Water Shortage Affects U.S.

By Shiney Varghese

I am amazed: since last summer, almost every day we hear about another water crisis in the U.S.

Less access to water is no longer something affecting only poor countries. It is right here in our own backyard.

For most of us living in the U.S., water is something we take for granted, available when you turn your tap on — to brush your teeth, take a shower, wash your car, water your lawn. So it was with alarm that many of us read the story of Orme, a small town tucked away in the mountains of southern Tennessee that has become a recent symbol of the drought in the Southeast. Orme has had to ration its water use by collecting water for a few hours every day — an everyday experience in most developing countries.

The Southeast has been under a year-long dry spell that has resulted in the city of Atlanta setting severe water-use restrictions and Georgia, Florida and Alabama going to court over a water-allocation dispute. Early this year, it was reported that drought in the region could force nuclear reactor shutdowns. Nuclear reactors need billions of gallons of cooling water daily to operate, and in many of the local lakes and rivers, water levels are close to the limit set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In the Midwest, the emerging biofuel industry is putting pressure on groundwater resources in some places. In 2006, a Granite Falls, Minn., ethanol plant in its first year of operation depleted the groundwater so much that it had to begin pumping water from the Minnesota River.

In the Southwest, it was reported in February that there is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead (on the Arizona/Nevada border) will be dry by 2021 if climate change continues as expected and future water use is not limited. Along with Lake Powell in Utah, Lake Mead helps provide water for more than 25 million people.

On the West Coast, water disputes abound between farmers who want water for agriculture, environmentalists who want to conserve water and cities’ urban needs.

Irrigated agriculture accounts for 80 percent of water consumed in the U.S. This high percentage is partially because of low water use-efficiency. For the western U.S., agricultural farms are the single-largest water user.

We need a new approach that sets appropriate incentives to ensure that water withdrawals do not exceed the recharge rate; water conservation techniques (such as rainwater harvesting) are central to land-use planning; improved irrigation efficiency and better nutrient management are rewarded; and growing water-intensive crops in water-scarce regions is discouraged.

Now is the time to rethink our policies regarding urban development, energy production and, most importantly, our agriculture and food systems in order to avert an environmental crisis.

— Shiney Varghese is a senior policy analyst at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.