Dwindling Waters, 1996

Editor

1996

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 4th quarter 1996, No. 322

See also: Technocracy Digest, May 1961

In our May 1961 Technocracy Digest, John Darvill, a member of our Vancouver Section, wrote an article entitled Our Dwindling Waters, where he pointed out that alarm (even at that time) was being belatedly expressed as: ``For the first time, North America outpaces its dependable water supplies....Air and water are two essentials to life on this planet. Without either, or both, life would be impossible.

W.H. Carhart in his book Water or Your Life pointed out the dangers facing North America caused by the abuses to our rivers and forests, and our failure to practice conservation on a large scale.''

Another Technocracy member, this one from our Portland Section, Ron Miller, spoke at an Area meeting in 1989, and we quote excerpts from his lecture:

``Water is needed for all life on earth. About two- thirds of the earth is covered with water. The national average water participation on the contourments of the United States is 30 inches per year, or 42 billion gallons a day. About 1200 billion gallons of water per day run off to the oceans.

``The known amount of ground water to be found within a half mile of the earth's surface, is about 50 times that of the surface flow. This is about four times the amount that is in the Great Lakes. The U.S. also has about three billion miles of rivers and streams.

``...In 1975, the U.S. Water Resource Council showed that two-thirds of the Nation's consumptive requirements exceeded twenty percent of current stream flows. These figures are based on averages, but the actual situation could be a lot worse. Between 1950 and 1980 the total ground water withdrawals increased from 34 to 89 billion gallons per day, an increase of 162 percent.

``In 1980, the principal uses of water were irrigation -- 60 billion gallons a day. Public drinking water -- 12 billion gallons a day, with smaller amounts applied to industrial and rural use. The largest aquifer in the U.S. right now is having enough water withdrawn from it to equal the flow of the Colorado River.

``Aquifer water can become contaminated long before we are aware of the damage, and last for long periods of time. Over 50 percent of the U.S. population now draws upon the ground water for its supply.''

Now, it's 1996!

So, there we were, back in 1961, and still back in 1989, worried about water supplies. But now, it's 1996! The population has risen; development has increased. What do you suppose that has done to the water supply? Nobody's worried? Guess not! Large developments of housing and large developments of malls and industrial complexes have been allowed to go on apace. Immigration is even encouraged in Canada.

Many articles and books on our `dwindling waters' have been written since, outlining other problems that lack of water can cause. Here are a few more previous years' headlines and descriptions:

1991, January 15, Vancouver Sun: Soon water, not oil, could be key issue in Middle East.

1991, May 7, Vancouver Sun: Dry Land -- What really matters in the Middle East is not who has the land. It's who has the water.

1992, August 6, Western Producer: Valley wants more water. Efforts to find new water sources to keep the Pembina Valley, in Manitoba, prosperous have irritated other communities. The Valley has attracted industry and population, and now they've discovered they're running out of water for future growth. Vegetable farmers who irrigate from the Assiniboine River are afraid a water diversion to the Pembina Valley will threaten their operations in dry years.

1992, August, Everwild, Victoria, B.C.: Where has all the water gone? The Lower Mainland (of B.C.) has experienced drought- like conditions in three of the last six summers. Would it not at least be prudent to assume that we may have a major water shortage on our hands, and start to take urgent remedial steps?

1992, August 31, The Independent, London: Iraqui canal project viewed as threat to Marsh Arabs -- breaching their natural defenses and possibly destroying their environment and way of life forever.

1993, March 4, Vancouver Sun: Dammed river leaves Tatshenshini unique. The Bio-Bio River in Chile is being dammed, ranked as one of the earth's top three whitewater rivers, along with B.C.'s Tatshenshini and America's Colorado (also dammed). Its loss, said Mark Angelo, Associate Dean of Renewable Resources at B.C. Institute of Technology, leaves the Tatshenshini alone as the only top ranked river that is still wild and undamaged. (A dam on the Colorado is causing erosion problems because of water flow changes.)

1993, July 21, Canadian Press: Droughts, low water levels cited as wave of the future.

1994, August, Canadian Press: World Bank warns of wars over water.

Now, we move on to 1995/1996.

In September, 1995, a Worldwatch Institute study shows that China's explosive growth on the global food supply is coming just when world demand for seafood is colliding with the sustainable yield of global fisheries, when the demand for water is outrunning the sustainable yield of aquifers in major food-producing regions...Water demand has increased six-fold since 1950, most of it in northern China, coming from aquifers. The water table in Beijing has fallen from four metres below the surface in 1950 to more than 30 metres today. There are water shortages in 300 Chinese cities with populations of more than one million.

From AUDUBON MAY/JUNE 1996, there is a report by Jon R. Luoma entitled, The Drying of the Rivers where he tells of the large rivers of the world drying up. He reports that the Gila River, just south of Phoenix -- dried up -- not a trickle. The Salt River, a few miles to the north, like the Gila, ``has been dammed and parceled out up-stream for massive irrigation projects, urban dishwashers, and fairways and lawns in the booming Southwest,'' so now the rivers flow only during rare desert deluges.

Did you know there was a river in Los Angeles? -- Lost, years ago. The San Joaquin River -- ``22 miles of it so dried up that developers want to build houses in the riverbed.''

The writer explains that they are divvying up the Colorado River among several U.S. States and Mexico, of 16.5 million acre-feet of water in a river that, on average, produces only about 15 million acre-feet, which leaves about 10 percent less than nothing for the river itself, or its ecosystems.

``In China, the Yellow River no longer runs into Bo Hai gulf. During India's dry season, the Ganges no longer flows into the Bay of Bengal. In the Middle East, the Jordan is now but a trickle at its mouth, in the Dead Sea.''

``In the former Soviet Union, the Aral Sea has shrunk dramatically over the past four decades as its two major tributaries, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, were increasingly diverted for cotton-irrigation projects. By the 1980s, deprived of tributary waters, the Aral seemed well on its way to vanishing: Its surface area had decreased by half, its volume by about three-fourths.''

And Luoma says, the key culprit in the vanishing of these waters is irrigation, especially high dams. Worldwide, the number of dams higher than 50 feet increased from 5,000 in 1950 to nearly 40,000 by the mid- 1980s -- all for the needs of booming populations -- not to mention the ecological and economic downsides.

Technocracy, over 60 years ago, proposed a Continental Hydrology, which would prevent many abuses. It is the scientific solution to North America's water problem.

-- Editor