Water, water...not everywhere anymore
Commentary by PAT MURPHY
Mother Nature is a forgiving soul. She
tolerates humankind’s foolish abuses and reckless excesses with her resources,
sometimes even making up for our wasteful ways with her bounty.
If it’s not wildlife being decimated to
near-extinction, it’s fouled air and poisoned water.
Now, once again, throughout the nation,
water scarcity is an issue.
Some communities are living on the edge of
crises.
It’s not just arid Western states, either.
Atlanta, the South’s booming cosmopolitan megalopolis, is dealing with critical
water shortages despite the region’s reputation for gully-washer downpours.
Then there’s Phoenix, where the enormous
electric and water utility Salt River Project is cutting back on allocation to
water users.
In Colorado, actual rationing has been
decreed in some cities. The Denver suburb of Westminster has even halted further
water connections to reduce consumption as well as restrict growth.
And that’s the operative word—growth.
The math is simple: the earth is not
generating more water supplies to quench the thirst of a rapidly expanding
population that creates more demand with lushly landscaped residential areas and
water-hungry industry.
City planners who were dazzled by the
prospect of unlimited growth failed to weigh the consequences of growth,
especially in water supplies.
Now the crush is on to find more water and
to curtail consumption through conservation (rationing, alternate irrigating
days and desert landscaping) and through limiting growth.
Water shortages touch everyone. If housing
is restricted, building trades, suppliers and banks lose. High-tech industry so
dependent on water for production loses. Water recreation loses. And down
through the economic food chain.
One nightmare that few talk about is the
rapid acquisition of water rights by corporations that see fertile profits in
selling life’s necessity like just another product with high margins.
Idaho communities thus far have escaped
the crises of other cities. But history suggests Idaho should learn: several
generations ago, when reservoirs were filled and rivers had not yet run dry,
those communities thought water was limitless.
Idaho as well as other states know they
can expect scant attention to water from the current White House, which
routinely ridicules alarms about the environment, then calls for even less
control and management of water and air resources.
Idaho’s Republican governor and
politicians shrugged off fears of an economic downturn when they slashed taxes,
and now are in a pickle on how to pay the bills. So, the state’s more thoughtful
leaders need to look ahead to how much growth can Idaho’s future water supplies
shoulder and how they can be managed.
To ignore the future merely means unborn
Idaho generations will face crises their grandparents could’ve anticipated but
didn’t because they lived for today but didn’t plan for tomorrow.
•
A new bumper sticker that’s shown up
locally could be interpreted in one of several ways.
"Regime change begins at home," it reads.
Does that mean in the White House, Idaho
Capitol or Ketchum City Hall?
Take your pick.