Water Is the Next Oil

The Supreme Court recently heard a case involving power plants and their use of water. NPR has the story, if you haven’t heard it.

Water is the next oil. I don’t know who said that first, but they were right and I’ve been repeating it for nearly two decades. This case is just another example of the difficulties that are going to arise in this nation as our population grows, and our access to abundant clean water decreases.

For so long in the USA, particularly in the wet South, abundant clean cheap water has been seen as practically inexaustable, and we have used it without considering waste. That is changing.

Here in the Southeast, Alabama, Georgia and Florida have been fighting a decades-long battle over water rights. That’s “decades” plural. Who are the competing consumers? Industries (including power plants), fisheries, endangered species, and individual human beings.

Water does not obey political boundaries. Water moves when and where it wants to (until the Army Corps of Engineers gets involved). When power plants or manufacturers use a lot of water, that much less water is available downstream and across state lines to the people and industries living there. When highly-treated potable water is used to water lawns and wash vehicles, that much less water is available for people to drink and ecosystems to survive. Where is the balance? Must it always be decided in a court?

Adding to the problem has been the local drought that has lasted several years, further reducing the baseline supply. This is a problem that has plagued the Southwest for a long time, and they have had to developed water conservation and restriction policies that work. The precedent has been set and the kinks worked out. The technologies and policies have been developed.

We won’t be able to exist without water any time soon. Fortunately, too, we don’t see a situation looming like is found in the “Dune” books. But to balance each set of needs throughout a watershed, each of us – as individuals, households, businesses, communities and utilities – needs to conserve water in a methodical way.

I’m sorry Southern Company, but this includes power plants, too.

Tagged as: water