The Aged Pipes

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR's Environment podcast that highlights all environmental stories broadcast over the past week. One story on the state of our water infrastructure here in the United States really stood out. An expert on our water supply told of how we have a really old infrastructure and replacement policy has ridiculously long time frames. In fact, based on current policies nationwide, most regions would experience three 1-in-100 year storm events before they would replace their water infrastructure. Think of that. We expect cast iron pipes to last all the pressures put upon them to last roughly 300 years.

This news story really made me take a new look at the water crisis that is emerging. As I have written before, finding and sustaining water supply will be a challenge in the coming years due to climate change and over usage. However, what if we have a water supply but the delivery system is prone to massive breaks? This was recently demonstrated on the UCLA campus in California where more than 20 million gallons of water shot to the surface after a 93-year old water main broke there. Here in New York City, water main breaks are a frequent occurrence.

The NPR story rightly pointed out that we don't think about our water infrastructure enough, and we are unwilling to pay the price for upgrades. Again, water is an essential resource. We need it, and with water supplies ever decreasing, we need to ensure that delivery is efficient with no loss along the way to our glasses or bathtubs. We may have more advanced water infrastructure than many parts of the world, but the materials are outdated and if we don't address the problems, we will be no better off than a rural community in the developing world that relies on a single well in the town square where residents must carry their water away in buckets. The solution to this problem is easy enough, fix the replacement policies and get water users (commercial and industrial building owners, homeowners, and farmers) to pay just a few dollars more every month so that our communities can invest in updating and replacing our water infrastructure. The key to this easy solution is us pressuring our lawmakers, as it always is.

What's In Your Bottle?

Firstly, I apologize for not writing anything in the past two weeks. I won't provide a lame excuse, but for those of you who actually look forward to reading this I am sorry for the big gap. Today I hope to more than make up for it.

One of my first post's on this blog looked into the looming water crisis. While it focused on the water shortage in Libya and how mismanagement is exacerbating the problem, the topic was just a sliver in the larger water crisis we face. Here is another example: a few days ago, I was grabbing some lunch and chose to go with water instead of one of my regular (and favorite) sugary drinks. My choices were Fiji and Aquafina brands of bottled water. I was going to treat myself to some of the nice Fiji Water, but as my hand reached for the square bottle I vaguely remembered hearing or reading something about how Fiji bottled water production is harmful to the environment. Since I know that Aquafina is just re-purposed tap water, I decided to go for that instead.

So was that vague memory accurate? Yes, and, as it turns out, in more ways than one. Firstly, the water source - a large, underground aquifer - has been given almost exclusively to the Fiji Water company. This aquifer is being depleted at an accelerated rate due to the popularity of Fiji-brand water amongst celebrities and the elite, making it one of the go-to brands for the rest of us. The implications for the future water supply of this collection of small islands is grim, as sea-level rise threatens other aquifers and sources of freshwater for the citizens of Fiji. The other environmental problems caused by Fiji bottled water come from the poverty and military conflict imposed on the citizens by the military dictatorship governing Fiji. The military benefits from promoting and protecting the Fijian company, while crumbling infrastructure and government indifference force people to live in conditions that are many generations behind our own society (put another way, people cannot live in an environmentally conscious way because they are just struggling to survive). The company does all it can to exploit the resource and maximize profits, but does not go out of its way to give back to the community or the environment.

Fiji Water is just one of many bottled-water companies out there vying for our dollars. Its actions, which are indeed horrendous, are indicative of a much larger problem driven by us - the consumer. All bottled-water companies such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Evian, etc. have created a product that we don't really need in the developed world, while exploiting a dwindling supply of clean and replenishable water. Despite the great advertising tricks which have made us seek bottled water in record amounts, most of us don't need it. We get clean, safe water from the taps, why do we need to buy the same thing that is in a bottle? Just because it is from a spring or reverse-osmosified doesn't make it any better or more essential for us.

I admit to drinking the occasional bottle of water. It's handy on the go or if you want water but the place you are patronizing doesn't offer tap water. Barring the very occasional use, bottled water consumption shouldn't be so high. Why do we throw away the bottle when we are finished just to buy more, when we could refill the empty bottle with our own clean tap water? Why do we insist that bottled water is cleaner and better for us when that is just not true? Bottled water should be mainly used by those who do not have a direct, constant source of clean water in their midst. Instead it is the other way around. We should vote with our dollars and stop buying bottled-water in such large quantities. If enough of us do this and return to our tap water, not only will the environment be better protected but the poor will not be oppressed by large corporations over such an essential resource.

Water! Water! Someone please get me some water!

I remember sitting in class at the University of Liverpool last year and being completely dumbfounded. One of my professors, who happened to be a hydrologist, just told the entire room of students that Libya had 20 years of freshwater supply left. Furthermore, he said that the government was doing nothing to address the future crisis and citizens continued to get their water for free. 'How is that possible?' I thought. Surely leaders knew people cannot survive without water. Surely they would know the kind of civil unrest a water crisis would cause. How could it have gotten to that point?

Most of us know that Libya is on North African nation that sits on the Mediterranean Sea. A good portion of that country is part of the Sahara Desert, so water is already in short supply. After looking into my professor's statement, I found a deepening natural crisis happening in a part of the world where human conflict boils just below the surface, regularly erupting into violence. Most of the Middle East faces desertification and a looming water shortage of severe proportions. Seametrics and The Guardian have both highlighted the imminent water crisis in this part of the world and the nations most at risk of not finding a solution due to poverty and civil instability.

Digging into the issue highlights some of the causes of this problem. In the case of Libya, continued use of its coastal aquifers (which were very slow to renew themselves) allowed saltwater to contaminate that source of freshwater. In addition to this problem, the nation was highly dependent on importing food crops because of the dry landscape. Libya's longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, wanted to help the country become more self-sufficient and he knew water was the key. The discovery of a large freshwater aquifer under the Saharan sands led Gaddafi to embark on a highly ambitious project known as the Great Man-Made River (GMMR).

This incredibly expensive project brought unthinkable amounts of freshwater to the far reaches of Libya and encouraged the expansion of agriculture in the desert nation. This new found source of water in an arid land led to a glut on the resource and a high degree of mismanagement which is rapidly depleting the aquifer. While some liberal estimates give the nation from 100 - 500 years before the water runs out, many other experts are predicting - such as my professor - a much sooner expiration date. What my professor said about the Libyan government not doing anything about the problem became understandable when I discovered it was using a time-frame it thought more appropriate: 4600 years. It doesn't make it excusable, because clearly that number is made up when compared with actual scientific analysis, but it clarifies why the government isn't addressing the problem.

Dry places are becoming drier due to climate change, yet water consumption is rapidly increasing. A huge part of the problem is the inefficient use of water during irrigation. The fact that water is free or consumers are only charged a nominal fee means water use is non-sustainable in this country. Solutions to this impending crisis do exist. Just making irrigation more water efficient and imposing restrictions on water use will lengthen the lifetime of the aquifer. New technologies exist and should be introduced to the Libyan people that would also make it possible to use water more efficiently. If they or any other poor nation find it too expensive, developed nations should assist them. Further conflict in that region over such an essential resource is not needed, and it should be viewed as a moral shortfall if the rest of the human race decides to not help if called upon.

Doing even a little bit of research unveils a very disturbing trend in the future availability of water. Over time, I want to draw attention to some of these critical issues. Most of us don't think about it because water has become very available, however we must think about the threat to our water. It is one of the three essential resources we cannot live without. If we think about it, and we know the facts, we can begin to use our innovation and adaptability to address the problem. This is one thing we can't afford to place out of sight.