california: the long term forecast

Ever wondered what will happen to the Golden State in the next decade or two? Well, the trends are there for everyone to see. It does not look so good to say the least. Of course, any dismal outlook needs to be tempered by the notion that California is very important strategically for the US. 

So important that the young country went to great lengths to tame the badlands and near-deserts around what was once the dusty Pueblo de Santa Maria de Los Angeles. The impoverished pueblo became a metropolis known as Los Angeles. 

In the process the fertile Owens valley was laid to waste. So too was northern Baja California, but that is not our problem you say? It doesn't stop there though. Hundreds of dams were erected, the "other" Yosemite valley flooded, and the Sacramento river delta depleted of one of the finest salmon fisheries anywhere; its ecosystem forever changed. Such was the cost extracted to colonize the Southland and turn it into concrete and golf courses.

It is clear that the country will go to great lengths to preserve access to the Pacific and to keep California thriving. If something were to happen to California, a breakup of the US would become a reality.

I suspect the US will eventually break up, but it may be a long time in coming. The trends that affect California also affect the country as a whole and the forces driving towards a breakup are very strong. I am not speaking of political activism, acts of savvy business people, deeds of brave heroes, or overall sentiment. In my opinion these are only responses to, and outward appearances of a set of much  stronger underlying currents.

The first problem California will have to deal with is desertification. It appears that by 2030 the desert will reach well into what is known today as Northern California (but is in reality in the middle along the N-S axis). What that means is that droughts will be frequent and severe. Since Northern California not only supplies water to itself, but also contributes significantly to the Southland, that does not bode well for agriculture or human habitation.

Unless another mega-diversion project gets started, or unless we are willing to pump tons of energy into desalination, California agriculture appears on the skids. California's agriculture is entirely dependent on irrigation. The irrigated area is relatively small (smaller than Ohio's agriculture for example), but the value of crops grown here is very high. Agriculture is big business in the Golden State.

However, mega-projects are expensive and will only postpone the inevitable. California's long term outlook is poor. Over time, California will probably follow the example of Iraq. Once known as the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization, the region between Tigris and Euphrates is now a salt-encrusted desert where barely anything grows.

The second trend is an aging population. This trend affects the whole country and is especially pronounced in the dominant ethnic group, Caucasians. California is seeing a shift as whites are already a minority in the state. This trend will only accelerate further. Influx into the state is dominated by non-whites. The non-Caucasians living here, also have much higher birth rates.

Newer populations will shape the state. They are more conservative, less well off, and more heterogeneous. The demographic trends will continue to erode the housing situation over the medium term. The State is now wildly overbuilt and its housing problems could well lead to an accelerated decline that further impoverishes the State. California may become a series of protected beach enclaves where rich people hide from the poor masses all around.

The third trend is an exhaustion of cheap resources. The climate for innovation is disappearing. Not because of any policies or politics, or the lack of smart people. Quite simply because the State is running out of cheap land, cheap water, cheap labor, and a large consumerist throw-away market. The key to Silicon Valley success was the ample availability of all four. The fourth is disappearing as quickly as the first three now that half of the American households are done spending on gadgets. Silicon Valley for all its fame and creativity depended heavily on consumers willing to throw out its goodies after a few years, so as to replace them with newer and "better" versions.

California, it appears, is riding into the sunset.

water use in 2008

In 2008, we averaged less than 40 gallons per day or just under 10 gallons per person per day. I think it is probably the lowest water usage in the whole utility district. We have a 3,200 sq ft home with four people in it and a small garden, where we grow vegetables. It rains very little in California, and not at all during the summer.

In reality we have a two season climate. In winter it rains -sometimes quite hard- and in summer it is dry. In winter we average close to 20 gallons for the entire household, while in summer we use slightly more than 45 a day. The summer number is higher due to our small vegetable garden and because we do not have access to clean rain water for washing.

How do we do it? Simple, but not exactly elegant. We use grey water for everything except cooking and (brief) showers. It works. It isn't exactly what people living in the 21 st century have in mind, but it isn't entirely ominous either. We also collect rainwater (automatically) using rain barrels. One average storm can yield as much as 300 gallons of water, and we aren't even collecting all of it.

We do all that with what is probably one of the most water-wasteful washing machines in the country. It gobbles up almost 45 gallons to do a load. It is an old top loader. I know it uses as much because I collect the grey water and I need a full size rain barrel to do it. The water looks pretty grey so I guess it is appropriately called grey water. One can use it to flush toilets. It is a bit primitive and not something most Americans could live with but it works quite well.

Above all, what our experience shows is that one can easily live a comfortable life-style using very little water and very little energy. There is no need to ditch modern amenities to do so. If one is aversive towards using buckets to flush the toilet, then it would be rather easy to install an automated system to fill the tank with either rain water or grey water. The first is straightforward and our rain water is very high quality (esp. after the first couple of storms clean the roof) so it could go in as is. The grey water from the washer would probably require a filter of some sort to get rid of particulate matter. I eventually plan to install such a system but for now, things work fine as is.

water use so far

Here are my water use figures for the year. This is for a 3,200 sq ft home near the California Coast, with four inhabitants and a small vegetable garden. Initially, while it was still raining, we used rain barrels to collect water for both indoor and outdoor use. That included all uses except drinking water which we get through the "normal channels." 

It rained reasonably regularly during the first two billing periods, but during the last one, we did not have a single drop of rain, and none is expected until at least mid-October. To deal with no new water, we are actively recycling grey water and use grey water for everything, except drinking, showers, and cooking.

During the first billing period (about 2 months), our average daily use was 39 gallons a day. During the second period, it was 36 gallons a day, and during this last period it was 50 gallons a day. The increase reflects the absence of rain.

I would say that this was done without resorting to extreme measures and without any real restrictions. Nothing that affected our quality of life or imposes hard labor. Some people may find recycling water objectionable but it is actually quite easy to do, and takes little or no extra work.

For those of you who are minding your expenses, I have to say that saving water, unfortunately, does not result in much dollar savings. It is not worth it and we are not doing it to save money. Unlike gas and electricity, our "water" bill has so many other items (sewage, altitude charges, seismic improvements, etc.) that have remained fixed that the savings is negligible. That is very sad indeed. 

Here we are in the middle of the second year of a drought and there is really no incentive for people to save water. We hear on a daily basis how officials are discouraged by the weak popular response to a call for conservation, but nobody should be surprised. Instead our good citizens are enraged that they have to save some 10% over previous years, while other water districts have not imposed any such measures or higher rates. Grow up, people !

It is absolutely shameful and embarrassing the way California wastes water. Not to mention the many impediments they put in the way of people trying to save water. Many health officials are using the West Nile virus "threat" and other excuses to discourage people from using rain barrels or installing collection systems. There are no incentives and no houses are being built with rain water collection, even though this would add a minimal cost to a house that will be priced way over $1MM.

I wish the governator would take notice. There are plans in the works for desalination plants in Southern California, and other "grand engineering" schemes that will waste tons of energy so people can flush perfectly good water down their toilets. We have already destroyed one of the most productive salmon fisheries on the Pacific Coast, but there is no end in sight to the destruction people want to inflict just to have a green lawn in the desert and outdo their neighbors.

dirty laundry

In addition to flushing clean water down the toilet, we use it to wash our clothes. Approximately 15%-25% of daily water use goes into laundry according to some sources. A top rated energy saving washing machine uses as much as 5,000 gallons of water per year or about 14 gallons a day according to Energy Star ratings. Energy Star ratings are issued by the government and assume a healthy amount of washing. Actual numbers are probably a bit lower, although you never know. A recent UK study found that the average UK household uses 21 liters or 6 gallons a day to do laundry.

Washing machines maybe practical but they are enormously inefficient. According to the same British study, a washing machine uses about 35 liters (or 35 kgs) of water for every kg of laundry. I am assuming this refers to front-loaders that are ubiquitous in Europe. Front-loaders use a lot less water than the more common top-loaders favored in America. Hey, we live in the desert so why worry. Whereas front loaders spin the wash through a layer of water at the bottom, top-loaders soak the entire tub. In doing so they use 3-4 times as much water.

It doesn't stop there. All that water has to be pumped and heated and that is no small matter. Water is heavy and it has some of the highest heat capacity of any commonly used substance. Calories, a measure of energy are defined as the amount of energy it takes to heat 1g of water by 1 degree centigrade. To heat 35 kgs of water by 35 degrees takes 1,225 kcal or 4,800 BTU. But that is only half the story. Once the wash is done, people use even more energy to get those same clothes to dry.

Although most households in the US have ample sunlight to dry clothes, nearly everyone these days uses a dryer. In some communities, hanging one's laundry to dry is against home owner association rules. God forbid that the neighbors would have to look at your laundry. That is simply not acceptable. Much better to waste tons of energy to dry your clothes. This is, after all, the land of plenty. The added benefit of course is that your clothes won't last as long, which is good for business too. But let's turn to more sensible approaches.

I read today that a UK company, spun out of Leeds University plans to introduce a "waterless" washing machine. The machine uses as little as one cup of water to run a load of laundry. The magic ? Plastic chips ! The company is appropriately named Xeros, derived from the Greek word dry, and it plans to start selling machines next year. The added benefit is that your clothes won't be wet so there will be no need to use the dryer or to face the ire of the neighborhood moral enforcers. It remains to be seen how successful the machine will be. So far, all we have is a press release.

Given that major cities like Barcelona in Spain are now forced to ship in water by boat, and that entire provinces in Spain are drying up and becoming part of the Sahara's northward expansion, this is a timely invention. Hopefully Americans will be smart enough to import these machines should they become successful in the UK and Europe. Until then, try to conserve water if you can. Experts predict it will be the next battleground.

the forgotten charm of the outhouse

Sewage spills into the San Francisco Bay have become headline news. It started with a multi-million gallon spill in Richardson Bay during the heavy January rains. Then there was the San Quentin parking lot spill that drained into the Bay. Pretty soon, eager journalists discovered that spills are a regular occurrence and are usually quickly forgotten. A token fine is paid and everybody moves on. For the sewage treatment plants, paying the fine is peanuts compared to the money that would be needed to upgrade the system. Most systems are outdated by several decades and in need of millions of dollars of repairs.

In the meantime we are polluting the Bay and with it a plentiful food supply of bottom feeders and salmon. It is not just a minor inconvenience. And it is not about to get better. Because nobody wants to pay the extra taxes that would be needed to fix the problem. You heard the voters: they want services but they do not want to pay for it.

But why is there a problem? For one, there are over five million toilets in the Bay Area that all get flushed several times a day.

You may think the modern toilet is a marvel of engineering. Especially the newer low flow types that "save" water. This is the type of savings that we are familiar with. Spend more to save more. And even those low flow marvels account for a huge chunk of the residential water use. Imagine that, we spend all this effort to provide clean running water, free of chemicals and bacteria, and people just flush most of it down the toilet. In some cases, cities will go as far as desalinating ocean water at a huge cost and huge pollution just so we can flush away our waste (into those same oceans by the way).

Is an ultra-low flow toilet the solution ? Well, not really. The famous water closet (WC) toilet is the problem not the solution. It used to be people had outhouses to take care of waste. Outhouses are remarkably simple. They consist of a wood plank with a round hole in it, suspended above a huge container. The more sanitary ones include a cover for the hole and screens in the vents to keep out flying insects. The outhouse does not use water. It also keeps the smells out the house by a simple means: location. No water waste and no fans or windows that let out the heat (that then gets replaced).

Outhouses have another benefit. The residues stay put and ferment. Then they can be used to cover the land and fertilize it for the next growing cycle. That way we return a lot of the nitrates that we took out in plants. It is a neat cycle with a minimal amount of loss. That, my friends, is a marvel of engineering. It cuts back on water and artificial fertilizer use. Granted, it is a rather stinky preposition especially on those days when the redistribution takes place. It is not something our modern noses are used to anymore. It is not something suburbia can tolerate. Never mind the tons of air pollution from SUVs, lawn-mowers, leaf-blowers and chain saw exhaust that smells like roses to us now. But not human waste, mind you. That is "unnatural."

So what happened to this marvelous system ? Well, soon people figured out they'd rather not go outside to use the bathroom. They'd rather do so in the comfort of their home. But that meant bringing a toilet into the house, not exactly an appetizing idea. To solve this problem, ingenious minds invented the flush toilet and the S shaped outflow. Now there was a way to dispose of things and block smells from entering back into the house. Add a couple of fans and generous windows and you can take care of the other smells too. Never mind the heat and cooling you lose that way. It is all part of modern conveniences. No more freezing bottoms or scary night time trips to the outhouse. No more fears of falling down the toilet.

Cities, with no room for outhouses, quickly discovered the sewer system. At first sewers would just dump their residues in rivers and streams a little ways away from the city. But that quickly led to ugly and smelly scenes and so sewer outlets were moved. Until they could no longer be moved. In came the sewer treatment plant. More water and power use. And more losses. Because we were now shipping the valuable nitrate and other bio-components away from the land and the next cycle of plants.

Soon other ingenious minds came up with the artificial fertilizer, a clean non-smelly substance that can be spread over the land with bare hands. Never mind all the oil and power that went into producing that. And once that fertilizer goes into plants and the plants into humans or animals, the residues just get flushed away. So every season you need to bring in more fertilizer. That, my friends, is good for business and the economy.

While we were busy undoing this highly efficient system, we also added a lot more people. That is called a double whammy. We move to a more wasteful system and we bring in more people to waste even more. And where do all these fertilizers go ? With a healthy dose of enteric bacteria mixed in ? To the oceans. There, they provide ample nutrients for algae and bacteria in a convenient watery medium. And to make matters even better, we are also adding a healthy dose of warming just to keep the pot boiling.

Now instead of recycling our waste and growing more food with it, we ship it to the oceans where it grows algae. Algae that then bloom and use the oxygen supply killing off the fish that we otherwise would eat. In other cases we "only" add bacteria, that are now also free to multiply in the water (instead of the soil where their expansion is limited). These can then infect our favorite shellfish and other bottom feeders and make us sick that way. Or they can infect us when we use the beaches for recreational activities.

However, we all have warm bottoms and a toilet in the coziness of our home. And in doing so, we are helping the economy.

moonshine

Most first time visitors are struck by the beauty of San Diego. Glistening in the sun, bordering the blue pacific and decorated with gently swaying palm trees, San Diego looks like paradise on earth. Multi-million dollar mc mansions are perched atop its mesas and busy shopping centers and freeways dominate its valleys. Scantily clad women and blonde hair surfer dudes strut alongside its side-walk cafes where people bask in the warmth of the Southern California sun. This is beach boy country.

What was once a windswept dust bowl bordering swamps out in the middle of nowhere is now a highly prized real estate development. Huge three car garage homes hide scenic docks with luxury boats. Here in middle of the Central Valley is another paradise where every home has its own dock and all have access to the pleasure ground known as the delta. The wind still blows and occasionally brings in dust, but most of it is neatly covered up under the manicured lawns and leisurely winding roads.

All over California and the West this scenario is repeated. What was once zero-value land, bone-dry or swampy marsh, battered by dry winds and blasted by dust devils has been turned into valuable real estate, selling upwards of half a million dollars per tiny parcel. Much of it is gated communities with sweet sounding names attached in big bronze lettering near the entrances. Inside, the green is blinding and dazzling in the desert sun.

Underlying this magical transformation is oil and water brought in by virtue of cheap energy. Access requires more energy and is only possible thanks to the miracle of the automobile. And there are plenty of those, most of them high end sports cars, luxury SUVs, or tough looking military style assault vehicles. When water is nearby there are docks and pleasure craft galore. At night thousands of lights blot out the stars and create an aura of luminescence like a faraway galaxy.

Nowhere is this artificial glow more powerful than in nearby Las Vegas. The meadows that gave this city its name have long since gone. They weren't much of meadows in any case. More like some patches of crabgrass in a depression in the endless wasteland. Now there is a golden glow of high rises and silver linings called freeways. And surrounding it, miles and miles of suburban development. It is growing like a mold on a piece of dry particle board.

It is as if someone has laid a thin veil of fertility over the barren desert. A mask that can only be maintained by copious energy delivery. A skin that breathes greenhouse gases. This is the real Disney Land, the happiest place on earth. As long as the water flows and the oil is plentiful that is. Because without it, it will quickly return to its native state. An inhospitable environment where humans would have trouble surviving for more than a few hours.

water foibles

It has been said that water will be the new oil. Severe water shortages are predicted for large parts of the world in the decades to come. It is but one side-effect of global warming and one that is generally ignored in the press. More people know of the dangers of polar ice melting with a resulting rise in sea-levels. Rising sea levels evoke images of flooding and an abundance of water. But sea water is salty and the more sea levels rise the further salt will intrude into rivers and streams. From there it goes into the groundwater. Salt water is killer for many plants, including food crops. For a land that relies on irrigation, rising salt water is deadly.

Meanwhile in California, we are getting dumped on like there is no tomorrow. The runoff is about to start flooding communities that just recently recovered from devastating floods. It is also causing mudslides, road closures, power failures, and other havoc to people's lives. However it is filling up reservoirs and that is good news for next summer. No matter how bad it gets in winter, we all know California will go through five to seven months with not a drop of rain to be seen.

I can't help but wonder why people let all this water go. Why California does not have mandatory rain water collection. Adding an underground storage tank that holds 1,000 gallons or more would not be that hard to do. But unless code requires it I cannot see many builders going ahead and doing it. Even though it would add at most a few thousand dollars to the price of the home. Given that homes (still) sell for upwards of $500K around here -and most are upwards of $1MM- it would seem trivial to add a $5,000 expense.

Unfortunately water tanks are not sexy. Not like granite countertops, "professional kitchens," and hardwood floors. All items that show a great indifference towards natural resources. Why people need professional kitchens beats me. Most go out several times a week for dinner alone. And the other nights they probably heat up a take-home pizza. But that is another story, much like driving an eight cylinder four wheel drive in everyday commute traffic.

An underground tank alone is not sufficient to solve all problems but it is a start. We would also need to add an irrigation system that uses the tank and the tank only. Since we have sun whenever it does not rain, a solar pump would do just fine. Irrigation with rain water is a first step. Even better would be to lay plumbing so toilets and showers can use rainwater too. That gets a bit more involved. Another item that would work well is washing machines. Most commonly used top load models are real water hogs, something that you would notice if you ever tried to fill a machine with hand carried water.

The current wave of storms is predicted to dump anywhere between 4 and 7 inches on the SF Bay Area. It is the second big storm wave of 2008. The previous wave dumped an equal amount and caused a ton of trouble. I read somewhere that 1 inch of rain on a 1,000 sq foot roof yields 600 gallons of water. Most houses around here have more roof area than that. Whatever the true number may be, an average middle class home in Marin could collect in excess of 4,200 gallons per storm. That is enough water to fill a small pool. The drier parts of the Bay Area would still collect 2,400 gallons or more. Yesterday I filled a 55 gallon rain barrel in less than two hours using runoff from just one waterspout.

Rain barrels are a great way to get into rain water collection. The best part is probably the education because they are not all that practical in California. The barrels are simply too small and the dry period too long. One would need in excess of 50 barrels to achieve some real results. But barrels are a great teaching tool and I would recommend that you get some. If nothing else you will learn first hand how much water a storm dumps. And how much water we waste going about our everyday routines.

I would recommend that you start carrying some water around. It will give you a feel for the power needed to haul heavy items. A better appreciation for the wasteful nature of our existence, and what it will be like when we run out of resources.

singing in the rain

California got hit by a major storm yesterday. The downpour was of biblical proportions, with the Northern part of the state being hardest hit. The storm, one in a series of three made all the news headlines. Downed trees and power-lines, overturned vehicles, customers without power, mudslides, flooding, you name it. It was all there. And while Californians should welcome the extra water, it is a shame how much of it goes to waste.

The waste is not just a loss, it is also responsible for most of the problems we have. Problems such as mudslides, flooding, traffic congestion and the like. Because in populated areas, much of the rain falls on roofs of buildings first. It is estimated that a single roof of 1,000 sq ft collects as much as 600 gallons of water for every inch of rainfall.

Yesterday some Bay Area counties saw more than 3 inches of rainfall. The average Bay Area roof is also well over 1,000 sq ft. That means an average home could have collected more than 1,200 gallons of water in that one day. At an average use of 100 gallons a day, that is enough water for 12 days.

Many people are probably unaware of the fact that California provides tax credits for rain water collection. In any event, it is quite surprising really that nearly all California homes come without a rain water collection system. Many homes in Western Europe, where drought is much less of a problem have collection systems. They have large in-ground cisterns that can collect thousands of gallons of rain water. Enough water to sustain a large lawn through a typical California summer. Not that I think lawns should be encouraged. They are, as I already pointed out, the number one environmental disaster in the country.

Surprisingly enough, in California, and much of the SouthWest, collection is seen as a weird idea or maybe even a bit old-fashioned. It is something the government and utilities should take care of for us. Why would anyone go through the trouble of collecting rain water when all you have to do is open the faucet and out comes clean water?

But collecting rain water has other benefits as well. Apart from conservation and reduced water bills for the home-owner, it can also have a major impact on runoffs, especially in hilly areas. And those are the areas where mudslides are common. Each year mudslides destroy hundreds of expensive homes. Something for your neighborhood or home-owners association to consider. Unfortunately though these folks are usually the ones who are the most opposed to any practical and reasonable solution. Because they see practical solutions as non esthetic and they think it would lower the value of the homes.

Many people equate luxury and well being with not having to work. And so they consider anything that reminds them of work as indicative of low class or lack of success. They should take a hint from Prince Charles. Here is a royal who is into compost piles and other conservation that the new rich despise. Maybe there is a role for monarchy after all?

antisocial

Only the little people pay taxes, Leona Helmsley once said. And it seems many of her superrich "friends" agree. According to the Wall Street Journal, the superrich of Palm Beach exploit each and every angle and loophole to keep their estates green in the middle of a drought. Even if it means ripping out perfectly good lawns and replacing them with new plantings. You guessed it, new plantings are exempt.

And we are not talking a few gallons here and there. Mr. Schar, executive chairman of homebuilder NVR for example, is one of those mentioned. He guzzled 15.4 million -yes millions !- gallons of water over the past twelve months. All of that to keep his 6 acre estate in pristine condition. Mr. Clark, of Netscape fame got by with only 3.4 million gallons for his 7 acres. I guess he deserves a prize for conservation and stewardship.  

Put top honors go to Mr. Peltz, an investor and fast food magnate. He cut back from 24 million gallons to 20 million gallons for his 13.8 acre Montsorrel estate. No doubt he was scared off by the $100 fines the city levies for guzzlers and cheaters. The estate is aptly named by the way. It means mountain of sorrow. Like many of his fellows, Mr. Peltz does not even live at his water guzzling mountain of sorrow. He resides in New York. 

One good thing about being superrich is that one can always escape. When the city runs dry, or gets flooded by the rising seas, one can always pack up and move on, leaving behind one's legacy of making a difference. And these guys surely make a difference. Like the warlords of Easter Island, they are leaving behind huge statues amidst a depleted environment.

What is truly unfortunate however, is that with global warming and global pollution all will eventually run out of places to escape to. Maybe that is why the administration wants to go back to the moon?

moving water

Water is a precious resource. Although our planet is covered in 70% water, only 2.5% of it is fresh water. Of the fresh water, most of it is frozen in ice caps -at least for now- or deep underground and less than 1% of it is truly accessible. Already a substantial number of people do not have access to clean fresh water and suffer the consequences.

Daily water consumption varies greatly around the globe and not surprisingly, North America tops the crowd with an average use of nearly 1,900 cubic meters (or 1,900,000 liters, 513,000 gallons) per person. Europeans use "only" 60% as much water and Asia's use is half that of Europe. Africa is at the bottom using a mere 245 cubic meters (245,000 liters or 63,700 gallons) per person.

Much of North America's water use goes to watering lawns, the largest irrigated crop in the country, flushing toilets, and taking showers. An equally important part goes into agricultural irrigation. The latter is often used to grow thirsty crops in deserts or near desert regions. Although much of the water use is non-consumptive, in the sense that water is returned to the surface, the water is nonetheless no longer very useful due to contamination and pollution.

Water flow is heavily controlled. The US has over 75,000 dams and very few rivers remain that flow unimpeded. While such dams produce power and control floods, they often have a devastating impact on fisheries. Entire local economies have disappeared when dams were built. To say nothing of the continual maintenance problems. Most dams do not produce energy and are a substantial number are nothing but a burden. 

Dams maybe problematic but at least they generate electricity. A lot of water flow takes energy instead of producing it. California uses the equivalent output of several nuclear reactors to pump water into the Los Angeles Basin where residents freely sprinkle it onto their lawns and their cars, oblivious to the fact that they live in a near desert.

The ever growing populations in the SouthWest are putting enormous stresses on the water delivery system. And the insistence of locals on lush gardens only makes matters worse. The populations of Arizona have increased ten fold in the last fifty years. A quarter of the houses in Nevada have been built since 1995. The growth of Las Vegas in the last decades has been staggering. Meanwhile the water in Lake Mead is dropping and will soon be below the city's intake pipes.

But the irony of water does not stop there. Nowhere are things more crazy than in the trade in bottled water. Driven by irrational fears of tap water and a huge cool and hip factor, companies are making millions shipping inferior quality product around the globe. 

Shipping water is the fastest growing and least regulated industry in the world. In the 1970's the annual volume was 300 million gallons. By 1980 it more than doubled to 630 million and by the 1990's the volume was up to two billion gallons per year. But that was just the beginning. By 2000, 8 billion gallons or 24 billion liters of water was bottled -over 90% in non-reusable plastic- shipped -at great expense and producing tons of carbon dioxide, and sold.

The amount of energy spent on packaging and shipping water is staggering. Water is a very heavy substance. Packaging it in little non-reusable plastic containers and shrink-wrapping those onto pallets adds additional contamination. The amount of pollution and greenhouse gases generated by the water trade is second to none. And that isn't even counting the equally enormous amounts of sweetened water, also known as soda or soft drinks, that is shipped daily. 

Given how unnecessary it is, and given that 1/3 of the 103 brands of bottled water studied recently contained high levels of chemical and bacterial contamination, one can only wonder why people do this. To say nothing of the fact that at least one quarter of the bottled water is nothing but someone else's tap water.

Think before you drink. It is good for you, and the environment.