5 ms·

EPA: $1 trillion water investment needed for American population growth

14 points by reirob 11y ago

kailuowang 11y ago
Given stories like this, is the American tradition, each family owning a big house with beautiful lawns, sustainable for population growth?
- rukittenme 11y ago
  Yes. There's a significant amount of land and water available in the US for human settlement. These large water projects primarily target the American southwest.
- hugh4 11y ago
  I think the better question is: is population growth desirable? It appears to be one of those things which benefits those who own things for a living at the expense of those who work for a living. Population growth can't continue forever (not while we're stuck on one planet anyway) so we need to stabilise somewhere. Why not here?
douche 11y ago
Maybe people will move out of the deserts and go where there actually is all kinds of water. Like most of the old Rust Belt.
- skywhopper 11y ago
  The examples in the article are all about the rust belt... Most cities' core water systems are 50-100 years old or more. Every time you read about a water main break, it's a good reminder that the local water system probably needs some updates.
spodek 11y ago
> "Most people take the liquid on tap for granted..." Besides not taking water on tap for granted, we could stop taking population growth for granted. We don't have to grow until we can't afford to overcome limits.
thewopr 11y ago
This article is really thin and potentially misleading. The pictures only somewhat line up with the text, which leads to the some of the confusion in these comments. I think this article tries to lump everything together, making the issues more murky than they need to be. What's really going on here: 1. We have aging infrastructure. Old pipes and old plants. This has a fairly straightforward solution. The municipalities and companies that own this infrastructure will need to take on financing to fix and upgrade systems. This is something they can and will do as these things become more of a problem. But it is pretty classic investment, they own and benefit from this investment. Some people will complain, but life will go on. 2. We take clean water for granted and have a number of conflicting economics that have resulted in water quality degradation, largely in the midwest. Farmers want to improve yields, so they fertilize more (and till crops which have higher runoff). This gets into the water, where people with little economic stake in the crop production and municipalities have to pay for dealing with the lower quality water. (Note: NY City, as an example, has taken a very proactive approach to dealing with this by super actively managing the lake watersheds from where they get their water, they own something like 30% of the land in some of their key watersheds). This issue isn't as much population growth as runoff and the modern economics of agriculture. 3. Arid and dry areas like the southwest have a host of completely different challenges. There, a lot of cities have undergone rapid population growth, demanding more water. There is only so much water to go around in those regions and, on top of it all, they are in one of the worst long-term droughts on record (there was one worse drought in the middle ages). They are struggling to keep up with demand. Strong price signals and most importantly, a re-assessment of the volume of water that goes to agriculture in very dry areas (at crazy inexpensive rates) could go a long way to improve this situation. Also, luck of the draw may help if we leave this long-term drought.

14 points by reirob 11y ago

Given stories like this, is the American tradition, each family owning a big house with beautiful lawns, sustainable for population growth?

rukittenme 11y ago
Yes. There's a significant amount of land and water available in the US for human settlement. These large water projects primarily target the American southwest.
hugh4 11y ago
I think the better question is: is population growth desirable? It appears to be one of those things which benefits those who own things for a living at the expense of those who work for a living. Population growth can't continue forever (not while we're stuck on one planet anyway) so we need to stabilise somewhere. Why not here?

douche 11y ago

Maybe people will move out of the deserts and go where there actually is all kinds of water. Like most of the old Rust Belt.

skywhopper 11y ago
The examples in the article are all about the rust belt... Most cities' core water systems are 50-100 years old or more. Every time you read about a water main break, it's a good reminder that the local water system probably needs some updates.

spodek 11y ago

> "Most people take the liquid on tap for granted..." Besides not taking water on tap for granted, we could stop taking population growth for granted. We don't have to grow until we can't afford to overcome limits.

thewopr 11y ago

This article is really thin and potentially misleading. The pictures only somewhat line up with the text, which leads to the some of the confusion in these comments. I think this article tries to lump everything together, making the issues more murky than they need to be. What's really going on here: 1. We have aging infrastructure. Old pipes and old plants. This has a fairly straightforward solution. The municipalities and companies that own this infrastructure will need to take on financing to fix and upgrade systems. This is something they can and will do as these things become more of a problem. But it is pretty classic investment, they own and benefit from this investment. Some people will complain, but life will go on. 2. We take clean water for granted and have a number of conflicting economics that have resulted in water quality degradation, largely in the midwest. Farmers want to improve yields, so they fertilize more (and till crops which have higher runoff). This gets into the water, where people with little economic stake in the crop production and municipalities have to pay for dealing with the lower quality water. (Note: NY City, as an example, has taken a very proactive approach to dealing with this by super actively managing the lake watersheds from where they get their water, they own something like 30% of the land in some of their key watersheds). This issue isn't as much population growth as runoff and the modern economics of agriculture. 3. Arid and dry areas like the southwest have a host of completely different challenges. There, a lot of cities have undergone rapid population growth, demanding more water. There is only so much water to go around in those regions and, on top of it all, they are in one of the worst long-term droughts on record (there was one worse drought in the middle ages). They are struggling to keep up with demand. Strong price signals and most importantly, a re-assessment of the volume of water that goes to agriculture in very dry areas (at crazy inexpensive rates) could go a long way to improve this situation. Also, luck of the draw may help if we leave this long-term drought.