Water and the American West

Phoenix is one of the great American cities that requires a lot of water it doesn't really have...

Water is poised to become one of the major political issues of the 21st century, especially water in the American West, where there has never been an abundance and civilization in the form of cities and agriculture has done everything humanly possible to create what is not naturally there.

It has been an impressive run on the part of humans- we have created cities in what are essentially deserts and supported some of the greatest feats of modern engineering- without water redistribution projects there would be barely any cities in Arizona, one of the premiere destinations for senior living. Without massive irrigation projects there would be no San Bernardino Valley and the image of California as bread basket to the country- and the mythical American entertainment and sin industries would be mere dreams without the ambitious reappropriation efforts that have made LA, Hollywood and Las Vegas a reality (in the loose sense of that word…)Point being, we have done things with water that water never intended.

When John Wesley Powell took his epic and seminal trips through the waterways of this pre-developed western America, he came back and recommended to Washington that we develop only along established waterways, and even at that, only on a limited scope. The government decided to resolutely ignore his advice but use his data. We created concepts like manifest destiny to help people feel entitled about claiming western territories as their own, “rain follows the plow” to convince farmers of the “if you plant it water will come ethic,” and we went about the business of damming and siphoning the watersheds to suit our personal needs. In large part, we have been dramatically successful.

In recent years these same approaches have been running into issues that boil down to simple economics- supply and demand. Once unthinkable, our water resources are now stressed to the point where we have shortages and claim perpetual drought. There are more people moving to the west than we really have water to provide for- as happened during the great American dustbowl, we are in danger of losing once productive farmland.

And the people keep coming. Those people need water for their own purposes, but more importantly, they need energy- and that energy needs water. While water use has been steady across the U.S. in recent years, new coal and nuclear plants in the West are set to raise those water needs- unless we can adapt how we get our energy.

Because of various efficiency projects like a switch to sprinklers in agriculture, efficiency in industries and homeowners becoming more efficient with their water, use has stayed relatively flat since 1975.

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, says that it’s more about energy production changes than population:

"We've broken the link between population and the economy and water use. In particular, we've broken that link by dramatically improving our water use efficiency. The bad news hidden in these numbers is that our population is growing in the hottest, driest, most water scarce regions of the country."That’s the West. He sees hope in the way we produce energy-

"We need to produce more energy, not with fossil fuels, which consume a lot of water, but with renewables that don't," he said.

Agreed. And so one more thing becomes a water issue…

Photo Credit under CCL: AL_HikesAZ