast amount of water in the Great Lakes, or flowing down the Mississippi River, or flowing north to the Arctic Ocean and think, gee, what could make more sense than to take that water and move it to where we really need it, like California or Arizona or Las Vegas. After all, we’ve been moving water around since the beautifully designed Roman aqueducts, and even earlier. But most of these mega-projects are zombies – killed off years ago, only to linger, undead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

Patricia Mulroy, who runs the Southern Nevada Water Authority, recently revived the idea of moving floodwaters from the Mississippi River all the way to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona to free up Colorado River water that could then be given to feed Las Vegas. Fear that similar projects would take water out of the Great Lakes led to a provision in the new international agreement signed by the U.S. and Canada that effectively prohibits transfers of water out of the basin because of fear that such diversions would lower the Great Lakes levels and threaten the health of fragile natural ecosystems. And of course there is the granddaddy of all water diversion proposals – called NAWAPA (the North American Water and Power Alliance) – proposed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by a consulting/construction company to divert around 150 million acre-feet of water annually (ten times the flow of the Colorado River) from the Yukon, Copper, Kootenay, Fraser, Peace, and other Alaskan/Canadian rivers all the way east to the Great Lakes and south to the southwestern U.S. and even Mexico. And a smaller version of this zombie is the Million Conservation Research Group proposal (named after Aaron Million – if it had anything to do with the cost, it would be the Billion Conservation Research Group) to build a pipeline from Wyoming to eastern Colorado to take 250,000 acre-feet of public water to sell for private gain. Professor Robert Glennon from the University of Arizona quipped that he sees many obstacles to the project, “not the least of which is the Rocky Mountains.”

These mega-projects are certainly technically feasible: there’s no mystery to building dams, aqueducts, pumping plants, and pipelines. What kills these projects is their massive political, environmental, and economic cost. They would cost tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars and lead to vast environmental destruction and devastation. Half a century ago, we didn’t know about the ecological consequences of massive water diversions, or we didn’t care, but those days are over. On top of this, any such project would require unprecedented political and legal water sharing agreements and anyone who believes such agreements can be reached is living in a fantasyland. But that doesn’t stop these zombies from periodically coming back to life.

2. Water transfers from Alaska or Norway or the Arctic/Antarctic to Asia or the Middle East through the ocean

An international version of the major pipeline or aqueduct projects described above is the idea of putting water in tankers or big plastic bags and shipping it overseas (or, the earliest version – towing icebergs). The most recent example is the proposal to ship water from Sitka, Alaska to Asia or even the Middle East. Once again, a logical idea runs smack into the wall of economics, though for some reason, these water entrepreneurs seem blind to economics. In this case, the proposed price is around $0.01 per gallon. The water would be put into tankers or water bags and shipped overseas. [I don't believe that they can actually ship water from Alaska to the Middle East, or even closer, to Asia, for $0.01 per gallon, but let's assume, for the moment, that they can.] Let’s do a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation that seems to be beyond the ken of those pushing the project: $0.01 per gallon is equal to $2.64 per cubic meter. The current price of coastal desalination, which produces highly pure water, varies from place to place, but is already well below $2 per cubic meter. Why would any buyer agree to buy more expensive water, of no better quality, from someone else when they could build a desalination plant under their own control? So far, none have. But expect to see this zombie staggering around periodically.

3. The Poseidon Carlsbad desalination project

Having just argued that desalination makes more sense than water transfers through the ocean from water-rich to water-poor regions, it turns out that notall desalination plants make sense. It is a proven technology – thousands of desalination plants are operating around the world – but it is a costly one to do properly. An effort by a private development group, Poseidon Resources, to build a plant at Carlsbad, near San Diego, has become the textbook case of how NOT to build a desalination plant (ironically replacing the previous textbook case of how not to build a desalination plant – Poseidon’s earlier venture with the Tampa Bay desalination plant in Florida). The Carlsbad plant was originally projected to cost around $270 million. A year ago, the costs had risen so much that Poseidon was trying to get $530 million in tax-free bonds to help them finance the project, on top of a massive subsidy from local water agencies. A month ago, they filed a new application for $780 million in tax exempt bonds, suggesting the cost is approaching a billion dollars. The company’s current estimate is that the cost of delivered desalination water has skyrocketed over the past few years to around $2000 per acre-foot, which is nearly triple San Diego’s current supply costs. And their design is still controversial because of concerns about location, environmental impacts, and financing. Moreover, the complete lack of transparency about contracts, permit decisions by local governments, Poseidon financial structure and funders, and the true economics of the plant have soured even strong proponents of desalination. This zombie refuses to die only because outside investors (either unbelievably gullible or incredibly smart) keep putting in money.

4. The Cadiz groundwater mining project

Another effort to turn a public water resource into a private good is the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project (or the Cadiz groundwater mining project). This project is the brainchild of another private investment group and hopes to mine groundwater from an aquifer located in the eastern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. This project is unsustainable: it takes more groundwater out than nature recharges. Over time, this will result in disappearance of surface springs and ephemeral water in desert lake beds, and a declining groundwater level. In other words, the project exchanges public goods for private gain. An earlier version of the project, not much different from the current one, was killed by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California because of environmental and economic concerns, but like a water zombie, Cadiz has come back to life. A new draft Environmental Impact Statement has just been released, but beware: it is 305 megabytes in size, which makes it pretty much impossible for normal citizens to download it and read it to find out if it needs to be tackled with an axe or a chainsaw.

There are many smart water investments to be made, in industrial and agricultural water-efficiency technologies, better wastewater treatment plants capable of producing the highest quality waters, improved piping and distribution systems, lower energy desalination systems, improved monitoring tools, low-water-using crop types, and much more. But wasting precious time and scarce money on water zombies will not lead to a sustainable water future.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by the Forbes on December 7, 2011.

Peter Gleick: Transcending Old Thinking About California Agricultural Water Use

Dr. Peter Gleick — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:40:40 +0000

The debate about water use in California agriculture is stuck in a 30-year-old rut; relying on outdated and technically-flawed thinking that is slowing statewide efforts to meet 21st century challenges.

This is exemplified by the recent release of a study authored by researchers at the Center for Irrigation Technology (CIT) and funded by a Sacramento-based farm lobby group (the California Farm Water Coalition) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The CIT study uses old theories of water-use efficiency to argue that the potential to improve efficiency of water use in California agriculture is tiny. If the authors of the study are right, the only options for saving water in California agriculture would be to dramatically change crops or to take a considerable amount of agricultural land out of production – which would be bad news for our farming communities, our economy, and our environment. The good news is that they are wrong.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

A newly published peer-reviewed article in the journal Water International examines the flaws in these old arguments and comes to exactly the opposite conclusion – there is great untapped potential to increase the productivity of California agriculture while reducing water and energy use, reducing serious water-quality contamination in the Central Valley, and increasing the reliability of water supplies during droughts and other water shortages.

The old approach, developed in the late 1980s and 1990s, calls attention to evaluating water use in basins as a whole, rather than on single farms or fields, and partly distinguishes between consumptive and non-consumptive uses of water. This “basin approach” argues that in water-stressed places like California, most water is ultimately used beneficially or productively, even if there are small-scale or field inefficiencies. It assumes that most losses are simply re-captured and re-used somewhere else downstream and therefore, there is no real potential for improving water efficiency. This way of thinking was helpful in clarifying some issues around the scale and scope of water efficiency, but it does not adequately address key issues of concern today including droughts, water-quality degradation, the ability to improve water productivity, and an array of environmental problems.

The new Water International article points out that there are three fundamental flaws inherent in the narrow basin approach:

1. The basin approach largely underestimates the potential for better technology and management to reduce unproductive or non-beneficial evaporation or other consumptive losses of water.

The basin approach assumes that any water that is consumed is productively and beneficially used. This is wrong. Examples of unproductive and non-beneficial uses of water include the wind-blown water coming off large sprinklers running in the hot sun, the evaporation of water from flooded fields, or loss of water to grow weeds. Many improved water management practices, including irrigation scheduling and deficit irrigation have been shown in dozens of studies to reduce unproductive consumptive use of water. And their water savings benefits and economic advantages explain why California farmers have increasingly implemented these strategies over the past several decades. More and more farmers are adopting water stewardship practices, but much more can be done, as we showed in a comprehensive assessment in 2009.

2. The narrow “basin approach” completely ignores the potential to improve water-use “productivity” because it only values “new” water.

In the twentieth century, the primary focus of water policies was to make more “new” water available for human use by building infrastructure to store, move, and distribute water. As a result, the basic theory behind traditional water-use efficiency assessments often assumes or implies that the only important value of water-use efficiency improvements is to produce “new” water; if an efficiency policy or technology doesn’t generate water that can be taken from a farmer and given to someone else, it is ignored or discounted.

Indeed, there are substantial opportunities to produce “new” water through conservation and efficiency practices. But “new” water is not, and should not be, the only measure for evaluating efficiency programs. Total water use is now understood to be a poor indicator of the value or productivity of water, and a poor indicator of true efficiency. For example, there have been vast improvements in crop yields or income to farmers from water-efficiency improvements, measured as dollars of GDP per unit of water used (“economic productivity”) or crop yield per unit of water used (“yield productivity”). We regularly talk with farmers who have installed efficient irrigation systems who tell us that they are not saving any water, but who then go on to talk about the much higher production or the reductions in diseases that they’ve gained. These are real benefits.

In California between 1989 and 2009, yield productivity for field and seed crops increased from around 1.6 to nearly 2.5 tons per acre-foot, with no increase in total water withdrawal. In the old thinking, this kind of improved productivity doesn’t count, because it doesn’t produce “new” water to give away. If the logic of the “basin approach” had been applied to California water policy, these massive productivity gains would not have happened. As long as some continue to focus only on the narrow goal of freeing up “new” water and not on the broader issue of improving water productivity, they will continue to misunderstand and misrepresent the broader societal benefits of efforts to improve water-use efficiency.

3. The basin approach fails to account for the many other “co-benefits” of efficiency actions.

Such “co-benefits” include improved water quality, reductions in water-related energy costs, elimination or delay of additional capital investments for new supply and conveyance facilities, improved instream ecological health, greater water-supply reliability during drought, and improved crop quality. Like increases in crop yields or farmer income, discussed above, these co-benefits often accrue even when there is no “new” water produced. These are not only real benefits, they are often extremely valuable. Old policies that continue to insist that water-efficiency programs produce “new” water will underestimate the true economic, environmental, and social value of efficiency improvements and this means that we will under-invest in agricultural water efficiency improvements.

It is time to get out of the rut and move on to a more useful approach to water management, driven by proper water accounting and incorporation of the concepts of water “productivity” and “co-benefits.” Research from the Pacific Institute and others, based on on-the-ground experience in California’s farm fields, has demonstrated over and over that a wide range of water stewardship practices improve water quality, improve habitat, cut energy costs, and increase the productivity of California’s agriculture with the water we’re already using.

There are no silver bullets to California – or global – water problems. Water conservation and efficiency practices offer one set of tools to reduce pressures on scarce water supplies. Other options, such as increased storage, better groundwater management and conjunctive use, water recycling, and other choices that seek to expand water supplies or reduce demands, are also needed in many regions. Every basin is different, and therefore the mix of demand-side and supply-side solutions will vary according to what is hydrologically, economically, socially, and politically possible. But it is clear that there is still substantial room for improvement and that many innovative farmers and irrigation districts are already achieving far higher water savings than the proponents of the basin approach claim are possible. The water stewardship practices employed by innovative farmers and districts should be highly lauded and encouraged, rather than undermined, as their on-the-ground efforts will allow the California agricultural sector and environment to continue to thrive in an increasingly uncertain future.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by the San Francisco Gate on December 4, 2011.

Peter Gleick: Energy, Water, and Climate Change in the Western U.S.

Dr. Peter Gleick — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:21:50 +0000

A new analysis from the Pacific Institute evaluates the water needs for different energy futures and identifies a growing risk of conflicts between electricity production and water availability in the U.S. Intermountain West. The new report also identifies strategies to ensure the long-term sustainable use of both resources, especially given the realities of climate change. This study is also relevant, given the new intense debate over the Keystone XL pipeline.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

Water for Energy: Future Water Needs for Electricity in the Intermountain West, examines the water requirements for current and projected electricity generation within the Intermountain West — the area bounded by the Rocky Mountains in the East and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains in the West. While water and energy conflicts are increasing across the United States, this region is of particular interest because it has a growing population (and growing demand for energy and water), a diverse fuel mix for power generation, and worsening water constraints and limitations.

The energy sector has a major impact on the availability and quality of the nation’s water resources. Water is used to extract and produce energy; process and refine fuels; construct, operate, and maintain energy generation facilities; cool power plants; generate hydroelectricity; and dispose of energy-sector wastes. Some of this water is consumed during operation or contaminated until it is unfit for further use; often much of it is withdrawn, used once, and returned to a watershed for use by other sectors of society.

Energy use also affects water quality and ultimately human and environment health. The discharge of waste heat from cooling systems, for example, raises the temperature of rivers and lakes, which affects aquatic ecosystems. Wastewaters from fossil-fuel or uranium mining operations, hydraulic fracturing, boilers, and cooling systems may be contaminated with heavy metals, radioactive materials, acids, organic materials, suspended solids, or other chemicals. Nuclear fuel production plants, uranium mill tailings ponds, and under unusual circumstances, nuclear power plants, have caused radioactive contamination of ground- and surface-water supplies. Too often, however, these water-quality impacts are ignored or inadequately understood.

Conflicts between energy production and water availability are on the rise as the overall pressure on scarce water resources intensifies. Federal and corporate policies are being developed with little understanding or concern about the impacts on water resources. In particular, the federal government, through subsidies for corn production, has massively increased the production of ethanol, with little concern for the water supply and quality implications of this policy. Similarly, efforts to promote “clean” coal (a classic oxymoron, in my opinion) have ignored the water-intensity of capturing carbon and other environmental problems. Here are the key issues:

Water scarcity affects energy production. Conflicts between energy production and water are on the rise as the overall pressure on scarce water resources grows. Water availability is beginning to affect energy production, even in areas not traditionally associated with water-supply constraints.

Under a business-as-usual approach, water resource challenges are likely to intensify throughout the Intermountain West.

Under a “current trends” approach, water withdrawals and consumption are projected to increase across the Intermountain West (see the two bars on the left of Figure 1). The largest increases in both withdrawals and consumption occur in the Rocky Mountain area, a region with limited available water sources.

Figure 1. Water implications of energy futures

Electricity can be generated in the Intermountain West using less water, especially with the adoption of energy-efficiency improvements and dry cooling systems and greater reliance on renewables. As Figure 1 shows, different energy futures have the potential to be far less water intensive. In particular, significantly expanded renewable energy production and expanded use of alternative cooling technologies cuts water requirements by a vast amount. In the “Expanded Renewables” scenario, water requirements decline dramatically – a 56% reduction in water withdrawals and a 34% reduction in water consumption, compared to 2010 levels. With expanded use of dry cooling systems, even more savings result. Under both an “Expanded Renewables” and “25% Dry Cooling” scenario, water withdrawals and consumption decline 71% and 45% reduction, respectively, compared to 2010 levels.

Extracting fuels for energy production has a water cost that must be evaluated. This analysis also finds that while we can dramatically reduce the water requirements for electricity generation, there are also serious water-related risks from the extraction and processing of coal and natural gas. Extraction processes, such as hydraulic fracturing and tar sands, are both water intensive and increasingly controversial. Indeed, this issue lies at the heart of the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline project and the growing controversies in Pennsylvania and elsewhere over “fracking.”

Climate change will have major implications for water resources and electricity in the Intermountain West. The impacts of climate change on water resources are already evident in the Intermountain West, including changes in precipitation and runoff, an earlier snowmelt, and more frequent and intense droughts. The scientific evidence suggests that these impacts will accelerate, particularly if efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are further delayed. These climate changes will also have major implications for electricity production and use across the Intermountain West, which will, in turn, affect water resources. For example, warmer temperatures reduce the efficiency of thermal power plants and of transmission and distribution lines. More power will need to be generated, and more water withdrawn and consumed, to offset these efficiency losses.

The report closes with a wide range of recommendations.

Improve data, information, and education on impact of energy sector on water resources. Water and energy analysts are often frustrated by the lack of available data on the water use and consumption of energy systems. In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office outlined major shortcomings of federal data-collection efforts on water availability and use as they relate to planning and siting energy facilities. The EIA does not collect data on the use of advanced cooling technologies. No agency collects data on the use of alternative water sources, such as recycled water, for power production. Few data are available on the water-quality impacts of energy production, from energy extraction to generation. Many of these shortcomings are a result of budget cuts. State and federal agencies must enhance, not cut, data collection and reporting capacities.

Accelerate efficiency improvements. Improvements in water and energy efficiency can help meet the needs of a growing population, reduce or eliminate the need to develop capital-intensive infrastructure, and provide environmental benefits. Additionally, conservation and efficiency promote both water and energy security by reducing vulnerability to limits on the availability of these resources.

Promote renewable energy systems. Most renewable systems require far less water than fossil fuel or nuclear systems. Efforts to promote renewable energy will lead to reductions in water demands and contamination.

Establish cooling-technology requirements. Federal and state governments should continue to tighten water-cooling technology requirements through federal and state permitting processes. Power-plant designers must be motivated to further reduce their water impacts by moving to dry and hybrid cooling technologies.

The full report is available here.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by Forbes on November 15, 2011. An exclusive Circle of Blue interview with Heather Cooley, co-author of the Pacific Institute’s new report, is available here: Setbacks and Solutions of Water-Energy Clash in U.S. Intermountain West.

Peter Gleick: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Water for Africa, and the Nobel Peace Prize

Circle of Blue — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:28:50 +0000

The remarkable president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women’s rights. This award is rightful recognition of the commitment and dedication of these women to strengthening the rights and dignity of women in Africa, and around the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

A few years ago, with the support of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Pacific Institute produced a remarkable book of gritty, compelling black and white photographs taken by Gil Garcetti throughout West Africa. The photographs in Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa tell the story of the tragedy that comes from the lack of safe water and sanitation, but also the beauty and hope that clean water offers: the smile of a healthy child, the simple act of washing, and the joy of people working together as a community for the common goal of safe water. The books were given to community groups, non-governmental organizations, and others working on African water issues to help them raise awareness and funds for their efforts.

The book also includes four short essays on water by President Jimmy Carter, Dr. Mary Robinson, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. In honor of President Johnson-Sirleaf’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize, I reproduce her essay on water from Water is Key, here.

Essay of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia from the book Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa

“The people of Liberia know what it means to be deprived of clean water, but we also know what it means to see our children to begin to smile again with a restoration of hope and faith in the future. When I took office, Liberia began to recover from years of neglect. Our people have brought clean water into the heart of Monrovia to children who have never known water from a tap. Efforts are underway to expand water projects as much as possible throughout the country.

Water is Key (2007). Photos by Gil Garcetti. Edited by Peter Gleick.

We know that most of our people lack safe water and sanitation, and these signs of progress are just the first step. We must accelerate our efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. We didn’t start early enough, and we have a long road ahead. But the dreams of our people who have suffered and sacrificed so much are now achievable: to be able to live in peace, send our children to school, put a meal on the table for our families, get up in the morning, and go to a job that that enables them to feel like a part of society, and to have safe and reliable water. This is our challenge: to achieve these simple dreams that many people around the world take for granted.

We are moving forward. Our best days are coming. The future belongs to us, because we have taken charge of it. We have the commitment, we have the resourcefulness, and we have the strength of our people to share the dream across Africa of clean water for all.”

Originally published by Forbes on October 7, 2011.

Q&A: Dr. Peter Gleick on The World’s Water Volume 7

Nadya Ivanova — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:29:09 +0000

Peter Gleick, an internationally recognized water expert, tells Circle of Blue what has changed — and what has not — since the 2009 release of Volume 6. The Pacific Institute’s biannual report analyzes how water relates to climate change, corporate interests, and policy reform.

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

More and more regions around the world – from the Yellow River in China to the Great Plains in the United States – are reaching their “peak water” limits, according to the latest biennial report on freshwater resources by the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security.

The seventh volume of The World’s Water analyzes the role of climate change in transboundary water politics, looks at the corporate risks and responsibilities around water, probes the effects of fossil fuel production on water quality, and lays out the need for reform and a soft-path approach to U.S. water policy.

The study also looks at Australia’s decade-long drought as a case study for other parts of the world — including California and the Western United States — and explores the regional and global consequences of China’s rampant dam-building policy. Other topics include bottled water, The Great Lakes Water Agreement, and how water impacts security.

“The idea behind this book is to provide a regular update on the state of the world’s water – what progress have we made in solving water problems, where are we falling behind – and to provide an update on data,” said Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and lead author of the report. “We also look back over a long period of time at the trends, and the fact that this is now Volume 7 gives us an increasingly long view on water issues.”

Circle of Blue spoke with Gleick about the report and the state of the world’s water.

Circle of Blue: Which regions of the world are facing the highest risk of reaching “peak water,” and what does this really mean globally?

Peter Gleick: The last volume of The World’s Water – Volume 6 – laid out the concept of peak water, that is, growing constraints in three areas. One is on renewable water resources: limits to our ability to take more water from renewable systems. And we see examples of “peak renewable water” all over the world, including the Colorado River, the Nile River, the Yellow River — rivers where we are effectively taking almost the entire renewable river flow, and that’s a peak renewable limit. We also talk about “peak non-renewable water resources,” where we are overpumping non-renewable groundwater faster than nature recharges it. And we see these limits again in many parts of the world — in California, the Great Plains, Northern China, India, large areas of the Middle East. These are peak non-renewable limits, and they are not sustainable. And the third category is “peak ecological water,” where we are running up against environmental constraints on how much water we can use in any system; where we are causing more ecological harm than we are producing economic benefit. And several parts of Volume 7 are examples of peak water. The chapter on Australia is a good example of peak water constraints in Australia, where we are simply running against physical contraints on how much water we can use.

The report features a chapter on corporate water management. What is the potential for business to push the global sustainability agenda?

Peter Gleick: I think the good news is that the corporate sector and businesses are increasingly aware of their impacts on water resources; on the risks they face from water scarcity and contamination; on their responsibility for using and managing water in a more sustainable way. And that’s actually a change from 14 years ago [when we did Volume 1], when participation by the business sector in these conversations was almost non-existent. There’s good news in that the corporate sector is playing a more positive role. But the corporate sector is only one player. They have certain responsibilities, but it’s also critical that governments and communities address these problems as well. No one sector is going to solve these problems.

One chapter in the report summarizes your upcoming book on 21st century U.S. water policy. What did you find?

Peter Gleick: Some people wonder if there’s a U.S. water policy at all. And there isn’t a formal U.S. water policy, but there are very important federal efforts, activities, and responsibilities around water. We reviewed the role of the federal government in water policy, and we’ve laid out what we would argue is a comprehensive set of reforms for federal policy around water quality, water management, water allocations. We’ve looked at where it’s appropriate that the federal government be involved in water policy. And we put out a set of reforms — in particular, around the area of new thinking about water quality, about the management of federal infrastructure and financing, about strategies for integrating what are terribly disjointed and uncoordinated federal agencies, at the moment. And we make some of these recommendations in a chapter in The World’s Water, but the book that is coming out in the spring is going to give a much more comprehensive look.

And what are some of the regions that are using innovative approaches?

Peter Gleick: In the first chapter, we talk about some transboundary-river agreements, which have been somewhat successful at reducing tensions over water resources. For example, the Great Lakes region, where a fairly comprehensive agreement between the U.S. and Canada has been put in place to manage the shared water resources. Another partial success is in the response of Australia to their severe drought, where very innovative agreements have been put in place to manage water allocations and ecosystem water. They’ve been forced on Australia by the severity of the drought, but the response has been some pretty innovative programs. And some of these might be lessons for other regions, as well. The experience of Australia was so dramatic that they were forced to put in place truly innovative and potentially transformative, policies — but the challenge is always whether or not those policies remain in place after the drought’s end, and I don’t think we know yet.

What are some of the new data in this volume?

Peter Gleick: One of the interesting data sets that we included this year is looking at public perception around water resources. What we found is that the publics — in countries all over the world — find water issues to be at the top of their list of environmental concerns. Climate change goes up and down with the American public, goes up and down with the publics in other countries, but water issues have been at the top — and remain at the top — of the environmental concerns of people around the world. To some degree, that’s good news. People care a lot about water, and they care about water consistently over the years: they worry about water availability, and they worry about the quality of their water. And if there’s any good news in all of this, it’s that – that people care about water. And, if we are going to make progress at solving our water problems, it’s only going to come because people demand progress.

Disclosure: Circle of Blue is an affiliate of the Pacific Institute.

Click here for a video of Gleick’s presentation on “The World’s Water Volume 7″ at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Peter Gleick: Why Spend Public Money for Private Bottled Water?

Dr. Peter Gleick — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:00:23 +0000

When I go to water meetings, there are serious scientific discussions about climate impacts on water systems, international conflicts over water, water quality and contamination threats, new technologies and strategies for providing basic water and sanitation for the world’s poor, and much more. But in the hallways between meetings and sessions, the real arguments are about the conflicts between public and private control and management of water.

One of the key issues in this debate these days isbottled water. We’re in what I think of as Phase 3 of the bottled water debate. In Phase 1, no one drank bottled water except for specialty mineral waters. In Phase 2, the use of bottled water exploded as people (1) became fearful or uncertain about their tap water, (2) were bombarded with sophisticated marketing and advertising touting the benefits of this or that brand of bottled water, and (3) found it easier and easier to find commercial bottled water and harder to find a clean working drinking water fountain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

We’re now in Phase 3, with a growing consumer backlash against bottled water. People are more aware of the high environmental and, especially, economic costs of bottled water, which costs 1000 to 2000 times more than the same quality tap water. And there is a growing movement of universities, restaurants, municipalities, and even states to stop buying bottled water, especially when tap water is available.

The latest state battleground is Maryland, which is pushing for a policy to stop state government spending on bottled water when tap water is available in order to save money and reduce waste. Governor Martin O’Malley endorsed the policy last week. The new policy, put forth by the Maryland Green Purchasing Committee, says that state funds “should not be used to purchase bottled water for use in facilities that are served by public water supplies or potable well water, except when required for safety, health or emergency situations.”

Note, carefully, what this policy does and does not do:

• It does say that state funds should not be used to buy bottled water when tap water is available.
• It does not ban bottled water or restrict consumer choice: anyone can buy their own.

The opposition of the bottled water industry to this policy is not a surprise, but their logic is astoundingly self-serving and twisted, and their public statements are gross misrepresentations of the Maryland policy. A statement from the International Bottled Water Association issued October 6th says:

“The recent announcement by Governor O’Malley endorsing the restriction of access to bottled water by Maryland state employees is disappointing.”

This, of course, is false. The policy does not restrict access to bottled water — Maryland state employees can buy and have all they want. It says the government shouldn’t pay for it. Rich Norling of the Maryland Green Purchasing Committee was explicit, “We are not restricting access to bottled water. We’re just not paying for it.” The IWRA statement goes on to say:

“it is unfortunate that the state has opted to single out healthy, safe and zero-calorie bottled water.”

This is also false. In fact, before this policy, the state was singling out bottled water as the only commercial beverage they were buying for employees. The new policy actually puts bottled water into the same position as any other commercial beverage. The state already doesn’t pay for soft drinks, fruit juices, beer, milk, or any other beverage. Why should they have been paying for commercial bottled water? All Maryland is doing is saying, “Hey, why are we treating bottled water as special? Let’s stop paying for it.”

And next, IBWA says:

“Removing bottled water as an option does not automatically drive people to drink tap water.”

This is also a mischaracterization: As noted above, Maryland is not removing it as an option. state employees and guests are free to buy their own. And the purpose of the policy is not to “drive people to drink tap water.”

And next IBWA says:

“According to peer-reviewed consumer research, and demonstrated through testing in Toronto, Canada schools, if bottled water is not available, only one-third of people seek out tap water, while two-thirds instead choose packaged beverages that add calories or sugar, or both, to their diet.”

Hmm, I could not find this “peer-reviewed” research (and I’d like the IBWA to send it to me — I couldn’t find it on their website, or in Google Scholar). And even if this is true, it is not a reason for the State of Maryland to subsidize bottled water for its employees. If the state were to do this, why not subsidize all other lifestyle choices that might improve diet, or health? Like salads at the lunch bar? Or my membership at the gym? And even if they did this, why subsidize a commercial product when the exact same product is available from the tap?

I could go on. The other arguments made by the IBWA are equally specious. There is no reason States or municipalities should be paying for bottled water when tap water is available; and indeed, when tap water is not available, states and municipalities must make it available – and still not buy bottled water. It costs more, it has environmental challenges associated with its use of energy, generation of waste, and impacts on some local groundwater, and it turns a public resource into a private commodity, as I discuss in my book Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water.

This isn’t a “ban.” It is putting consumer choice back in the hands of the consumer, not the government.
Peter Gleick

Originally published by Huffington Post on October 6, 2011.

Peter Gleick and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins: Jobs and Water for America

Dr. Peter Gleick — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:00:31 +0000

Every year, our old water infrastructure spills 860 million gallons of untreated waste into America’s waterways, including raw or partially treated sewage, bacteria, parasites, synthetic hormones, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural wastes.

We have old leaky pipes and outdated water-treatment systems. Our irrigation systems are inefficient and our home water-using appliances outmoded. People increasingly fear our tap water and spend billions for bottled water in the mistaken belief it is somehow better.

This is inexcusable for a developed nation, or frankly, any nation, and it is preventable. Even better, preventing it can create jobs: good jobs that pay well. By recent estimates, just fixing our stormwater and wastewater systems would generate nearly 1.9 million jobs – one for every seven people who is out of work.

The United States has a remarkable water system that provides safe drinking water, sewage collection and treatment, stormwater and floodwater management, and more. Our initial investments in water purification and treatment systems eliminated the water-related diseases like cholera and dysentery that just a century ago ravaged our cities and killed our children, and still do in developing countries. Our construction of dams and reservoirs, often with taxpayer money, powered our factories during World War II, provided flood and drought protection, and helped the nation vastly expand agricultural production.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

But our investments in water are no longer adequate, and the great water systems of the U.S. are in decay. Most of these systems, paid for by local users, are underfunded and need new investments in maintenance, expansion, and upgrading. Federal water systems are under threat because of the blind, anti-tax mentality that is depriving all sorts of critical national infrastructure of investments we need to remain a strong and modern nation. The American Society of Civil Engineers 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure rated both the nation’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure a D-, the lowest grades given to any public infrastructure.

On the international stage, the World Economic Forum will soon downgrade America’s overall infrastructure ranking to 16^th in the world, from 6^th just a few years ago. The USGS estimates that the country loses six billion gallons of clean drinking water each day, or 14% of all that is used, through leaky pipes in need of repair. The EPA reports millions of cases of illness caused by contact with waters contaminated by sanitary sewer overflows because we don’t have enough modern treatment plants. And we face new threats from industrial contaminants that are increasingly found in drinking water systems but not removed by antiquated treatment plants, widespread contamination of waterways by agricultural chemicals, and the impacts of climate change on water availability and quality.

Our first round of environmental laws, passed by Republican and Democratic bipartisanship in the late 1960s and early 1970s, helped save the Great Lakes from destruction, improved human health nationwide, and protected local rivers, streams, and lakes from uncontrolled pollution. But those national laws are desperately in need of updating.

The potential to add quality jobs and to fix our water problems at the same time is enormous. Meeting the need for over $180 billion in improved stormwater systems and pipe repair documented in the EPA’s 2008 Clean Water Needs Survey will produce healthier communities, reduce water pollution, and directly generate nearly1.9 million jobs – with an additional 800 thousand jobs from increased economic activity in related sectors. Our organizations – working with the Economic Policy Institute and American Rivers, with generous funding from the Rockefeller Foundation – yesterday released Water Works: Rebuilding Infrastructure, Creating Jobs, Greening the Environment, a comprehensive look at what upgrading our water systems would actually look like. We stand to add over a quarter of a trillion dollars to the GDP, and create a diverse array of jobs: from appliance manufacturing to home construction to major engineering projects updating water infrastructure. Many of these jobs provide career pathways and good wages, while promoting regional economic development.

There is no better time for smart investment in sustainable, modern water infrastructure.

Water infrastructure investments would create jobs now, when they are most needed.

The cost of financing this investment is at historic lows.

Infrastructure investments are more effective at creating jobs than payroll tax holidays, across-the-board tax cuts, and temporary business tax cuts.

Water investments, if done right, save energy, increase land values and recreational spaces, improve health, restore local environments, increase resilience to climate variability and change, including flooding and droughts, and can be designed to reduce disparate environmental impacts on poor communities.

Meeting water challenges — building a resilient water future — will require both local and national efforts. The U.S. must strive to increase water efficiency, restore waterways and groundwater, repair and upgrade decaying infrastructure, decrease contaminated stormwater runoff, and more. These efforts can help ensure the U.S. can clean its waterways, reduce pollution, promote economic growth, and provide safe drinking water to all. In other words – this doesn’t all have to happen out of Washington.

And it’s a good thing it doesn’t. Congress’ response to addressing infrastructure problems is now simply two things: cut taxes and reduce investments. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), total public investment in water infrastructure has fallen by over a third as a share of the economy since peak levels of investment in 1975. It is time for a renewed commitment to invest in the health of our communities through efforts that improve water quality, reduce wasteful water uses, and build modern systems. As cities recognize the immense value of green infrastructure in promoting clean water and economic development, we have an opportunity to ensure that all investments in our water infrastructure meet high road standards that create accessible, family-supporting jobs, are financed by stable and fair means, and maximize environmental gain.

Americans need safe water for all, efficient agriculture, modern and comprehensive water treatment systems, healthy rivers and lakes, and a 21^stcentury water infrastructure. And we need jobs. The great thing is that we can have all of these things – if our policymakers have the will to stand up for clean water.

Dr. Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, is a regular Forbes blogger. His co-author on this piece, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, is CEO of Green For All, a national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

Originally published by Forbes on October 5, 2011.

Peter Gleick: Water Emergencies — Time for New Plans and Technology

Dr. Peter Gleick — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:38:11 +0000

The world faces a wide range of serious, complex, and long-term water challenges, from shortages to contamination to local and regional disputes over water to long-term climate changes. But there are other challenges that are short-term, emergency situations that could also be addressed by some new thinking and new technology.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

We’ve seen the headlines recently: Earthquakes have destroyed the water systems of Haiti and part of Japan. Typhoons or hurricanes have contaminated or destroy water delivery capabilities, as in New Orleans andelsewhere. Droughts are, as we speak, leading to serious water emergencies inTuvalu and Tokelau and Texas. When water is short, people and economies suffer.

Yet we always seem surprised, and our responses are typically hurried, ill-considered, and very expensive. We airlift bottled water to disasters, which permits bottled water companies to claim great humanitarian benefits, but is an extraordinarily expensive and unsustainable response. We send in small-scale desalination equipment, which is also costly, technically complex, and limited in capacity. These kinds of responses are sometimes necessary, but it is time to add to our arsenal of options.

First, we need to take water disaster planning seriously. In California, for example, it has long been understood that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the “Delta”) region, with major water infrastructure, is vulnerable to earthquakes, levee failure, and sea-level rise, among other threats. [Indeed, most of the state and its water systems are vulnerable to earthquakes.] A large fraction of California’s water deliveries originate in the Delta. Despite this understanding, there is still no serious emergency response plan in place. For example, a recent draft Delta Plan stated,

“Despite the risks of levee failure, no published emergency action plan exists that addresses the consequences to federal and State water supply deliveries in the event of catastrophic levee failure in the Delta… failures are inevitable and will require the implementation of well-coordinated and carefully developed emergency-response planning efforts.”

Given the current risks of disasters, the growing threat to water systems from climatic changes, and the high stakes of water-system failures, innovative emergency response plans should be aggressively pursued. The old saying applies: “Seeing the future is good, but planning for it is better.”

One possibility is the widespread advance deployment of fabric bags capable of storing and moving bulk water supplies. These bags have been tested in the past, and even used for a time to tow bulk water through the Mediterranean to water-short areas. For a few years, a company called Nordic Water Supply from Oslo, Norway, transported water in bags 200 meters long from Turkey to the northern coast of Cyprus. In the late 1990s, another company, Aquarius Water Trading and Transportation, towed water in bags in the Aegean Sea.

And an American entrepreneur, Terry Spragg, has pushed this idea for many years and has developed innovative fabrics and connections systems, including what may be the world’s largest zipper. While there has been some talk about using these bags on a regular basis for long-distance bulk water deliveries, they seem to have a clear role to play in emergencies. Why not preposition hundreds of these “Spragg bags,” carefully folded and stored in regional stockpiles, so that they can be immediately deployed, filled with freshwater, and towed to nearby coastal areas in disasters. Or these bags can be flown to disaster sites and used as on-the-ground storage reservoirs where water can be appropriately produced and treated to provide high-quality water (see the photo below). Recently, Spragg has proposed that these fabrics can be used to produce a “flexible fabric pipeline” as a key component of an emergency response plan to move water moderate distances in a disaster.

This idea has been proposed to the State of California as a way to temporarily and quickly address water disruptions caused by a disaster that affects the water-delivery systems of the Delta, such as an earthquake that destroys levees, disrupts flow patterns, or damages pumping systems. Yet state agencies have not even conducted the basic analyses or field tests to determine how effective or useful these options would be. Indeed, at the moment, California’s emergency response plans seem to be to pre-position piles of rocks so that levees can be repaired, along with a lot of handwaving and moaning about risks.

The “fabric pipeline” and “water bag” ideas have several possible advantages, including

Relatively low cost.

The environmentally benign nature of the system (as compared to semi-permanent rearrangement of channels and flow or more major construction projects.)

The speed with which the system could be deployed.

The modular nature of the system, so that it can be progressively expanded.

The resilience of such a system, which could be rapidly repairable and movable.

This is a novel idea, but we need new ideas and new actions. At a minimum, significant tests of the abilities of water bags should be conducted quickly and comprehensive, to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and costs, and develop strategies for their use. Emergency planners take note. FEMA, or state agencies, or international emergency response groups should test these systems immediately and if appropriate, deploy them widely as a new tool in our arsenal for addressing inevitable future water emergencies.

Peter Gleick

Originally published by Forbes on October 6, 2011.