Photo credit: Jeff Haynes/ AFP
As California experiences one of the worst droughts in its history, Bolinas spent much of its late winter and early spring rationing the remaining water in the town's reservoirs among 600 households. Each household was allotted 150 gallons of water per day, no matter how many people lived there. If they violated their allotment more than twice, the town turned their water off.
Keep in mind the average American household uses 400 gallons per day, and that gives you an idea of how little 150 gallons is.
We won't go into what Bolinasians had to do during their water emergency (to give you a hint: There was a lot of stagnant urine sitting in toilet bowls), but it should remind all of us why we're lucky to live in the Great Lakes region of North America.
You know that big-ass body of water due east of Chicago? I know it's named after "Michigan," which is like naming your beloved child "Genitals" but go kiss it sometime anyway because that body of water is going to totally save our asses in the next 20 to 50 years.
In fact, in 2008 Congress ratified a compact that said no water could be diverted from the Great Lakes unless all eight states that border the lakes as well as the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec (or as they say in Quebec, "le Quebec") agree.
As climate change and desertification ratchet up, the Great Lakes may prove to be one of the greatest natural resources in the world. Isn't that strange to imagine the water you're splashing on girls at North Avenue Beach when you're 25 may be worth a small fortune by the time you're 50?
Yet I can pretty much guarantee that's the way it's going to go down.
Maybe you know this already, maybe you don't, but the American West is essentially a major economic catastrophe waiting to happen. Over the last century the West has expanded to absurd proportions, far beyond the capacity of the region's water resources, which are rapidly depleting.
This is because of mountain snowpacks, which provide water for communities and agriculture. For instance, Northern California gets much of its water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told The New York Times that even under the most optimistic climate models, that snowpack will dwindle by 30 to 70 percent by the second half of this century, spelling disaster for the people who rely on its water.
"There's a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster, and that's in the best scenario," said Chu.
Then you have the Colorado River, which relies on the snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains and supplies 30 million people with water in seven states: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.
Water laws in that region are so antiquated and byzantine that a fairly simple dry spell could plunge the different players (not just the states, but agriculture and tourism interests) into a nightmare of lawsuits, water diversion projects and economic collapse. Cities like Phoenix, Los Angeles and Denver will have major problems, while Las Vegas (which is not a city but basically a big water diversion experiment) will be lucky not to implode.
If it sounds like I'm being alarmist, I assure you I'm probably underestimating how bad this will get. Why else would numerous entrepreneurs and even the Army Corps of Engineers have spent so much time investigating the possibility of piping in water from the Great Lakes? We're talking about a project so expensive and absurd it defies reason, yet serious people have considered it simply because that's how screwed the American Southwest is.
It also stands to reason that dying industrial capitals like Detroit and Cleveland will probably rebound because all of those businesses and people will have to go somewhere once the entire American West is rationing 150 gallons of water per day.
Therefore, consider yourself lucky that you had the foresight to live in a city that will have the luxury of avoiding water scarcity issues almost entirely. It's also a reason to support your local environmentalists, and keep Lake Michigan (and the others) as clean and well-tended as possible.
If not for us, do it for your children. I'm sure my son, little Genitals Markley, will thank you.
No Comments
Leave a Comment?
What your comment will look like:
said: