Singing in the Rain

Ted Folkert

July 9, 2015

Where is Gene Kelly when we need him? He could cheer us up with his song and dance routine of “Singing in the Rain”.

Some of us may remember the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” with the sailor’s phrase: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Well, Kansas City residents certainly understand the first part, since it seems to have been raining nonstop for the last few months. The Missouri River and the Lake of the Ozarks must both be out of their banks by now.

Those of us who spend our time in California are singing a different tune. We have had drought conditions for three years running and no hope in sight until MAYBE next winter when Mother Nature may bless us once again. The folks in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Brentwood are squirming in anguish as they are frowned upon for watering their beautiful lawns … and … Tom Selleck is accused of stealing thousands of gallons of water from a fire hydrant for years to water his 60-acre California ranch. And all of this while the city folks are asked to stop flushing the toilet so often and the real farmers are forced to limit their withdrawal from the underground water supply, water which they must have in order to grow their crops, sustain their livelihood and feed half the nation.

This water debacle brings to mind a serious problem for a large section of the country where the farmers obtain water for their crops from the Ogallala Aquifer. This has been of special note for me for the last 25 years as I have flown across Kansas hundreds of times. As you look out the window on a clear day you can’t help but notice the large circular patterns in the wheat fields as you pass over. Those patterns are created by the circular watering systems as they distribute water on the fields from the water wells that reach down into the Ogallala Aquifer. This huge underground lake is about twice the size geographically of the Great Lakes and lays beneath parts of South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

There have been stories in the past about the sucking down of the water table of this huge aquifer but the situation is now becoming more imminent. The experts now estimate that about 30% of the original water table has been pumped out and that an additional 40% is expected to be gone in the next 50 years. It apparently would take thousands of years to replenish it to its former level if they quit pumping. The effects of the depletion of our fresh water supplies is obvious for the food supply and the livability of the nation.

We have ignored the value of fresh water forever. It seems like there was plenty of that life-giving fluid around when there were only a billion of us on the planet but now that we have 7 billion and counting it is a whole new ball game.

We waste this precious resource enormously and we contaminate it at will. The hydrocarbon extractors, in order to keep an estimated one billion cars on the planet running and our homes and water heated with oil, gas and coal, contaminate our streams, lakes, rivers and oceans with their waste products and sometimes with their finished products. We shake our finger at them, fine them, and then let them get right back at it. If you rob a bank you have to stop that and be locked up for decades. If you contaminate water supplies and injure or murder people, you get a fine and a hand slap. Go figure.

One solution for providing water, water, with a drop to drink is being set in place in San Diego County. There is a desalination plant under construction that will be providing 50 million gallons of water per day to as many as 300,000 people. The cost is $1 billion. Now we have more than 35 million people in California. If this process were necessary for our entire water supply, it would require at least 150 of these plants to serve the residents of the state at a cost of $150 billion – and they would probably be lined up side-by-side all along the coast of the state.

And then, if the underground water and other fresh water sources become depleted in the states without a coastline, where will they get water to desalinate? Even if it were possible, it would cost gazillions of dollars to build enough capacity to serve the nation. Not billions, not trillions, but gazillions (or whatever is the next mathematical number).

As we can see, we need to take water more seriously. It has been taken for granted forever in our civilization. But now that we are over-consuming, wasting and contaminating our fresh water at will, we may be making human life that much more unlikely down the road.

Let’s be sure we can once again be “Singing in the Rain”.

Think about it!