A Planet in Drought: Our Dwindling Water Supplies

CAROL COUCH: That's a question we get quite frequently. I think one of the things that we need to recognize, moving forward, throughout the United States and certainly globally, is that the climate is changing, and so, the extent to which we have developed our water infrastructure, assuming the kinds of delivery of rain and precipitation in the past, we might very well be likely seeing a very volatile future, and one that is not predictable based on past patterns. So, that, kind of, resets how we think about water supply and the need to assure that we have stable and secure water for our future.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jeff Mount, at the University of California, this is a question from Lorraine Bennett, in Long Beach, California. She says, "Regardless of where our water comes from, wouldn't it be valued more if water rates were to increase substantially, if the price of water to residents and businesses alike was equal to its value?" What about that? And could that in some way alleviate any of what we're discussing this morning?

JEFFREY MOUNT: The problem with -- yes is the answer. The simple answer is yes, that, in fact, we pay very little -- very little for our water when we use it for agriculture. For example, here in California, there's an order-of-magnitude difference in the price of water in some places, between what's used for agriculture and what's used in the urban environment. Here in California, for example, roughly 80 to 82 percent of the surface water that is used in California goes to agriculture, and that represents less than 10 percent of our economy.

But, be careful what you ask for. If you -- if you push for entirely free market as an approach to shortages of water, you're going to basically put a lot of farms out of business. So, it's a double-edged sword in here. Do you want all of California, for example, or all of the Southwest, to simply be urban environments, with no farming?

So, yes, the short -- is the short answer, but the devil's in the details on that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Carol Couch, in Georgia, what about from your perspective in the -- in the cost, the price that people pay for water?

CAROL COUCH: Water is very cheap. In the northern part of our state, we're dealing with a rapidly growing urban area, and we are moving very rapidly to integrate so-called conservation-tiered pricing into how we're supplying water. And it's shown to be effective.

What we will be moving toward is certainly having a tiered pricing -- the more you use, the more you pay -- but also pricing it appropriately, so that choices that we make in our home regarding how much water we use really are connected tightly to our pocketbook.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Peter Gleick, from your perspective, looking at water, is price a factor? Do people value water enough in this country?

PETER GLEICK: Well, I agree that proper pricing is critical for proper use of water. Obviously, we don't want farmers to pay the same rate that we pay for high-quality potable water in our homes, but the concept of tiered pricing, which Carol just mentioned -- that is, the more you use, the more you pay per gallon -- is critical for getting people to use water efficiently. The really high-volume users will end up paying a lot for water, and they'll start to think about how to use water more efficiently and more effectively.

JUDY WOODRUFF: There's a question -- Carol, I want to come back to you -- from Augusta, Georgia. Richard Still wrote, and he said, "In my opinion, the Atlanta area, through the Chambers of Commerce" -- Atlanta being, of course, the capital of Georgia -- "through the Chambers of Commerce, have encouraged growth at any cost for decades without thought as to natural resources." I mean, he says the state should require an immediate moratorium on new homes and subdivisions. How much is growth -- and I know this is not just a question that applies to the state of Georgia, but to the entire country in high-growth areas -- how much is this a factor, or should it be a factor?

CAROL COUCH: Well, it is a big factor. We are, in the state, moving to enact, in January, the first comprehensive statewide water plan that is conducted comprehensively how we're developing water resources, and it ties directly to understanding our long-term economic needs and the needs to assure the environmental needs of water.

The state of Georgia has benefited from abundant water, to the extent that we have taken it for granted. And we're literally at the tipping point, in terms of public policy now, recognizing that we can no longer, quote/unquote, "take it for granted," and we must be very judicious about the policies that provide water supply in relation to how regions of the state will respond to what is predicted to be a doubling of the population in 25 short years.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we know that growth is not only -- as I said, it's not only an issue in the Southeast; you know, the Sun -- across the Sun Belt.

We have a question from an Anthony Masini, from Yerington, Nevada, and I'll pose this to Jeff Mount, but I'd like for -- Peter Gleick, for you to comment, as well. It's related to what we were just saying. He said, "Throughout the '90s, the Nevada State Water Board told Las Vegas that they would run out of water by a certain year in the 2000s." He said -- he says, "In response to this upcoming crisis, Las Vegas built 1,000 new homes per month throughout the '90s." He said -- he basically -- he says, "Why didn't Las Vegas curb growth?" But, I think -- I think, pitching this forward, what is the responsibility of a municipality, of a state, to curb growth to address growth issues when scarce resources are at stake?

Jeff Mount?

JEFFREY MOUNT: Yeah, you're going to want to hear from Peter on this, as well, because he's one who's studied this directly. So, I'll be -- I'll be brief.

Here in California, we developed a -- developed a new law called "Show Me the Water." And it, basically -- for new developments, they have to demonstrate that they have an identified a source of water.

Las Vegas was basically -- it's based upon a hoped-for outcome. Well, hope as a strategy for managing water -- that and the fact that they are such an economic powerhouse that they, to quote Marc Reisner, can "go out and steal the water fair and square." So, that's basically been the plan of Las Vegas, that sheer economic power will acquire water for their future needs, without necessarily putting in the long-range careful planning that -- and growth restrictions necessary.

But I think Peter should weigh in on this, because he's worked on this a lot.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Peter Gleick?

PETER GLEICK: Well, I actually think the greatest failure in water management in the United States has been the failure to integrate growth and water planning, together. We tend to think of growth as a good thing. We want more and more of it -- economic growth, population growth, the development of housing. And so, we have basically grown to the limits of our water supply in many parts of the country; and, frankly, beyond the limits of our water supply.

And what that means is, we're now literally up against the wall, up against the limits of availability. And places, like Las Vegas, that love growth, places like much of the West, that love growth, now don't know where to get the water. We're now forced to think, Is there another river, farther and farther away? Is there another dam that we can build? And the economic and environmental and, frankly, the political costs of failing to integrate growth and water planning together are now pretty apparent.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, whose decision is it? Where do these decisions -- and we had a number of questions -- I just cite one. Chris Counihan, from Gloucester, Massachusetts, says, "What are the best ways to resolve disputes among states, counties, and municipalities in regards to water? Whose call is this?" And I'll ask any of you -- Peter, Carol, Jeff?

JEFFREY MOUNT:  It's lawyers.

[Laughter.]

JEFFREY MOUNT: I mean, really, I hate to be cynical about this, but Mark Twain was right when he said, "Whiskey is for drinking and water's for fightin'" --

CAROL COUCH: A lot -- a lot of the ultimate resolution of the intersection between growth strategies and choices in water may be very different in the East versus the West, based on their underlying water laws. And that's something that Eastern States -- and Georgia, in particular -- are coming to terms with, are needing to come to terms with in very short order. We have different underlying water-law structure that essentially holds water as a -- if you will, a public resource managed by the state. And yet, our growth policies are ones that are in the hands of our local jurisdictions. And so, to tie those two pieces together will require a sort of a transformation in the state, at the state level, regarding our state responsibility for conducting regulation and management of water as a public trust and resource, and then the choices made locally. And we are in the midst of trying to forage -- forge, if you will, solutions there. It won't be easy, however.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you saying it's more difficult in the East -- east of the Mississippi, than it is west?

CAROL COUCH: I'm not saying --

PETER GLEICK: No.

CAROL COUCH: -- it's more difficult. I'm saying we have a somewhat different starting point, in terms of the underlying laws and the way we would treat water and the choices we would make, particularly as we bring economic valuation to water and its relationship to growth strategies.

PETER GLEICK: I would argue, though, that we'd love to manage water locally, and we've traditionally done that, but we're increasingly in a world in which the scale of our water problems is so large that, certainly in the United States, water is increasingly being managed, not just locally, but interstate. The Colorado River is shared by seven states and Mexico. Even in Georgia, we find that the rivers are shared by Georgia and Alabama and Florida, and they cannot just be managed locally.

CAROL COUCH: And I --

PETER GLEICK: We have to --

CAROL COUCH: Yeah.

PETER GLEICK: We have to look at them as an interstate issue, and we have to look at, not just human management and human use, but ecosystem management and ecosystem use of water, too, which is something we've failed to do in the past.

CAROL COUCH: And I concur with that. But, to thread the interstate management of our water to our current infrastructure in a state where the constitution has local choices for growth management, needs to be done. We are managing water at a watershed basis. We turned that corner a few years ago in the state. And we now need to bring in alignment how we're dealing with growth management strategies. Both things need to occur. And we don't have the benefit of a great deal of time here in the South to make the right choices for a healthy future.

CAROL COUCH: Oh, it will -- they will be front and center in making those choices, and it will take great vision and leadership.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And are we finding that most politicians are in -- are aware of what's at stake?

CAROL COUCH: Well, in Georgia, the awareness is at a high degree of awareness, and that's the very reason why our legislature commissioned, for the first time, a comprehensive, statewide water management plan to help direct that guidance. That plan was something that has been absent in Georgia in its histories heretofore, so I think that's a representation of the political need to move in an agreed-upon fashion for dealing with some of both the local issues, the regional issues, and the shared resources that are interstate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We received a number of questions, too, about people living, in effect, in the desert. We know Las Vegas certainly is built in the desert, parts of the -- of the West -- I think several of you, if not all of you, have mentioned this -- I have a question from -- the name is Ann Kidalowski. She's from New York, Clifton Park, New York. She says, "I've long felt it's absolutely wrong to build cities in the desert. We all have to expect periodic cycles with little or no rain, so why settle where you expect none at all? Why build in what is a wasteland? Why not leave the desert as it is?"

Peter Gleick?

PETER GLEICK: Well, it's partly this question of growth, it's partly this question of having failed, in the past, to plan in conjunction with the natural resources around us. We've always felt, "Let's build the cities, and let's figure out then how to get the resources to them -- the energy, the water, the food." And we've done that remarkably successfully. But what we did in the 20th century, we can't do in the 21st century. We can no longer assume that there are more and more rivers and aquifers that can be tapped for our cities. We do live in the desert, many of us, and we have to live differently. And we can't grow without understanding what the limits to the resources are.

And so, the 21st century is going to require a different kind of accommodation. It's going to require, perhaps, getting rid of the Eastern English lawn that we brought with us from the East Coast of the United States, and earlier from Europe. We cannot afford to use water on outdoor landscaping in the West the way we do it in the East. And there are other accommodations we'll have to make, as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That's right, those ideal gardens -- those ideas -- those ideals come from parts of Europe, and certainly Great Britain, where they get a lot more rain than we do in parts of the Western United -- most of the Western United --

CAROL COUCH: And even in the East, we're going to be needing to make different choices regarding outdoor water use and residential use. Some of the things that we're learning from the experience here in the Southeast is that we have a great deal of our highly treated potable drinking water going for outdoor irrigation. And over the course of the last year, we have a lot of folks moving toward native plants, and zeroscaping, and some of the approaches that have been early -- were early adopted in the West, and they are coming East, as well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A question from Clark Row, in Edgewood, Maryland. He writes, "What is the effect of reduced water flows in rivers and reservoirs on levels of pollution and human health dangers?" Who could weigh in on that?

PETER GLEICK: Jeff?

JEFFREY MOUNT: I'd bet all of us could, to some degree. And, of course, that is one of the big issues. There is this old adage, "Dilution is the solution to pollution," which actually hasn't worked out so hot. But, in fact, your ability to regulate water quality, particularly using reservoirs, is -- declines severely in -- during droughts. And salinity becomes a very specific problem. And, of course, there's a number of ecosystem effects that people have to deal with during droughts.

And the human health side, yeah, actually this is -- this is something you can see; that is, you can pick up higher concentrations of E. coli that occur in these -- in these -- during these low-flow periods, because septic tanks, for example, are now discharging into what are smaller rivers. But, here in the U.S., it's not a widespread problem. It's not a major problem. It's just -- it's something that appears during droughts.

PETER GLEICK: I would also add that one of the things we've learned is that our use of water has far greater impacts on natural ecosystems than we ever imagined. And, as humans take more and more water out of the system for our own use, our ecosystems have been suffering. And we've seen this in the Everglades, and we've seen it in every major river in the Western United States. And so, low flows affect ecosystems that, in turn, ultimately affect us again.

And we had a question from Barbara Evans, from Baltimore, Maryland, related to this. She says, "Have we looked at desalinization using reverse" -- she said, "We know that populations in the MidEast" -- she means in the Middle East, as we think of Israel, Jordan, and Syria, and so forth -- that's right -- "use reverse osmosis to take water from desert water tables. Have we looked at this for the South and the Southwest?"

What about this question of desalinization?

CAROL COUCH: Well, in the South, that question comes up a lot. Technologically, it obviously is used throughout the world. One of the major issues we need to face in desalinization becomes one of certainly the environmental permitting, but it -- there is also an economic side of this. Desalinization is extremely energy intensive in the -- in the -- in the process, and the cost to deliver water is, relatively, much higher than the -- in the South, relative to treating water from natural sources.

I do believe there'll be a time, moving forward, when desalinization may be part of a diversified manner in which water is provided, but it won't be a -- it won't be a silver bullet for us.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Anyone else on the use --

JEFFREY MOUNT: Judy, I wanted to chime on in that. This is exactly the answer to drought, and I think your listeners may have picked up on this -- is this diversification of your portfolio of water. You know, the big, bad, awful, horrible, Los Angeles, which is the way people view it, sucking all that water from northern California, has actually instituted very aggressive, very innovative water management programs, which involve tremendous amounts of diversification. They store water in the ground, they reuse water, they recycle water, desal is becoming part of their portfolio. So, this is one of the ways you adapt to constant scarcity in water.

And the problem, of course, with desal is, it is extremely energy hungry, it is hardly "green" as a way to get water. But it's this diversification which is probably the best approach.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We had a number of questions -- and we're coming to the end of our time here -- we had a number of questions of people asking, "What is the right amount of water that should be used by an average family of four?" and so forth. But let me just broaden that and ask, What should -- what should people in this country be thinking now as -- in terms of household use of water, yard -- one's yard, watering plants, taking showers, baths, leaving the water running while you're brushing your teeth -- what should people be thinking? I want to ask all of you, What message do you have for all of our online visitors about this question of water?

Let's start with Peter Gleick.

PETER GLEICK: Well, I do think that a key, in the long run, to our use of our limited water resources is the efficiency with which we use it. We've done a tremendous amount of work on this issue at the Pacific Institute, looking at efficient use of water. And the truth is, none of us are as efficient as we could be, and none of us are as efficient as we should be.

We use water in a lot of different ways -- in our homes, in our industries, in agriculture. And using water more effectively -- that is, doing what we want, but with less water -- which is the smart way to think about conservation and efficiency, rather than brown laws and shorter showers and deprivation -- if we think about efficiency, then there are -- there's a lot of things that each of us could do as individuals, from changing out our old, inefficient home appliances and fixtures, to getting our industry and our agriculture to use the most effective irrigation technology and production technology. We can probably save 30 to 40 percent of all the water that we use, and do the things that we want, and that's going to be key, moving forward, in our opinion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Carol Couch?

CAROL COUCH: The state plan that I talked about earlier actually focuses, as a foundational principle, on enhancing and compelling a higher degree of efficiency in water use across all sectors of water use, in addition to voluntary measures that have been there.

We believe, in Georgia, that we can reduce and -- our current demand by water by about 30 percent through the efficient use of water. And that will go a long way toward helping us manage our water in the most efficient manner possible as we continue to grow. It's part of the solution, and it has to be one that we emphasize before we talk about developing new water sources.

To the taxpayer and to the ratepayer and utility payer, that will bear hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure development on water, the cheapest gallon of water is the water we don't have to withdraw and use.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, Jeff Mount, at U.C. Davis.

JEFFREY MOUNT: Well, not to echo directly what they said, there is another component of individual action which makes a big difference in this, and that is planning. Today, most homeowners, when they turn on the tap, all they care is whether water comes out, and then that it turns off when they turn off the tap. What they don't engage in is, in fact, the regional planning for water and the long-range planning for water. Most people just care what comes out of the tap. And that's a problem. And so, actually, I think the greatest investment they can make, beyond personal efforts within their own home, is getting engaged in the political aspects and to do regional planning for water.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I want to thank the many, many, many visitors online to the Online NewsHour who sent in questions. We couldn't get to all of them, but we did get to a number of them, and I want to thank them for their interest in this subject.

And I especially want to thank our guests: Peter Gleick, president and cofounder of the Pacific Institute -- he's at Oakland, California; Carol Couch is the director of the Environmental Protection Division in the State of Georgia; and Director Jeff Mount, who is a former chair of the Department of Geology, professor of geology at the University of California at Davis.

Thank you, all three, very much for talking with us about this critically important subject.

PETER GLEICK: Thank you.

CAROL COUCH: Thank you, Judy.

JEFFREY MOUNT:  Thank you.