Water Runs Away

That ground under your feet may seem pretty solid, but if you're in West Texas, it may already have been taken out from under them. T. Boone Pickens has been planning something. It involves the Ogallala Aquifer, which still has no regulations concerning the use of its water in the state of Texas. By "capture rights" anyone with rights to the water can take as much as she/he likes.

Water shortages have been coming for a long time as development in N.Texas exceeds the rate of anywhere else in the country. Boone Pickens has been watching, and thinking about the money to be made.

Representatives of the oil and investment tycoon last month sent letters to about 1,100 landowners along a proposed 250-mile path through 11 Panhandle and Central Texas counties to tell them their "property may be affected" in obtaining rights of way for construction of an underground pipeline and aboveground electrical transmission lines, the letter stated.

The two delivery systems will allow Pickens to transport water from the Ogallala Aquifer — though he has no buyer yet — and deliver wind energy to "customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and potentially elsewhere," the letter states.

Hardeman County landowner Kenneth Horton called Pickens — once was known as a corporate raider for takeovers of oil companies in the 1980s — a "natural resources raider."
(snip)
"The state of Texas has for over 100 years authorized the use of eminent domain to permit the common necessities of life, water, electricity, telephone service, oil and gas for use in the big cities," said Humble, Pickens' attorney.

Until last year, though, the wind project couldn't not have been included in the process of obtaining rights of way.

Lawmakers in the last legislative session voted to allow renewable and clean-coal energy projects to piggyback obtaining rights of way with a district like the one Pickens formed last year to "construct, maintain, and operate transmission lines."

The locals aren't lying down and letting Pickens' Mesa Company pipe their water off to the big city, it seems.

Mesa Water's promise to sue a local water district didn't stop that group's leaders from voting to set different goals for different people.

The North Plains Groundwater Conservation District's board voted unanimously Tuesday to set a goal of having 60 percent of existing water in the Ogallala Aquifer in its eastern counties in 50 years and 40 percent of existing water in its western counties.

"The western counties would be taking water at the expense of the eastern counties," said Steve Stevens, a Mesa representative. "We don't care how much pumping is allowed, if it's one acre-foot or two acre-feet, as long as everybody is treated equally."

An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons.

The district's goal is to retain an average of 50 percent of existing water in 20 years across the district. It set the 60 percent goal for its territory in Hansford, Hutchinson, Lipscomb and Ochiltree counties. The 40 percent goal covers Dallam, Hartley, Moore and Sherman counties where irrigation is a heavy.
(snip)
The different goals were part of the district's new management plan. The board will pass rules to achieve that plan at a later date.

The world is becoming a little more attuned to the use of its resources. While the local farmers may be in for a battle, it would seem unlikely that anyone could deprive the whole area around them of the water necessary for their livelihoods.

In Saudi Arabia, aquifers are being saved by stopping local wheat growing. With vast amounts of profit from oil production, the country has gone to buying from abroad to meet the needs for wheat, reserving water for other uses. It may be time to take a hard look at what needs are primary, as the water runs out in the plains states.

This will not be the first time the plains have had a water crisis. There was once a Dust Bowl there. That's when the Ogallala first was tapped, so that those plains states became the breadbasket of the world. Most of the states that depend on it legislated controls so that it couldn't be stripped away. In Texas, that never happened. In Texas, a battle is brewing over rights to resources that are vital to life, not just to an investor.

Where Have All The Species Gone?

There has been a diminution in species that we've known and read about for some time, maybe long enough that we think it's part of the order of things. As tomorrow is Earth Day, I'd like to point out that the cost of losing species is our own impoverishment, if not outright dangerous.

The beauty of the earth is a gift we need to stop and appreciate. Its variety keeps us and all of its other life forms in balance, and keeps us safe from extremes. We are threatening that variety and beauty.

If you've never been to Yellowstone, you're already taking a chance that it's not going to be there for you, because we weren't there for it.

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected. You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves." These are the words that Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe said in the 1850's. His speech that day is said to be one of the most beautiful and profound statements on the environments ever made. He made these statements when the US government wanted to buy his land and he knew they would destroy it and his way of life.
(snip)
Our intervention, our greed and disrespect for nature is taking its toll. The Earth can only take so much and it and everything else has its limits. One can only destroy so much timber, so much clean water, so much wildlife until, at some point; it will be unable to rejuvenate itself.
(snip)
Don't kid yourself by saying too bad but there are lots more left. Hundreds of species every year disappear forever from this Earth. You do have the choice to preserve them or to let them be forever gone.

In Europe, particularly in England where birdwatchers anxiously await the spring flocks of our friends with wings, the unspeakable is occurring. Migratory birds are disappearing.

To you readers who follow cabdrollery's Thursday Birdblogging, it will come as no surprise that I am always watching for my returning birds, and am particularly proud that my rampant underbrush has been home annually to a brown thrasher for some time now. It's no longer a source of conflict with the meticulous gardener next door, since she's converted to birdwatching, herself.

The distress we would feel if we never saw our cardinals, mourning doves, robins, cedar waxwings, Carolina wrens - none of us want to experience that, ever.

Many of the birds that migrate to Britain and Europe from Africa every spring, from the willow warbler to the cuckoo, are undergoing alarming declines, new research shows.

The falls in numbers are so sharp and widespread that ornithologists are waking up to a major new environmental problem – the possibility that the whole system of bird migration between Africa and Europe is running into trouble.
(snip)
The study, compiled by the RSPB research biologist Steven Ewing and likely to be published later this year, goes on to show that this pattern is not confined to Britain. It is being repeated across Europe as a whole, from Spain to Finland, with 27 out of 37 European-African migratory species for which there is reliable long-term population data – 72 per cent of the total – undergoing declines.

Our lives are not just poorer for the loss of beautiful creatures, and of other inhabitants of this earth. The fact that we depend on so many life forms for sustaining life, not just to eat, makes that loss hazardous to our health, as well.

We've objected, and sometimes combated, the abuse of our world in many ways, but until recently, we've been fighting against indifference, even an abusive mind-set. As the losses we've been subjected to are growing every day more a concern to rational people, the actual danger is becoming more clear. Global warming is showing its ugly face, and now starvation has become an acknowledged, discernible, result.

Concern for our environment isn't a luxury that elitists get emotional over at the expense of the economically deprived. Hunting Bambi isn't the problem. Our environment can't be damaged without hurting ourselves.

Earth Day dawns tomorrow full of the potential to work with or against the forces of nature. Our lives depend on our choices.

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These conservatives in training sure got the message right. If you truly dislike your fellow man and consider basic decency more politically correct dogma, you will want to play this game with the Young Conservatives of Texas.

If race-baiting makes you vomit, you may want to consider another diversion.

The Texas Tech community reacted to a student organization after it organized and conducted a game called "Catch the Illegal Immigrant" March 31, which involved a controversial T-shirt with words "Illegal Immigrant" written on the front and the words "Catch Me If You Can" bannered across the back.
(snip)
The game consisted of a handful of students, all Caucasian, who wore the T-shirts as they went to classes on campus, he said. If another student encountered one of the students donning the shirt, he or she could bring the "illegal immigrant" back to the Young Conservatives of Texas table outside of the Student Union Building, where he or she would be awarded a prize.

While the event occurred on Cesar Chavez Day, a day intended to celebrate the Mexican-American political activist and leader, Cullin said its organizers did not intentionally schedule it on that day. It was a coincidence.

There's a way to make your parents proud, if you happen to be descended from the kind of family that uses racial insults to amuse themselves, while they cheat the illeguls that do the gardening with less than minimum wage.

I am waiting for a world where nastiness to fellow beings earns sneers, not prizes. Maybe one of the prizes could be "Letter From The Birmingham Jail"? We can hope.

Eating Mud

The word 'hunger' probably means to most of us that grinding sensation that means you need to get yourself to the refrigerator and choose from a lot of possibles exactly what you're going to eat. Last night I watched Newshour, and saw a report about Haiti which included a scene of making mudpies. Not child's play, but staving off hunger.

I have posted here before about the food shortages, and our need to take a personal role in our environment - such as gardening. That food is impossible for the very poor to afford at all isn't a prospect easy to investigate, but probably closer to us all than we imagine.

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a one-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.
(snip)
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is increasingly concerned about food prices, which are up as much as 40 percent on some Caribbean islands. Floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season forced the agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other countries.

Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

At the market in the La Salines slum, two cups of rice now sell for $0.60, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

It isn't the experience we have every day, with markets full of more than we can consume, in the U.S. We are used to lower prices for what we buy there than we are experiencing at present, but our stores are full of goods.

Throughout the rest of the world, this is becoming ominously less the case. Where there is a supply, it is increasingly out of reach for the indigent.

Rice prices are set to keep rising as demand for the staple is outstripping production, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has said.

The Philippines-based body said in its Rice Today publication that more research was needed in how to increase rice productivity.

The price of rice has risen by as much as 70% during the past year, with increases accelerating in recent weeks.

Several rice-producing countries have put curbs on exports in recent weeks.

'Research needed'

"Longer term demand-supply imbalance is clearly indicated by depletion of stock that has been going on for several years," said Sushil Pandey, agricultural economist at the IRRI.

"We have been consuming more than what we have been producing and research to increase rice productivity is needed to address this imbalance."

World history has had episodes of this sort before, with the conclusion that cake is not an adequate substitute for bread. Incidentally, Versailles is a lovely place to visit, and the excesses of the French Revolution do not make access to great public services less attractive in that country, imho.

Earth Day is April 22, and it is past time to take seriously the crisis in food production that this earth is experiencing. On that date, we will be reminded that we are not forever going to experience plentiful food supplies. It shouldn't take any world bodies reminding us for us to see for ourselves.

Food riots have occurred in Haiti and a few African nations, brought on by hunger. The outbreaks of violence will be growing as food disappears. For our own well-being, we need to be aware, and begin taking appropriate steps such as using less energy, gardening, cutting back on car and airplane travel.

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NTodd posted a site you may want to explore, for microfinance internationally, mainly small industry with lots of women trying to find a way to support their families: http://www.kiva.org

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From CNN's Planet in Peril site, Quick Vote;

What do you think is the greatest threat to the planet?
Global warming 29% 4843
Species loss 3% 508
Habitat loss 8% 1325
Overpopulation 60% 9995
Total Votes: 16671

I find it rather disheartening that more poll takers saw their fellow beings as the problem than saw major importance in protecting the environment. This a.m. in Eschaton comments, more than one person I apprised of this little vignette saw this as indicative of the popular fear of 'brown people'.

I suppose it might be enlightening to find out what measures the respondents would choose to eliminate the problem of overpopulation? I fear it might be what I suspect is the White House idea of ending our invasion of Iraq: attrition.

Milk At $3 A Gallon - Limit Two With Additional $10 Purchase

If that title makes you cringe, come sit over here by me.

My scenery is all snow. It fell from around noon yesterday until the middle of the night, and it's beautiful. West Texas would be so happy to have it, and I'm sure that the offices in the area where employees will be arriving late if at all would be delighted to make the switch. I already offered it to several commenters at Eschaton, and no takers.


Now for snow, early morning N. Texas -


It's covering over my little garden and adding to the ground water. It takes a farmer to know how beautiful that is, and since I can't give the snow, let me give you some idea what that kind of beauty is. It may mean the difference between having food to put on your family and the desperation that you know when you can't.

I learned a lot from doing a post not long ago on Darfur, which led me to the statement made by U.N. Secretary General Ban ki Moon, to the effect that there is a direct correlation between the effects of climate change and the racial/ethnic conflict that has led to that tragedy.

Those of us who grew up familiar with water needs have a consciousness that the rest of the world is just beginning to find, an eye to natural resources. Global warming may just be making that important. I always planned to grow veggies, and you may have read a few days ago about my garden reflections. Have you checked prices in the grocery stores recently? I may be looking next for my own cow or goats. I would hate to do without cheese.

Yesterday the U.N. World Food Program issued a report on the declining availability of foodstuffs worldwide that made my eyes open wider to the growing problem of hunger for the poor nations of the world. With the financial situation in this country lowering so many into poverty, it's time to take a close look at the emergent problems of hunger for so many.

The head of the UN World Food Programme has warned that the rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010.

Josette Sheeran blamed soaring energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels.
(snip)
Areas where the WFP is already seeing an impact include:

# Afghanistan: 2.5 million people in Afghanistan cannot afford the price of wheat, which rose more than 60% in 2007

# Bangladesh: The price of rice has risen 25% to 30% over the last three months. In 2007, the price rose about 70%.

# El Salvador: Rural communities are buying 50% less food than they did 18 months ago with the same amount of money. This means their nutritional intake, on an already poor diet, is cut by half.

# Anger over rising food prices have already led to riots in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and Morocco.

If your concern about carbon emissions, and fossil fuels, didn't just grow, you're a step behind the times.

For those of you who haven't thought about it I suggest you look around. What you are used to having for the amount you have to spend is shrinking, and that's happening to all of us. Resources are not growing to match that plight. My title is about a sale price, something that makes me sad for those of you with young families. It would have made me quite desperate.

Your budget will have to change. It's changing already for the most needy, and we used to just drop more nickles into our charities. For those of us who aren't in that .01% that has 90% of the wealth in this country, we're getting there.

We might not have gotten to this predicament if the rest of this country hadn't let itself be lulled into equanimity - or alienated so badly - that it voted in some one who doesn't like us. Working against reduction of carbon emissions hurts everyone except the producers of those emissions, and is vicious. Working against the ability of working people to support their families hurts even the producers of work, since there is less to buy whatever they are selling.

Since we're at the mercy of the voters, we need to be very concerned about the atmosphere that put us in this situation.

Free Trade, the Parlor Game

You may have lost your parlor, so my title may not be so funny to you right now. We have a wonderful sounding policy front called Free Trade that has been pushed by a lot of high officials, including, yes, even President Clinton. It sounds like a benefit, acts like a stab in the back.

In Texas, water agreements that have been in place since 1944 have been ignored by our partner, Mexico, during several years of drought. Many farmers north of the Rio Grande who depended on getting their share of the Rio Concho tributaries have lost millions, and some have had to give up agriculture altogether. The farm community has decided to seek justice against a NAFTA ruling against U.S. interests, a denial of water that OUR State Department was seeking.

Let's put that so you are sure to understand, the U.S. State Department sided with Mexico in denial of water to U.S. agriculture interests, water that U.S. farmers had rights to from longstanding agreement.

I'm not against Mexican farmers or industry. I am, however, a U.S. citizen who thinks our government was put in place to protect and defend us, not any other country. In its ongoing record of dysfunction, the U.S. executive branch avoided dealing with such difficult problems as working out fair distribution of scarce water between competing interests. Our government gave advantage, game point, to Mexico.

Stephan Becker, a Washington attorney who has represented Mexico in the dispute, said the Texans' case is fatally flawed; NAFTA doesn't allow parties to air complaints about violations of other treaties, he said.

"Mexico is opposing the judicial review, and we are confident that the request will be rejected," Mr. Becker said.

Three years ago, Mexico agreed to transfer more water to reservoirs to make up for its so-called water debt. But the Texas farmers and water districts insist they should be compensated for the period when not enough water was delivered.

Many farmers struggled through the long drought. Some are believed to have left the Valley. Others couldn't borrow money without being able to show they had water to grow crops.

Last week, Ms. Combs asked Texans in Congress to press the U.S. State Department to stay away from the dispute.

"I think Susan is going to find bipartisan support from the Texas delegation," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. "We have to have a system where the Mexicans stop rolling up these big water debts that hurt us in the Rio Grande Valley."

Even lawmakers whose districts have few ties to Mexico said they were distressed to learn about the government's position.
(snip)
"The notion that water rights in Mexico, which are owed to an individual, derive from an international treaty obligation – that is cutting edge," said Mr. Grierson- Weiler, who represented the Canadians in the cattle case. "And I personally think it has a lot of merit."

Mr. Grierson-Weiler said he agrees with Ms. Marzulla that the three-member NAFTA tribunal, which included former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, went beyond its scope when it dismissed the claim, ruling that that Texans didn't have investments in Mexico.

The past year of record rain has avoided huge losses for both sides of our southern border, and the pressures have eased. This is not likely to persist.

The three years preceding 2007 showed 'exceptional' drought levels, like those that Atlanta recently experienced. The water wars between Georgia and Florida were at least familial. Georgia farmers and water utilizers of all varieties were not duking it out with foreign interests, and finding that the same government that relies on them for their funds was using those funds to fight against their interests.

The losses the entire country has suffered from the two terms of anti-American corporate shills is a loss to more than just investors, farmers, home buyers, wage-earners, the general public.

The same people who are incapable of serving the U.S. public are entrenched in offices throughout our departments. As ProfessorWombat often comments at Eschaton, it will take awhile to cull out the idiots who have been given powers they cannot handle, that we are paying them well to misuse against us.

335 days.

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In another example of incompetence, the lack of regulations has led our financial institutions into a disaster that has spread worldwide.

In response to an article at WaPo on how investors are seeking more powers over corporate policy making that has been severely dysfunctional lately, I made these comments:

The basic underlying philosophy of supply side economics has been resoundingly disproved not only by the present meltdown, but also by the unmentioned backdating of stock options. The insistence that deregulation would 'allow' the corporate financial institutions to make huge profits for its investors has proved erroneous.

Directors have been allowed to falsify the records of their stock purchases by giving the wrong date for them, so that low prices could be paid in times of higher prices. This allows the directors to rob the investors.

Loans have been made on bases of 'irrational exuberance', and no curbs of simple basics like an ability to pay off the loan have been allowed, because no regulations were enforced even tho the Federal Reserve had the power to require stricter standards.

Investment turned into gambling, and the directors have awarded executives huge returns for the pay and benefits they received as directors.

Investors need to seize the reins at the board level, and at the voting booth. If regulations cannot be valued on grounds of returning simple honesty, then the present financial crisis should provide reason enough.

Capitalism doesn't work when thieves take control.

at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/18/AR2008021802084.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Oglalla Sounds Like Water Down The Drain

In West Texas there is a resource you probably don't know about,it's a reservoir called Oglaglla. My son started speaking by making a swallowing sound,that meant he was thirsty, so I'm really fond of the Oglalla and it is very meaningfull since it refers to something very essential to our west.

The high plains of the Panhandle form a scenic tableau, one where you can go to confirm the rugged Hollywood image of Texas. But what you see is not the issue. It's what's under the surface that matters.

The farmers and ranchers who live on the vast expanse of our state from Amarillo north through towns like Dalhart have nothing but their future riding on the new farm bill up for debate in the Senate this week.

How that vote turns out, plus the one over the pending energy bill, will determine how much water the Panhandle will have for its people, farms and ranches. There's only so much that the Ogallala Aquifer can produce, and the Panhandle's primary water source could have seen its better days if the Senate continues giving farmers handsome incentives to grow a handful of crops like corn and wheat.
(snip)
The North Plains Groundwater Conservation District governs how much water many Panhandle farmers can draw from the Ogallala. Last month, the district changed several technical rules. The changes will make it easier for farmers to pump more water for their corn, as well as wheat and cotton.

"They cut everyone loose up there," is how C.E. Williams, the manager of a neighboring water district, put it.
(snip)
I hope the Senate goes with the competing farm bill that Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana and Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey are sponsoring. It would do away with subsidies for corn and other crops and put a greater emphasis on conserving natural resources.

We have a choice: More and more corn or preserve our water supplies. I'm not sure I understand how mortgaging our future is ever a good answer.

At one time, there was planning for the future even in our west. Now the developers have a hold on the resources we all need. Time to get them back in the control of the public interest.

Fire Losses May Overwhelm Insurance Industry But Not Their Excuses

Anyone who's already made the comparison of California wildfires to the Katrina disaster, probably also has had a little suspicion that more disaster will follow. The insurance claims rejections after Katrina took the grounds that the policies didn't cover floods, and named anything they possibly could just flood damage. No, there wasn't a flood, but it fit the companies' needs so they invented one.

What will be the grounds for denying claims after the wildfires? I suspect some grounds will be arson. Who's insured for arson? And if your house was about to be repossessed, as so many California homes are, I suspect your fire damage might well be viewed as suspicious.

The insurance industry's plight has already begun to attract attention at the financial pages in the media.

Right now, thousands of dislocated Southern California homeowners are fretting about the fate of their residences, but the biggest headaches could come months after the wildfires ravaging the area are extinguished.

Consumer advocates warn that insurance firms could take a hard line with their policyholders in the wake of the wildfire disaster, by skimping on claim payments or going so far as to refuse to write new policies altogether.
(snip)
At least for now, most consumers should not fear getting dropped by their insurance company. Under California law, insurance companies are required to renew their homeowner policies at least once if they live in a declared federal disaster area. After that term expires, insurers may then drop their clients.

Earlier Tuesday, President Bush declared seven California counties disaster areas.

In the end, some consumers may get dropped, warns Amy Bach, executive director of the California-based consumer group United Policyholders, which deals primarily with the insurance industry.

But, she added, even if some firms cut back in California, others may well step in. "Hopefully the market will [eventually] stabilize," said Bach.

The concept of insurance originally was shared costs for damages, with those who incurred losses making claims on the fund for repairs. The insurance industry instead has grown into a vast investment fund for shareholders. Denying claims, as the movie "Sicko" brought into sharp focus, is seen as loss control - not the purpose of taking out insurance.

The industry is making policies increasingly less desirable in all fields, and in healthcare particularly. Almost 50% of all bankruptcies result from losses to insured parties with medical problems.

Building in disaster prone areas has long been a drain on public funds, as floods, storms and fires have called for rescue. This may be a time to end public support for preventable disaster losses. We may soon be facing this necessity. Homeowners in California have a lot more facing them.

Water Shortages Aren't Just Tomorrow's Problems

'Capture' is a word that probably has different meaning to most of us from the one it has where ground water is concerned. In Texas, the owner of any property has 'rule of capture' rights to anything they find - even if it cuts off water to neighboring property owners. Dig a well, finders keepers.

In a world with increasingly strained resources, it is past time to play a more controlling role in managing them, and the state has been coming to its senses as we hear about how possible it is to run dry. The population of some Dallas suburbs were leading the nation in percentage increase. The water supply was not.

It is the 'rule of capture' principal that has been put to use by Ross Perot for his EDS campus (no longer in his direct possession), an immense corporate spread that also has cattle. He paid the farm tax rate for it, because of a few head of really magnificent longhorns. But I digress.

In northern suburbs of Dallas, drought was at the worst level, "exceptional", for the three years preceding 2007. Wells were dug in many instances because of the scarcity of water. So much use is being made of the local aquifers that there is the real prospect of running out of water. In case you haven't thought about not having water, we take for granted our green lawns and clean cars, not just assume we'll get that glass of good water when we turn on the tap.

When Children's Medical Center Dallas decided to build a hospital in Plano, leaders envisioned a campus of trees, plants and shrubs that would soothe patients.

The city was under water restrictions because of drought, so the hospital turned to a centuries-old tool to meet its irrigation needs: a well.

Only a handful of wells have been built in Plano since the city established well permits in the 1960s. But years of dry weather and sprinkler restrictions have ushered in a new era of drilling.

The hospital's well is one of seven being built this year, including four for large-scale users that together will pump millions of gallons daily.

A few farms, golf courses and homeowners have long relied on wells to supplement their water supplies. Now, the strategy appears to be a burgeoning practice among corporations, schools and hospitals seeking to irrigate large campuses and fill retention ponds. The objectives range from saving on water bills in the long term to gaining autonomy from city watering rules.

Environmentalists fear the movement foreshadows what could be a rush to tap North Texas' aquifers, which are unregulated and showing the first signs of strain.
(snip)
A June report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality concluded that increasing use of groundwater by homes and businesses has put pressure on the Dallas area's two primary aquifers, the Woodbine and Trinity.

Both aquifers measure as much as thousands of feet down in the deepest spots and stretch from the Oklahoma border into Central Texas.

"The past and continued overdevelopment of aquifers ... threatens water supplies for rural domestic, municipal and small water providers who depend on groundwater," the report found.
(snip)
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will have a hearing Oct. 23 in Fort Worth to discuss possible regulations and fees on groundwater use in North Texas.

The state's long-term goal is to shield the region's aquifers from overuse.

In high rent Plano, I kind of doubt there is any dreadful quaking in their shoes by residents contemplating water shortages. Even watering restrictions have only been a nuisance.

In Georgia, a disaster is happening.

Atlanta is expected to tighten its grip on municipal water, enacting restrictions on businesses that some say will be more severe than at anytime in any U.S. city in 30 years, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Already, Georgia has been battling neighboring states and the federal government over the flow of water from Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s main water source. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has threatened to sue the Army Corps of Engineers if it doesn’t hold back more water in the reservoir, as an historic drought tightens its grip across the region.

Farmers have been losing their farms in North Texas for the past several years, this year from flooding while the previous three was from drought. Georgia farmers are facing ruin now, along with many other areas of the Southeast.

Water management has crept up on us and demands attention we don't like to give to our natural world.

A Nobel Peace Prize given Al Gore for taking steps now against global warming may soon prove what price we are going to pay for carelessness with natural resources now.

Hauling water from the well used to be commonplace. When the tap doesn't bring water in your house, where will you look for that cool drink?

I heard you say 'buy a beer'. Tch, tch.

Water Warning

I cringed when I read this article in the Pasadena Star News because I just knew the howls of outrage from the never-right wing would shortly be on the way. Here's the lede:

A federal judge's ruling Friday means Southern California's primary supplier will likely call for water rationing as soon as next year, officials said.

U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger imposed limits on flows caused by pumps sending water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta to users around the state, saying the pumps were drawing in and destroying the endangered delta smelt.

Wanger's ruling — which only lasts for a year — imposes the limits from the end of December, when the smelt are about to spawn, until June, when young fish can move into areas with better habitat and more food.

Metropolitan Water District officials called Wanger's ruling one of the largest court-ordered water curtailments in state history. They said based on initial estimates supplied by the state, MWD stands to lose as much as 30 percent of its supplies from Northern California next year and possibly longer.

That, combined with reduced supplies from the Colorado River and this year's record dry spell, means the MWD has to plan for a shortfall in deliveries to its 26 member cities and agencies, MWD Board President Timothy Brick said earlier this week. [Emphasis added]

What? Deprive Southern California residents (in the Los Angeles basin and its environs) of water for a lousy fish?

Yes. The San Joaquin-Sacramento River delta is one of the most sensitive and most important ecosystems in the state. Environmentalists have been warning us for decades about the degradation of that system and its impact on the water supplies for the state's most important agricultural area, yet Southern California (which has very little in the way of its own water) has continued to assume that it has the right to that water and the water in the Colorado River. As the population here grows, that right is being asserted aggressively, even though that right doesn't actually exist, delta smelt or not.

And it's not as if Southern California residents have been particularly good stewards of the water it takes for granted. Just how wasteful we've been is reflected in the measures one local municipality has had to take to conserve water.

As for how agencies would force customers to use less water, one need only look to Palmdale.

That city has already imposed restrictions limiting lawn watering to no more than three alternating days a week, and only during nighttime hours; prohibiting the hosing down of sidewalks; and asking restaurants not to serve water to customers unless they ask for it.

Regular violators can face $1,000 fines and disconnection of water service.

The MWD's plans are not only necessary and inevitable, said Patztert, but must be part of a sea change in the way Southern Californians consume water.

"In Southern California we overwater our lawns by anywhere from 6 to 8 feet per year, wash our cars twice a week and sprinkle our streets and sidewalks," said Patztert, noting that 70 percent of local domestic water consumption is used to water lawns. "If we got rid of the English gardens and lawns and replaced them with drought-tolerant landscaping, we could conserve enough water to sustain twice the present population." [Emphasis added]

Here's the thing: it's not just the delta smelt's protection that's the problem, it's the combination of increasing population in an area without adequate water supplies and the wasteful use of water. That problem is only going to increase as climate change gets into full swing.

It won't be just a return to water wars, it will be the lack of adequate water supplies over all that we'll be facing.

This is just the first round.