The Water Crisis​—Are We Really Running Dry?

TO BEGIN with, although 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water, not all of it is drinkable. For example, the seas make up about 97 percent of this water. This leaves 3 percent classified as fresh.

More than three fourths of this water, however, is locked solid in earth’s glaciers and polar ice caps. Another 14 percent is underground water in aquifers too deep to tap. The remaining water, estimated to be a minute 0.027 percent, flows through freshwater rivers, lakes, and streams, and in aquifers that can be tapped. The surface freshwater is recharged with rain and other precipitation, but because of the great depth of some aquifers, they cannot be recharged.

Unlike giant turbines that can create electricity for home and industrial use, no new water can be manufactured. So when the water tap is turned on in the home for that special pot of tea or coffee, or for the invigorating hot tub or shower, and the great valves are opened in industrial establishments or to recharge swimming pools, the water must come from nearby rivers, lakes, or wells tapping the aquifers.

Although the annual rainfall for the earth is plentiful, it does not fall on all parts of the earth in equal proportions. In some parts of the earth, rainfall may be more than abundant, whereas in others it may not rain for years. In the places where rain is scarce, great irrigation systems are necessary for farming, and these waters are pumped from aquifers where recharge is either nonexistent or insufficient. This has resulted in wells running dry.

Aquifers Running Dry

Of these aquifers, the Ogallala is the largest in the world. It runs under six states of the midwestern United States, and home, industry, and irrigation are vitally dependent on it, but it is approaching a crisis that will vitally affect tens of millions of people. There are now 200,000 wells pumping water from the Ogallala, and its water table has dropped 10 to 15 feet over an area of 60,000 square miles.a Said one writer: “Like a group of little boys with their straws jammed into an ice cream soda, they are rapidly sucking it dry.”

Some are already feeling the onset of this imminent crisis. “The pumping level is down to within a few feet of the bottom of my 11 wells,” said one farmer, “and it’s been that way for five years. If I pump too fast, I run out.” “Eventually the water will be gone,” said one writer, “and in some areas that time may come in this generation.” Some experts estimate that the Ogallala will run dry in 40 years.

Many other American aquifers are suffering severe abuse. Among the severest cases is the one underlying the city of Tucson, Arizona​—the largest United States city completely dependent on its underground system. This dependency includes both home and industry, farms, and operating copper mines. The result has been a staggering 150 foot drop in its water table since the 1960’s. Only about 35 percent of the water pumped out of the aquifer yearly is recharged.

In some areas these underground reservoirs have fallen over 160 feet. In El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for example, underground water levels have dropped drastically from overpumping, and in the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area, water tables have fallen more than 390 feet over the last 25 years. This continual water debit can only lead to underground bankruptcy.

Overpumping of the nation’s aquifers is also resulting in serious side effects other than the dangerous lowering of the water tables toward depletion. The entire city of Houston, Texas, for example, is sinking into its base of sand and clay, reported The New York Times of September 26, 1982. “The cause is water. The vast aquifers beneath the city have been overpumped to feed the breakneck development of the last decade,” the paper reported. “It could sink 14 feet more by the year 2020 if nothing but ground water was used to satisfy future demand.”

That same year The New York Times reported on a similar situation in the state of Arizona. Great fissures in the earth, as deep as 400 feet in some areas, and seven miles long, were reported.b The fissures were a direct result of large-scale pumping of water from aquifers to supply both farm and urban users. When the water table drops drastically, the surface above it slumps, and in some places, giant cracks form that can run 400 feet deep, all the way to the underlying bedrock. Also, in the state of Florida the overpumping of aquifers has resulted in much publicity. The frantic pumping has undermined the ground, creating sinkholes that have swallowed homes and automobiles.

Warnings of the United States’ underground water crisis come almost continually from the news media. It is a national concern. “The steady depletion of the aquifer is recognized as a threat to the country, to our economic growth and to our quality of life,” said John P. Hammerschmidt, U.S. House of Representatives. “The land of plenty has created an insatiable demand for water where there isn’t any,” said a U.S. senator. “Once our ground-water aquifers are gone,” said Congressman Robert Roe, “that’s the end of it. It could take a thousand years to regenerate them.”

“In 50 Years’ Time, No Phoenix”

Senator Daniel Moynihan stated: “On the floor of the Senate, I once said that you can live without oil and you can even live without love, but you cannot live without water . . . Run down the aquifers under the Southwest, and in 50 years’ time, no Phoenix [Arizona]. Sorry, friend, the water is gone. That’s a real​—and irreversible—​crisis.” The magazine U.S.News & World Report of March 18, 1985, adds a final note: “The notion of running out of water may seem farfetched to most Americans. But an increasing number of hydrologists, engineers and environmentalists insist that the time of smug confidence in the ‘Land of Plenty’s’ water is ending.”

Around the world, other nations cry out bitterly over the rapid depletion of their underground water systems. In the decade of the ’70’s, areas in southern India found that their water levels dropped nearly a hundred feet because of overpumping for irrigation. In China’s northern provinces, ten major cities whose basic water supply comes from aquifers face severe subsidence problems through overpumping. Some of these cities have been sinking 8 to 12 inches annually since 1950 because of the depletion and compression of their aquifers.c Mexico City is also threatened with land damage because of subsidence.

In areas where aquifers run close to the sea, the problem is compounded. As the aquifers are pumped to low levels, salt water from the sea forces its way in, and the fresh water becomes contaminated by this intrusion. Israel, Syria, and the Arabian Gulf states are having to come to grips with this war of waters beneath the land.

Although the Soviet Union’s plight and its fight for water are not as well documented as those of other countries, it is faced with similar problems. The Third World, particularly, where population growth is exploding, has also come to know of the life-and-death struggle for water. The diminishing water supply is rapidly becoming an insidious crisis around the world.

Even if your water supply seems plentiful, you, too, may be affected by this water crisis, as the next article will show.

[Footnotes]

1 sq mi = 2.6 sq km.

[Blurb on page 6]

“You can live without oil and you can even live without love, but you cannot live without water”

[Graph/​Picture on page 7]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

97% of earth’s water is in the briny seas

2.973% is fresh water locked in glaciers, polar ice caps, and deep aquifers

0.027% is fresh water available in lakes, rivers, and shallow aquifers