Thirsty?

Thirsty?

   Depending on where you are in the world, this year might have proved a mixed blessing giving your area far too much or far too little water.  The atmospheric and oceanic patterns have changed and scientists are leaning toward the change being one which might be unstoppable.  El Nino and cold ocean flows from the Poles are moving the high and low pressure points, thus moving the air flows and storms to different parts of the world...and it seems that drought conditions have arrived.

   As one example, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, imposed a 25% cutback in its use of water; but those restrictions are meant only for residential use, a meager 15% of the state's water usage.  The oil industry and agriculture (and presumably, Silicon Valley industries) were all untouched.  And so was Nestle which bottled 50 million gallons of water from Sacramento's aquifers.  The fracking part of oil alone uses 2 million gallons of water daily in California, and much its polluted extraction fluid is returned to aquifers, a controversial practice since the chemicals used in fracking don't have to be disclosed and are protected by federal law (see my earlier posting on how Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, got this "Halliburton Loophole" law passed while he was vice-president under George W. Bush).  Here's what the LA Times reported less than a month ago:  The agencies charged with overseeing oil production and protecting California's ever-dwindling water sources from the industry's pollution all fell down on the job, one state official told a panel of peeved lawmakers Tuesday...Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources officials admitted last summer that for years they inadvertently allowed oil companies to inject wastewater — from fracking and other oil production operations — into hundreds of disposal wells in protected aquifers, a violation of federal law.  Disclosures by oil drillers show high levels of benzene, a carcinogen, in the water that comes out of the ground with oil.  Benzene is naturally occurring but extremely dangerous.
So far, the state has shut down 23 of the hundreds of injection wells that are in aquifers not approved for waste injection...In another exchange, state oil and gas supervisor Steven Bohlen was asked whether cyclic steam injection practices — in which steam is injected underground with such pressure that rock formations are crumbling and potentially creating dangerous sinkholes — are violating federal and state regulations.  Bohlen said that he thought so but that he hadn't had time to "brush up on regulations.  "He also said the oil industry's technology had outpaced the state's regulations, many of which have remain unchanged for decades.  Bohlen was also asked why the state agency said it will continue to allow, in some circumstances, additional injection wells in aquifers the EPA considers to be off limits.  Bohlen responded by saying that Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources officials believed those aquifers would probably become approved for injections in the future.  "But isn't it violating federal law now?" asked Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica).  Bohlen did not respond.

   Sadly, such exchanges are not that uncommon.  The industries as a whole are simply too large and have too much money.  In California agriculture (and remember, the LA basin is basically a tamed desert, one artificially sustained by pumped-in water), the crops grown are primarily water-intensive ones...cotton, almonds (it takes 7 gallons of water to produce ONE almond), rice (rice fields are flooded, a necessary step to get the seeds to germinate), and tomatoes.  A simple shift to different crops would save hundreds of millions of gallons of water.  And in many parts of California, water meters and charging for water is a relatively new concept as many homes simply tapped into wells and ground water (larger cities that utilize pumped-in water are metered and charged for such).  "A recent NASA study found that in the last three years the state has lost nearly 12 million acre-feet of groundwater – enough water to supply all of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco for 12 years.  Most of the depletion was in the Central Valley,"  that according to a report from Adam Scow in the Sacramento Bee about a week ago.  An earlier article from the paper described the political clout of the agriculture industry and how that one industry alone uses 80% of California's water.

   As with such large issues, California is just one example of what is happening in other major cities throughout the world.  And California is making headlines because its water supply from the melting snows of the Sierras (the mountains of northern California supply much of the water to central and southern parts of the state, home to Los Angeles) was just 9% of normal this past winter.  Some hydrologists are predicting what's termed a mega-drought for the entire area of the Southwest, including California, a drought that will become even more severe and might last for 35 years. 

   In my next posting, I will shift away from the example of California (that particular state is simply a good example of what is going on with the politics and monetary influence as the fight for water, and what seems to be the fight against climate change regulations, continues in earnest) and attempt to provide a broader perspective of what the shifting water supply now occurring might mean to the rest of the world.  From dwindling glaciers in Canada (one report of a digital analysis released a few days ago from Zurich predicts that Canada will suffer a 70% loss of its glaciers and resulting drinking water before the next century arrives) to diminishing ski resorts, and from drying rivers to seismic collapses, our most precious commodity might be shifting away from oil and heading over to water.