The Dehydrated States of America
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 06.25.07
Nevada is adding 80,000 new residents every year; Arizona is the fastest growing state- Tuscon and Phoenix will probably merge in the next ten years. Yet as the map shows, these are also the areas of America going through the worst drought in years.
In the southeast it is just as bad. In Florida, Lake Okeechobee has receded so much that parts of it caught fire. Worst of all, the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee has warned it may have to reduce or suspend production, because the spring waters on which it relies are flowing as much as two-thirds below normal.
Lake Powell has dramatically dropped, as can be seen by the bleached bathtub ring.
Yet even though there is so little water, John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail notes that "many homeowners associations in Florida not only require sod, but they have guys in golf carts driving around measuring the shade of green. And if you don't have the right shade, you get a nasty letter from the homeowners association and a fine." Such practices continue even as overuse of aquifers in some parts of the state have caused seawater to seep in, contaminating the water supply.
Everywhere in North America, the development industry controls local politics and local polititians control zoning and land use. " Developers press local councils relentlessly to grant zoning exemptions for new subdivisions and condominiums, and both local and state politicians are instinctively averse to limiting growth for the sake of something as intangible as future water availability. Some developers even get away with what are known as "wildcat subdivisions," built in defiance of local authorities through clever exploitation of legal loopholes.
Greg Garfin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona, asks "The questions for me are: Where is the public debate about whether to grow at any cost, or to adopt lifestyles that may require some pain?" he asks. "If we retire agricultural lands to save the water they use, will these lands become more housing subdivisions? Do we, as a society, want to make such trades? Do we all want to live in a world where we accept the fact that we've depleted our water supplies to such an extent that we are willing to accept desalination as a fact of life, even if it means that our ecosystems are more vulnerable to drought, insect infestations and fire?" ::Globe and Mail
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Forget Going Green Because It's the Right Thing to Do—Go Green to Make Your Neighbors Jealous
- Save Water in Your Garden: 5 Tips for Maximum Conservation
- Convenient, Tasty, Healthy Water is Only a Tap Away
- Focus on Focus Earth: Everglades Nevermore
- Cover Your Pool and Save Water, Energy
- Save up to 92% on Outdoor Water Costs with a Moisture Sensor
Surely this is proof of global warming and the impending crisis!
But wait, is something missing?
Let's not overlook the inverse. Many parts of Texas are more than 10 inches above normal for the year, some parts as much as 15! With a little research we might find more interesting, and perhaps contradictory data.
This graphic looks informative, but is most certainly a "glass half empty" perspective.
Now if I could just get the petrochemicals out of my drinking water, all of this water would be more useful...
Tim, there is still an impending crisis. The fastest-growing states in the country (Arizona and Nevada) are in complete denial about likely prolonged water stress. Though climatic readjustment may make Texas a winner (which is too early to say based on the recent wet year, since weather data contains a lot of noise -- only after a couple of decades will we be able to identify a trend), Arizona and Nevada are setting themselves up for increased vulnerability. These states are already dry, and the Colorado River has already been overallocated to California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.
The crisis is not that it will become dry everywhere; the crisis is that places which we think will stay the way they have been for the past 50 years (or longer) probably won't stay that way -- and we haven't been adapting.
i think it is crazy that some people are so near sighted that they don't realize what is happening to our beatiful planet. i wish we could take off 100 years of our damage and start anew.