Water use and global warming

Will Hoyer

The national media has 'discovered' the fact that water supplies are not inexhaustible. Coverage of the drought in the southeast, and particularly Atlanta, has brought considerable attention to the fact that water conservation is something needing to be at the forefront of planning in communities across the country, not just the southwest. The General Accounting Office in this country has issued a report saying all or parts of 36 states will be facing water shortages by 2012. The problem is a national one.

At a recent national conference in Chicago, hosted by the Alliance for Water Efficiency - a new national organization focused on reducing water consumption across the country, the focus was on conserving water for other reasons. Watering your lawn may not be the first thing that comes to mind when asked about the causes of global warming but increasingly the connection is being made between water consumption, energy demand and our carbon footprint.

Water is heavy, and it takes a lot of energy to pump water either up from deep underground or from lakes or reservoirs, treat it and then distribute it to homes. The California Energy Commission estimates that 19 percent of electricity usage and more than 30 percent of natural gas usage in the state is associated with water – moving it, heating it, or cleaning it – and the consumption of water in most places is growing, with especially large increases in outdoor water use for decorative water features, pools and lawn and garden irrigation.

In many communities 10-15% of water that is pumped is lost to leaking pipes. Combining that with the enormous discretionary water usage for watering non-native plants and keeping a green lawn throughout a dry summer and there are tremendous opportunities for communities to reduce their impacts on water and global warming. In Wisconsin, Waukesha led the way by coming up with a community water conservation plan and Madison and others will be following suit.

You can help out by demanding that your communities begin to take aggressive, forward-thinking steps to reduce their water consumption in order to save money, reduce their impacts on local lakes and rivers and to reduce their emissions of global warming pollutants.