California’s Water Shortage

A new paper published in Nature Climate Change, by NASA water scientist James Famiglietti, presents the chilling reality of California’s ongoing drought crisis. “The Global Groundwater Crisis,” uses satellite data to measure the depletion of the world’s aquifers, and summarizes the effects this has on the environment.

These aquifers contain groundwater that more than 2 billion individuals rely on as their primary source of water. Groundwater is also essential, as it is one of the main sources we rely on to irrigate food crops. In times of drought, the lack of rain and snow results in less surface water (the water that settles in lakes, streams, and rivers). Thus, farmers must rely on available groundwater to irrigate their crops, leading to rapid depletion in areas of high farming concentration.

California’s Central Valley has been one of the most effected regions in the state. The map below depicts groundwater withdrawals in California during the first three years of the state’s ongoing drought.

According to James Famiglietti, “California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 cubic kilometers of total water per year since 2011.”  That means “more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually—over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.”

As more water is pumped from the aquifers, things can only get worse. As this trend continues, wells will have to be dug deeper, resulting in increased pumping costs. This, in turn, will lead to a higher salt contents, which inhibits crop yields and can eventually cause soil to lose productivity altogether. Over time, Famiglietti writes, “inequity issues arise because only the relatively wealthy can bear the expense of digging deeper wells, paying greater energy costs to pump groundwater from increased depths and treating the lower-quality water that is often found deeper within aquifers.” This problem is already apparent in California’s Central Valley.  Some low-income residents are forced to let their wells go dry, while many other farmers are forced to irrigate with salty water pumped from deep in the aquifer.

The lesson we can learn from Famiglietti’s research is that “Groundwater is being pumped at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished, so that many of the largest aquifers on most continents are being mined, their precious contents never to be returned.”  This problem of diminishing groundwater is perpetuated, due the lack of forethought, regulation, or research concerning this water source. Famiglietti contends that if current trends hold, “groundwater supplies in some major aquifers will be depleted in a matter of decades.”

Without any change of practices, we can expect steeper droughts and more demand for water. Famiglietti suggests that if we ever plan on getting the situation under control, we must start carefully measuring groundwater and treat it like the precious resource that it is. However, if the globe continues on this path without any adjustment, it will most likely result in civil uprising and international violent conflict in the water-stressed regions of the world.

AWWA introduces updated cost assessment for impending perchlorate regulation

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) recently introduced a new assessment on the cost-impact of an impending perchlorate regulation. The decision to move forward with the development of this regulation “to protect Americans from any potential health impacts, while also continuing to take steps to ensure the quality of the water they drink” was officially announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2011.

Perchlorate is both a man-made and naturally occurring chemical that can be found in some bleaches and fertilizers, and is used to manufacture flares, explosives, fireworks, and rocket fuel. Scientific research finds that perchlorate may negatively impact the thyroids ability to produce hormones that are essential to the development of fetuses and infants- propelling the EPA forward to develop a rule.

In an effort to further evaluate the feasibility of the new regulation, the AWWA’s new assessment updates a review of cost done four years ago. The new evaluation includes additional treatment strategies, accounts for regulatory limits already in place in California and Massachusetts, and considers costs associated with blending, source abandonment, and development of new sources.

The new assessment concludes that the estimated national compliance costs for a perchlorate maximum contaminant level ranging from 2 to 24 parts per billion (ppb) is smaller than estimated compliance costs for other drinking water regulations.

However, according to AWWA Government Affairs, the relatively small compliance cost is most likely attributed to the limited number of public water systems that are expected to be affected by a perchlorate regulation. Because of this, the economic impact to individual water systems is expected to be substantial. For example, smaller water systems could see treatment costs increase by three dollars per 1,000 gallons.

To view the AWWA’s full assessment:

https://www.locustec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AWWA2013PerchlorateCostAssessment.pdf

For further information on perchlorate:

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/unregulated/perchlorate.cfm

Locus will be presenting at the 2012 EPRI Groundwater Protection Workshop on June 27-29, 2012 in Orlando, FL

EPRI is happy to announce the third annual coordination of the EPRI Groundwater Protection Workshop with the NEI Radioactive Effluent Technical Specifications/Radiological Environmental Monitoring Programs(RETS/REMP) Workshop.

Locus presents at Groundwater Resources Association Symposium on Compounds of Emerging Concern

GRA is pleased to announce its symposium on compounds of emerging concern in groundwater.

Water Price

There is a saying from the book and movie Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) “Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron. Water can carve its way through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.” There is also a famous Chinese proverb about water: “not only can water float a boat, it can sink it also.”

And with global water shortages on the horizon, climate change supporters say an extreme response will be needed from international governments to provide enough drinking water in some parts of the world. The World Bank in a report said that 1.4 million people could be facing water scarcity by 2025. But the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecast is even gloomier. It estimates that 47% of the world’s population could face water stress in the same period–equivalent to more than three billion people.

The issue isn’t restricted to countries that typically see temperatures soar like ones in the Middle East. Northern hemisphere nations like the U.K. are also finding themselves in the midst of a drought in some regions, forcing governments to start to take action. The U.K. government, for instance, plans to issue a Water White Paper this December (2011) that will focus on the future challenges facing the water industry and measures to increase protection of river flows during summer months. No one really knows whether this year’s snows and rains in California are providing only a temporary respite from a long dry spell or signaling a return to normal—or at least what much of the developed world considers normal.

Maybe Israel’s entrepreneurial approach to the issue is the way forward. In the recent book “The Big Thirst” Mr. Charles Fishman, makes an interesting argument for a market-based approach to water’s distribution and usage… But the fact remains that water scarcity is now firmly on the agenda of the world’s governments, and isn’t going to evaporate overnight.
“The Big Thirst” offers a torrent of statistics. It is overflowing with stories large and small about water: The average American flushes the toilet five times a day, the author says, using 18.5 gallons of water. That comes to “5.7 billion gallons of clean drinking water down the toilet.” An Australian rice farmer with 10,450 acres uses six gigaliters of water—that’s six billion liters, or enough to hand almost everyone on the planet a bottle of Evian.

Water is a local problem. The wastefulness (and water conservation) has little or no effect on people in other watersheds because water is so difficult to ship. Shipping consumes energy. Energy production generates GHG. Hence a close relationship between water and climate change. Compared to other big problems facing society today, such as finance, climate change, and energy consumption, they are all interconnected in some way. No way out. And water will move to the top of agenda during this decade.

Mr. Fishman predicts that we will arrive at a water solution by putting a market price on water, because in most places today, neither farms nor industry nor residents pay what it costs to develop, purify and deliver water to their faucets. Rather than pay a market price for their water—which would direct the resource to where it provided the most economic value—most users pay a rate set by the government or their water utility, a rate usually aimed only at recouping the portion of the cost not subsidized by the general taxpayer. This distortion tends to keep the retail price of water lower than it would otherwise be where water is scarce, encouraging consumption rather than conservation.

Mr. Fishman asserts that pricing water beyond a basic ration for all would “help fix everything else,” including scarcity, unequal distribution, misuse and waste. Putting the right price on water would stop us from using purified water to flush our toilets or water our lawns, and it would lead us to more aggressively tap our own wastewater—the water from your shower could be used to wash the car or water the lawn. “The right price changes how we see everything else about water.”

Locus presents at GRA Meeting: Thinking Outside the Pipe Exploring & Protecting Local Water Supplies

This two-day conference provided the latest scientific, management, legal and policy information regarding sustainable use of our local water resources in urban regions.

ZDNet | Water, logged: Software now calculates water footprint

One of the developers in the environmental compliance management software space, Locus Technologies, has added the ability to track water footprint-related information.

Read full article here.

ZDNet GreenTech Pastures | Locus adds water module to environment software application portfolio

Water management problems capture more attention from environmental technology player Locus.

Read full article here.

California Passes $11B Water Deal

California passed a bill to fix our water infrastructure. This is the most comprehensive water infrastructure package in the history of California. And this is an $11 billion package that will be leveraged against an additional $30 billion that will be asked by the state’s voters next November in bonds to help finance new infrastructure and water ecosystem restoration, especially in places like the delta. That is altogether a $41 billion project.

In a series of bills that cleared the Legislature in largely bipartisan votes early Wednesday after all-night sessions, California’s water supply would be guaranteed through steps such as mandatory monitoring of groundwater reserves and expanded conservation.
“Without clean, reliable water, we cannot build, we cannot farm, we cannot grow and we cannot prosper,” said Mr. Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California.

An important part of the bill is a compromise that was reached on the issue of mandatory monitoring of the state’s groundwater supplies, which are often used during times of drought and are most vulnerable to contamination. Many Democrats wanted the monitoring, which has been optional, done by the state, if local agencies failed to do it. But some Republicans insisted the monitoring be handled locally to help allay fears among some water agencies of too much state intrusion. Under the deal, local agencies will do the monitoring.

Locus is very pleased with the outcome of this bill as it addresses groundwater monitoring and water quality management. Locus’ EIM SaaS water quality management software is market leader in this space with thousands of sites already using it to manage their groundwater quality.