But than there is this, this or this , all not too distant events that made the people of Baltimore think about water. Other cities have similar stories.
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| Water main break on Charles Street |
Like when water leaks from a hot water heater in an apartment on an upper level and seeps through the floorboards and ceilings of the units below, water creeps into consciousness through failure. This occurs in the urban context on many levels: water mains that burst and inundate whole sections of a community, stormwater that can't flow off through clogged storm drains and fills basements, water bills that are getting higher and higher because the communities have to deal with federal consent decrees to fix leaking pipes, not to mention Manhattan's lesson it received from hurricane Sandy, flooded subway tunnels and all. Add to this sewage overflows from overwhelmed aging treatment plans that makes urban streams smell like treatment plants or protest of poverty stricken dwellers against water shut-offs (Water Rights) and even the most blissfully ignorant urban dweller has to admit that water is not just a matter for farmers to worry about.
Let's take these water concerns one at a time.
What about tap water? Except for Detroit where the municipality took on its own water supply with disastrous results ("House of Horrors") for water quality, city water is usually good enough that one can drink it without even putting a filter up. Or so we think, trusting the good public works that were created in the depression era. But then we read about hormones, contraceptives and pesticides ("Fertility Time Bomb in Water") being so ubiquitous that traces of the stuff will be found even in the best urban water. Should we buy those pesky little plastic water bottles after all and, in an ironic twist, for environmental reasons?
Even if the water quality may be in jeopardy, water is ubiquitous, right? We don't have to worry about running dry, do we? Isn't water the one of the world's most abundant supplies with subsurface water about ten times of all the fresh water we can see combined?
While the population and the demand on freshwater resources are increasing, supply remains constant and many regions are starting to feel the pressure. In fact, a government report (PDF) found that water managers in 40 of 50 states expect water shortages in some portion of their states under average conditions in the next 10 years. (US EPA)Supply depends, not surprisingly, on geography. Baltimore City and its surroundings have indeed full reservoirs and rainfall that replenishes them just fine. But much of the country isn't so lucky. We all know about Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego, those cities in or near the desert which need to import their water from as far away as the Colorado River and the Rockies. Lately, Southern California has put a lot of restrictions on water usage and jurisdictions have been made to pay penalties if they, as a whole, didn't meet the reduction targets.
Relationship groundwater and surface water
Fewer people know about the sinking aquifers in the central plains that supply water for corn and alfalfa production (Western Kansas Farmers Worry as Aquifer Disappears). Although this article focuses on urban water issues, we are now at the farmers after all, because city dwellers need to understand the same issue: the distinction between surface and subsurface water – groundwater, aquifers and the like – applies everywhere. The sinking levels may be the most noticeable in rural areas where farming is concentrated, because farming is the largest water consumer and rural areas have more drinking water that comes from groundwater wells than their urban counterparts.
Maybe the most obscure fact is that the best tasting groundwater is often not only really delicious, but it is also old, sometime really old. Like with whiskey, age is good for water. Recent studies show that only 5.6% of the global groundwater resources are less than 50 years old. For that reason groundwater is a not always a quickly renewable resource, no matter that we talk a lot about replenishing groundwater with sustainable landscaping and stormwater management. Those desirable techniques work well for shallow ground water reservoirs but conveniently obscure the fact that it takes sometimes decades or generations to replenish groundwater.
Water at very shallow depths might be just a few hours old; at moderate depth, it may be 100 years old; and at great depth or after having flowed long distances from places of entry, water may be several thousands of years old. (USGS).
It is therefore incredibly shortsighted that most states in the US have no laws that regulate access and use of groundwater. This has recently lead to bizarre results such as Middle Eastern companies from arid states growing alfalfa and grass in US deserts using enormous quantities of water pumped from aquifers deep below, and then exporting the water in the form of hay and alfalfa back to their dry homelands. (The US exports #ColoradoRiver to Asia and the Middle East via hay crops).
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| Irrigation is a large consumer of water resources |
Most large cities don't tap groundwater for drinking water supply, but even if they don’t, they may foul it when conducting deep excavations for high rises or during subway construction. Once again, groundwater is poorly regulated, much less, at any rate, than stormwater.
Once we realize that clean water is a precious resource much like fossil fuels in almost any circumstance, we begin to appreciate the efforts expended to conserve it by fixing the leaky pipes that waste in a minute as much as all the leaky faucets combined. At this point it is necessary to note how much water we actually use, and as in energy, the US is a big hog when it comes to consumption. On a per capita basis the US is by far the world's largest consumer
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| 2007 water consumption in OECD countries (source) |
Which gets us back to water fees and equity. Water rates have been increasing dramatically lately. In the Baltimore region, where the water works are run by the city but reach deep into the surrounding county, urbanites and suburbanites are hit with those ever larger bills, some further inflated by faulty water meters. For the poor water becomes unaffordable. The ranks of those whose water is simply turned off because of unpaid bills has brought the equity issue of water and its distribution down to the neighborhood level.
Cities that sought to solve the burden of an aging water infrastructure through selling off their waterworks went from the frying pan into the fire, at least from the perspective of residents who don't want water seen as a commodity traded for profit. (Are we better off privatizing water?)
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| Water protests in Baltimore and Detroit |
Those water bills come on top of the stormwater fees that had been levied all across Maryland and that Republicans and conservative Democrats call "rain tax" and currently repeal in the wake of the political shift that came to Maryland as a result of the last gubernatorial elections. The actual purpose of those fees is the clean-up of contaminated run off that cities especially produce in staggering quantities fouling streams and estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay or Puget Sound. (ProtectingWashington’swaters fromstormwaterpollution, Chesapeake, Bay on the Brink).
The World Bank has predicted that by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will run short of fresh drinking water. Given such a grim future, it comes as little surprise that Fortune magazine recently defined water as “the oil of the 21st century.” (Public Citizen).This quick run-down of urban water issues proves that one doesn't have to go global (A thirty, violent world - the coming water wars) to conclude that cities that want to be resilient, sustainable and livable have to address water on many fronts. Truly addressing water issues comprehensively would dramatically chnage current conditions in cities and rural areas alike.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
edited by Ben Groff, JD, last updated for data on water age 11/22/15
Links:
The incredibly stupid way that Americans waste 1 trillion gallons of water each year (Washington Post)
As infrastructure crumbles, trillions of gallons of water lost (NPR)
US Water Infrastructure in Trouble (CNN)
Managing Water for Future Cities (OECD)
Water and Cities - Facts and Figures (OECD)
Tapped Out: How Will Cities Secure Their Water Future? (National Geographic)
Protecting Water for People and Nature (The Nature Conservancy)US Water Infrastructure in Trouble (CNN)
Managing Water for Future Cities (OECD)
Water and Cities - Facts and Figures (OECD)
Tapped Out: How Will Cities Secure Their Water Future? (National Geographic)
Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It
What is Groundwater? (USGS)
Water and Cities (UN)
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