The Big Thirst: The Water Problem In The United States

In the United States, the available water resources is also under assault. Half of water collected and stored by existing infrastructure is usually used in the production of electricity. This forces the population to use and divide what little there is left. This has always been a “good enough” approach until now, when water prices and population is on the rise.(3) There are already calls for charging water resources in order to increase efficiency of use.(3) Water protection is already being carried out and has been for years, but there is still water pollution occurring within the United States. After the Civil war, America strived to provide its population with clean water

In recent years there has been so much talk and propaganda regarding the ongoing in drought in California. Scholars argue when the exact start of the drought was, but I believe that it started in 2007 because rainfall has fallen below average since then. Droughts occur because the quantity demanded of water does not meet the quantity supplied which leads to a shortage. The drought has impacted not only everyone in the state, but also the ecosystem. While there are many reasons why there is a shortage of water in California; today I will touch on three of them, the lack of precipitation, increase in population, and wasteful water use. In my research I will report on these three reasons and look at possible solutions for this most recent dismal event in California.

The population hugely outnumber the amount of water we have here in San Diego. The water that we buy in bottled from other places we do not know the contents of that water. The water may have a label and tells us this and that, but the truth is they don’t have to tell us everything that is in the water. The water here in San Diego is tested daily and monitored closely. Maybe people should consider drinking our tap water. All we have to do is by filters, though we can’t always test our tap water in our homes we can do our part to help protect ourselves. All the plastic that we are putting in our oceans are killing our animals. This hurts our food chain and makes harder for animals we need to survive to thrive. By buying less bottled water we not only help ourselves, we help our environment.

Water is a privilege. Living in the 21first century America, many individuals including myself have forgotten this. Many families all over the world are forced to walk miles for water just to find that it isn't even clean. Water shortage is a problem all over the world, but especially in poor countries like Africa. Because individuals all over the world have to get their water, my class did a water walk to understand their pains, but I would change it by making it longer, carrying more water, and having harsher conditions.

Water isn’t the only natural resource that isn’t looking great. In the last five years the world consumed 27 billion barrels of oil a year, but the oil industry only discovers three billion a year. Only one barrel is being replaced for every 9 barrels used.

If residents and corporations throughout the United States continue to frivolously waste water and refuse to make painless changes and upgrades around their homes, it will continue to increase in cost to people across the United States. For example, as a result of the water shortage crisis currently afflicting the southwestern United States, the city of San Diego, California, is currently constructing a desalination plant, located in Carlsbad, California. The idea of a desalination plant is to collect undrinkable saltwater from the ocean and, using reverse osmosis and other filtering techniques, remove the salt to produce clean, potable water (Barnett). However, there are many downsides to relying on desalination practices to provide for a city the size of San Diego. First and foremost, it is considerably more expensive to produce clean drinking water from saltwater as opposed to using regular surface water or groundwater. The act of filtering the water alone can be twice as expensive as traditional filtration methods. In addition, desalination plants consume much more energy than traditional treatment plants, mostly due to the fact that the filtration methods are much more involved. Desalination consumes twice as much power as recycled plants, and four times as much as pumping groundwater (Newell, Roohk and Reardon). For example, the Carlsbad plant alone will require the same amount of electricity as is used to power 125,000 homes in California. However, the biggest

Water is one of the most important and in my personal opinion the most versatile resource available to us on Earth. Water is not only a source for survival, but for entertainment and many more advantages as well. So do you ever imagine this all not being there anymore? Do you imagine not being able to drink water from your own sink? All because of the dangers and risks you run whenever being in contact with water. Now why would your water be dangerous? That’s impossible, water is healthy, we drink it, we use, in fact we’ve been using it for the past generations. So why on earth would our water be dangerous? Well because there is this thing that we call Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” for short.

Aquifers are suffering from declining water levels, saltwater intrusion, and inadequately replenished fresh groundwater. In some areas, demand for potable water exceeds available resources. Fresh water supplies are being compromised by the ever-increasing demands of energy production, agriculture, and industry. In turn, these essential activities are threatened by decreasing water supplies. Globalization is eroding the U.S. lead in supplying water technologies and international competitors are making significant inroads into the U.S. marketplace. The traditionally low cost of water (and low profitability for the private sector) coupled with the perceived risks of investing in new and unproven technologies are preventing the commercialization of world-leading research and innovative technologies. Threats to America's Water Supply The water supply of the United States, as well as the entire world, is currently facing a number of different threats. They in turn threaten the health and economic well-being of the citizens. These threats to the water supply include: increased demand by energy production, agricultural run-offs, leaching of radioactive materials and heavy metal, depletion of aquifers, contamination of

As a mere second-grader I remember learning the definition of ‘essential’, along with a list of items essential to the human body, one of those items being water. Living on a planet that consists of approximately 71 percent water, it only makes sense that each of Earth’s inhabitants have access to water. Unfortunately not everything that makes sense is realistic. Many third world countries have little to no access to water and in America we have experienced several issues of water contamination. The most recent and tragic incident involving water contamination occurred in Flint, Michigan. Due to economic issues government officials switched to a cheaper water resource that was known to be very dirty. Officials failed to adhere to federal policy in treating the new water source, sending lead and iron filled water into the homes of thousands causing several cases of lead poisoning. Although I've never experienced a full blown water crisis the incident in Flint troubles me.

Collectively the United States is ranked as the greatest consumers of water worldwide; a startling fact for a country that cannot support its own unrivaled demands (Barlow, 2007). The United States is now crucially dependent on nonrenewable groundwater for a staggering 50% of its daily water usage (Barlow, 2007). In addition to such formidable numbers, citizens of the United States use and waste up 80-100 gallons or 454 liters of water per day (Perlman, 2009). The United States simply doesn’t possess enough fresh water or renewable sources of water to keep up with its gross demands. Nearly 40% of U.S waters are deemed unsafe for recreational activities such as fishing and even swimming

That amount of water can instead be used to either fill 6 full sixed Olympic swimming pools or can be used to satisfy 366 families for a month. This is the usage of just a single well; currently 1 million Hydraulic Fracturing wells in the U.S. since their creation in the 1940’s. That’s 4.4 trillion gallons of water being used by the entire oil industry just in the U.S. In total that is enough water to make sure everyone in the United States has a gallon of water a day for 35 years. This is even more important today due to the effects of climate change, as the seasons are getting warmer a lot of the states in the U.S. such as California are experiencing huge droughts that are forcing people to use far less water than they normally can.

Here in the United States, most of us will go home and have clean drinking water. In countries such as Africa and parts of Europe, they don't have clean drinking water. Some of them will go home tonight and won't know when they will get their next drink of water. Some of them will have to walks many many miles just to go find water. An environmental issue facing our country and the world today is there is not clean water in some counties, some people have to travel far distances for water, and some people don't get water everyday.

The western region of the United States has greatly contributed to its long held position as the greatest country in the world. However, this idea of being the greatest country gives its citizens a need to be great and want the greatest leading to overusing everything including water. The main issue is that water is being overused and vastly wasted. Another issue is that the water that it is available is taken from one sector to be given to another sector. For example, agriculture takes an immense amount of water, but the water crisis has also reached the agriculture industry in the western region of the United States leaving billions of dollars in losses and thousands of jobs lost. Moreover, the laws and restriction that attempt to

I am a water person. Other than coffee my drink of choice is water. At home and in restaurants I always drink water, tap water. Is cheaper and I believed was drinkable but after listening to Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee tribe and Environmental Advocate, I’m starting to doubt I will be drinking water straight out of the tap again.

“The most severe threat we face today is a shortage of water”, a statement that sounds too absurd to be believed, but is it? How can we run out of water? Even though almost 70% of the earth is covered in water, unfortunately only 3% of it is usable. According to the World Water Forum (WWF), 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean water and 2.7 billion people suffer from water shortages with the number increasing year by year. This occurs because of a combination of over-farming and the pollution of water sources, which interrupts the water cycle reducing the amount of water that is cleansed by the environment, therefore reducing the water available for use. Water shortages are becoming a severe world threat due to the increased