America Dry

First it was the legendary High Plains acquifer, now it's Long Island's Lloyd acquifer. Both point to a worrisome fact - America is beginning to exhaust its groundwater resources.

"Out of sight, out of mind" - that may be the fatal flaw of the acquifer system. Fully four-fifths of the world's fresh water is underground, in aquifers. We dig wells and - voila - fresh water. We pump it up, run it through pipes and flush it down our toilets. Because it's out of sight it has remained out of mind, that is until the day arrives when we find ourselves out of water.

The High Plains acquifer, which supports agriculture in much of America's corn belt, has begun running dry. Already parts of Kansas are tapped out. These regions were historically grassland prairie, drylands. Suck the water out of the ground and they become highly productive farmland but only while you can keep pumping.

Now, according to a story in The New York Times, it's suburban Long Island's turn:

"...after 60 years of virtually unchecked suburban growth and consumption of the island’s most precious resource, public officials and civic groups are fighting over control of the remaining water supply. It is as if these were the island’s last drops to drink, which is precisely what environmentalists insist the aquifer should be reserved for.

"To environmentalists, the issue is clear: the supply will be exhausted unless changes are made. They warn that as contamination moves below the surface, water suppliers have to remove more pollutants or drill farther to reach clean sources. And they contend that pumping depletes that reserve, speeds the spread of tainted pockets, sucks in saltwater along the coast and lowers the water table.

“'Across the island we are depleting our best water very rapidly,' said Ms. Meyland, a leader in the coalition against the Northport well. 'The solution is not to simply drill deeper. That’s a losing proposition.'

"Mr. Hang said: 'There are thousands of known contamination sites on Long Island and many more potential ones. The brew includes cesspool and sewage treatment effluent, fuel tank leaks, fertilizers, pesticides, dry cleaning solvent, motor oil, industrial waste, road runoff and leaching from garbage dumps. The latest testing even finds traces of caffeine and Prozac.'”

Just because we live in Canada, there's no reason to get smug. Do you know where your water is?