Cambria has been working on a solution to our “water shortage” and is now up against a resource shortage of another kind – a shortage of money. We’ve spent many years (and even more dollars) studying and discussing and even taking some steps toward “solving” our water resource constraints. The CCSD continues to pour money into developing a desalination plant while almost neglecting conservation programs. ($750 per year on public outreach and a half time position, coupled with rebates for replacing older appliances and fixtures with more water efficient models seems to be the extent of the efforts on behalf of conservation, if the UWMP is to be believed.) It is difficult, if not impossible, to get the right answer if you aren’t asking the right questions. And when the answer is a desalination plant that could exceed $10 million before it produces a single drop of water, I want to be sure we’ve asked the right question.
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn’t work at zero gravity (Ink won’t flow down to the writing surface). In order to solve this problem, they hired Andersen Consulting (Accenture today). It took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.
The Russians solved the problem in a different way. They used a pencil!
Despite the fact that water supplies are undeniably constrained and climate change is likely to constrain them even more, there is more than enough water to go around — and that includes enough water to maintain the environmental and biological integrity of our rivers, streams, estuaries and wetlands.
In November 2004, the Planning and Conservation League (PCL) published “An Investment Strategy for California Water”. This publication (available online at www.pcl.org) concluded that new demands for water associated with California’s projected growth could not only be met, but could be met economically and without damaging California’s environment. The following year, the state Department of Water Resources essentially confirmed PCL’s findings in The California Water Plan Update 2005, Bulletin 160-05.
More people are echoing these opinions and strengthening this perspective as the severity of the current drought becomes more apparent. Peter Gleick of The Pacific Institute gave a very interesting Keynote Address at the UC Berkeley, California Center for Environmental Policy and Law Conference: California and the Future of Environmental Law and Policy. It was called “Can California’s Water Problems be Solved?”
The title of the speech is from a presentation titled “Can California’s Water Problems Be Solved?” but, in retrospect, this rhetorical question seems a bit ridiculous. Of course California’s water problems can be solved. The important questions to ask here are not about the possibility of finding a solution, but rather the probability of and strategy by which to do so: a more accurate title may have been “Will California’s Water Problems be Solved?” or “How to Solve California’s Water Problems” or “Does California Have a Water Problem?” or “A Sustainable Vision for California’s Water” This short article will touch on all of these permutations.
Read the rest…Download the article adapted from the speech here.
Mr. Gleick revisits many of the assumptions policy-makers and leaders forget exist when they are making decisions and offers a different vantage point from which to examine the various water issues we face. Sometimes the way you frame a problem contains an assumption that prevents you from solving it. In Middle Ages the definition of astronomy was the ‘study of how the heavenly bodies move around the Earth’, i.e. the Earth was considered to be the center of universe which resulted in the chain of wrong explanations of various phenomena.
Frank R. Rijsberman argues the problem is not a water crisis, but a management crisis in his recent Alternet article “Our Water Problems are a Crisis of Management”
Safe drinking water in sufficient quantity, however, is not the whole story. Even the most water-scarce parts of the world — Egypt, for example — have renewable water resources on the order of 1000-1500 liters (264-528 gallons) per inhabitant per day. The United Nations recommends access to at least twenty liters (5.28 gallons) of safe water per person per day as the minimum for a healthy life. When they have access to affordable water conveniently piped into their homes, people tend to use a great deal more: 200 to 400 liters (about 53-106 gallons)* per person per day, depending on whether they water their lawns or use dishwashers and similar water-guzzling conveniences. But even at that higher level of consumption there is no real scarcity of drinking water.
However, water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and all other domestic needs is only a small fraction of the requisite supply. A much larger amount is needed to grow our food as well as the fibers, such as cotton, in our clothes. On average, growing a single calorie of food demands a liter (a little more than a quarter of a gallon) of water. Plants need water for evapotranspiration, the process by which water evaporates from soil and leaves and transpirates from plants through the stomata, thereby transferring water from Earth’s surface into the atmosphere. A healthy diet of 3000 calories requires at least 3000 liters (792.5 gallons) of water to produce; a vegetarian diet requires the least amount of water, while a Western, meat-based diet rich in corn-fed beef can require as much as 15,000 liters about 3,963 gallons) of water per person per day. Roughly seventy times as much water is needed to grow the food that people eat as to serve domestic purposes.
Therefore, to understand the water crisis we need to distinguish two fundamentally different problems, which will require different solutions. The first, the drinking water problem, is about access to affordable water services: here we face a service crisis. The second is about the lack of the vastly greater water resources needed to grow food and maintain ecosystem services: here we face a problem of water scarcity, a resource crisis.
I submit that Cambrians could benefit from examining the assumptions underlying our quest for a supplemental water source. I still haven’t seen any actual numbers on water use by people in this community. The numbers used in the Kennedy-Jenks reports and those of other consultants are “composite” or estimated from models. General Manager Tammy Rudock has said “most of our customers use less than 12 units” per billing cycle. In a system the size of ours, even a small difference can have a real impact. (See November/December Water and Sewer Bills Reflect Changes to Rates for examples.)
I think the current plan to solve Cambria’s “water crisis” smacks of a greediness and selfishness that was perhaps acceptable in the 20th century and is still identified so thoroughly with an American lifestyle of excess that I’m a little embarrassed. Cambria could be a model community, implementing new ways of managing and sustaining our resources or just another example of the old ways of trying to control every process and have everything we want, whenever and wherever we want it.I know what kind of community I’d rather be part of. I like pencils.
* 53 gallons per person per day (gppd) would be about 8 units per billing cycle for a two person home. A four person home using 106 gppd would be billed for 35 units. See the water calculator for more.
Last 5 posts by Amanda Rice
- Gail Robinette Chosen to Complete DeMicco's Term as CCSD Director on Unanimous Vote
- California Coastal Commission Unanimously Denied Army Corps Desal Tests
- Cambria CSD Agenda for November 27, 2011 Meeting Includes Water Conservation & New Tank Project
- Sunken Oil Tanker Off Cambria's Coastline Will Be Checked Again Soon
