Congress May Need to Settle Water Dispute
Here in the St. Louis region we are fortunate to have the Missouri & Mississippi Rivers as water sources. Not all regions are as fortunate, just ask folks in Atlanta, GA:
A federal judge on Friday [7/17/09] ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been illegally reallocating water from Lake Lanier to meet metro Atlanta’s needs, but he’s not turning off the tap just yet.
The judge overseeing the high-stakes case wants a political solution and is sending the fight to Congress.
In the meantime, the current withdrawal levels from Lake Lanier will be allowed to stay the same – but not increase, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled. And if a political solution cannot be worked out in three years, the judge said, his order will take effect.
This means the metro area will not be allowed to use Lake Lanier as its primary source of water supply.
“Thus…only Gainesville and Buford will be allowed to withdraw water from the lake,” Magnuson said in a 97-page order. “The court recognizes that this is a draconian result. It is, however, the only result that recognizes how far the operation of the Buford [Dam] project has strayed from the original authorization.”
Magnuson, of St. Paul, Minn., was picked in 2007 to decide the almost two-decades-old tristate water wars case involving Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
His ruling handed the metro area a crushing legal defeat. The judge found that the Corps of Engineers should have obtained congressional approval before allowing Lake Lanier to be the metro area’s primary source of water supply. (source)
Three states, three cities, one lake. Atlanta just cannot take all the water in their region leaving the others dry.
The City of St. Louis water system supplies water for much of our region well beyond the city limits. Many of you in the suburbs may not like our public schools but you sure need our water. Since the 1830s the City of St. Louis has operated a waterworks system (see history), long before farms surrounding the city became monotonous subdivisions, strip shopping centers and Wal-Marts.
The City of St. Louis Water Division maintains two water treatment plants that draw water from the area’s two main rivers. The Chain of Rocks Plant is located on the Mississippi River about eleven miles north of the center of the City and about five miles south of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The Howard Bend Treatment Facility is located on the Missouri River, 37 miles above the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and 15 miles west of the City limits. Combined, these two plants have the capacity to treat and distribute 380 million gallons of water per day (M.G.D.).
What if states up river from St. Louis wanted to dam and control the water that we have all long enjoyed? What if a changing climate meant the mighty Mississippi became just a stream? But what if the reverse happens and more rain brings more flooding?
Atlanta has sprawled beyond it’s natural resource limits. Atlanta has greatly benefited from water from Lake Lanier. Atlanta must change. In the future we should expect to hear more on this topic from contributor Bryan Oekel, a native of the St. Louis region now living in the Atlanta area.
– Steve Patterson
It’s not just Atlanta. Any place that’s dry and growing (“sunbelt”) is affected by limited water resources, including southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, western Nebraska, western Kansas, Texas and Florida. And it’s an insidious problem, as well, much like levee and floodwall maintenance around here – it’s not a priority until it’s too late and the disaster is already taking place.
It’s more than just supply problem, the other growing problem is contamination. We can’t even take care and protect the value of what is given to us by Mother Nature. Now Washington MO has issued a boil order and has joined the Lake of the Ozarks with E. coli bacteria issues. Our reliance on quick and convenient solutions (autos, highways, herbicides, fertilizers, out of date plumbing-sewer systems, levees, etc) getting revenge.
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DNR keeps the problems out of the spotlight to avoid “public panic”. As Les Sterman explains: “Illinois officials are really good about pulling together on big projects ….something you don’t see in Missouri. They’ve been honest and straightforward in ways I don’t see everywhere.â€
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12877353
The scary part of the whole equation is that it will be “solved”, a piece at a time, through legislative action and lawsuits (keeping the attorneys who specialize in water law fully employed). Out west, water law says senior users have first dibs, so if a growing city needs more water, they typically buy a farmer’s existing water rights, essentially taking that land out of production, forever. In Atlanta’s case, it’s going to boil down to the political clout of the Georgia delegation versus that of the Florida delegation. Should farmers or endangered species have a higher priority than new suburban residents? Should stronger economic growth around urban areas have a higher priority than maintaining traditional, but less-profitable, agricultural and aquatic uses? Even if the urban uses consume much less per person than the traditional uses?
The best solution will be conservation, by all parties. Thirty years ago, much like in St. Louis today, many older homes in Denver didn’t have meters. Denver Water figured out that it was cheaper to retrofit every user with a meter than it would be to build a new reservoir. In doing so, per capita consumption has been reduced by something like 30%, in combination with things like paying to replace old toilets with more-efficient ones. Should the Missouri River (actually our primary source) have its flow reduced substantially, and the Mississippi were equally compromised, we could be making similar changes. The good thing is that we have these “cushions” available; the sunbelt doesn’t. And it’s one big thing our economic development folks need to focus on, one of several things that can and should differentiate us from the rest of the pack.
This is an interesting topic. I wonder, however, how much of the water problem nation-wide is really a problem of misplaced incentives.
If water is so valuable, how come it is so cheaply provided? If something is cheap the demand for it rises; if it is almost free, people use it to soak anything and everything. While I see the need for cheap water in some regards, such as drinking and bathing, others should not be so cheaply subsidized, such as watering one’s lawn.
As to the idea of a resource limit, I would say that that is a flexible limit, at least in the medium to long-term. But how much harm does cheap water do to the resolution of that problem? Probably a lot. Desalinization would be economically feasible in coastal regions if water was priced better. In fact, I don’t really think that fighting over limited fresh water resources will be a long-term concern. At some point, water will be more expensive and ocean desalinization will become the norm for most of the country.
I say this knowing that most predictions are foolish, and so most likely the resolution will take some other form. Politicos will attempt to forestall the day when water prices rise, but I think this will only delay the longer-term resolution through technological innovation.
Water is like any other resource. The market will dictate our usage. Its hard to see living here were water is plentiful. We just visited family in LA. Water is a on a sliding scale, the more you use the more they charge for each gallon. Your only allowed to water your lawn twice a week. The city can actually come in and check your settings if you have a sprinkler system. Not that we need to be wasteful, but water is not our problem.
Even though supply is not currently a problem for us, treatment – both before and after use – and conveyance are big problems for us. Addressing conservation issues would make a big difference in those problems.
Upgrading our sewers is the biggest issue we have. Our systems in many cases are over a century. Our problem is our system can’t handle the run off from heavy rains which overflows into the waste lines causing a discharge. We are already seeing some work toward slowing the effects of heavy rains (drainage is now lined with rock and not cement etc). There are other technologies that will help like porous concrete (maybe) and sewer lining techniques (greatly diminishes repair cost). How much water we use at the tap has virtually no effect it at all. No doubt water usage is an issue in many places, just not in St Louis.
It would interesting to see the results of a casual survey of wasted drinking water here in STL, just to get an idea of the magnitude of the potential problem should the supply of potable water become threatened.
For example…
1. How much potable water drives the water works in Forest Park? From the Wikipedia entry on River Des Peres, which admitted may be of dubious accuracy, “the new ‘River des Peres’ in Forest Park. This is not the actual river (which flows in a cement pipe underneath) but rather is a ‘waterscape’ created with the city’s drinking water.” I don’t see this giving St. Louis’s choice of water appropriation much of a moral high ground above Atlanta’s.
2. How much potable water is lost to pipe breaks and leaks? I know of a location on South Broadway, not to be named, where a persistent water main leak in the bluffs overlooking the river has created a very idyllic looking man-made waterfall down the cliff face.
3. How much potable water goes to keeping public green spaces green, including the turf in Bush Stadium and the Forest Park golf course?
I don’t really see the Mississippi drying up any time soon; there would need to be catastrophic regional climate changes for the continent’s largest waterway to dwindle very much, but contamination of the potable supply could very well be a possibility. Consider the water pollution that occurred in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where floodwaters washed all manner of oily nastiness from nearby petrochemical plants directly into the water table.
A non divisive yet interesting discussion. My favorite book a few years back was “Cadillac Desert.” Which in short was about private interests getting the gov’t to build the infrastructure to make mega cities and corporate farms the water resources they needed. I think it also was a PBS special. One of my favorite movies was “Chinatown.” That is probably the extent of my background on water education. However John Stewart last week had a guest on that wrote a book about this subject as well. I am sure it will come to me when I close this browser.
My parents have a place in Desert, and I remember when they bought the place ten plus years ago, he said that they were sitting on a 100 year aquifer. I asked him if that judgement was made at current usage rates? He avoided the subject with me. He knew from years earlier that my one book read on the subject made for annoying discussion about desert living. I visited the place once and confirmed my distaste for those that replicate midwestern life in the desert, which in my estimation, is most of them. It is unsustainable living and the millions that flock to these places are not willing nor asked to adjust their lifestyle in order to do so.
I thought and still think that the lush green paradise I live, Missouri, is far superior to most places in the South or West as it relates to the ability of the land to sustain life. That is not to say we have exercised good stewardship of the land, it is merely to say that this land in the middle of country is far better equipped to give people a chance to live without destroying our own surroundings. However, that is not necessarily what we have done. It is just to say it is possible to find a better balance here than in most places.
Good point Tony on our local issue being sewer/storm water. Especially considering the fact that the MSD is under mandate by both the EPA and State as well as a Federal court that found in the EPA’s favor for requiring us to do something about our combined sewer/storm water overflows during heavy rains (the newer suburbs actually have seperate systems in place). What will happen could be comparable to Atlanta where they spent significant amount of their own money to be compliant. It appears that foot dragging has been the order of the day for MSD. It has also kept our bills much lower relative to other metro areas. Nor has Slay or Dooley willing to risk their political life on meeting those mandates. Finally, throw in various unicorporated areas and diverse county communities all trying to get their own agenda dictated through state legislators. Especially, the water lands on my property but doesn’t leave so why should I care or pay anything crowd. However, we are on borrowed time for a lot of the existing system nor will it get any better when you consider the massive size of MSD.
Another issue becoming relevent is flash flooding. We built a lot of small creeks into concrete lined ditches with houses or businesses built on top of them. A lot of places are kept high and dry during heavy rains. However, a lot of places become mini lakes during heavy rainfalls – Wilson Ave in University Ave and Manchester Ave in Brentwood are two areas that come to mind. Having mulitple towns all competing for the business tax dollars makes even small regional solutions difficult.
Steve, Actually the water that flows by St. Louis is already dammed and controlled extensively. The difference is that most of this water infrasctructure was put in place for reasons other then drinking water. Mississpi and Illinois Rivers all have lock and dams that pool water for navigation and Missouri River has reseviors in the Dakotas and Montana for recreation and irrigation.
Ben: are you under the misapprehension that Atlanta (and Las Vegas, and Phoenix, and Southern California, and Denver, and Dallas, etc.) does not have golf courses or man-made recreational/ornamental waterways? Do you really think the irrigation of Busch Stadium is a major factor in regional water usage? I don’t know about any “moral high ground”, but it’s clear that those places have far outgrown their water supply.
You are correct, our sewer system – especially where we have combined sanitary/storm – is a (probably the) major problem. Probably immediately after that is our water supply infrastructure (tons of water being lost due to leaks every day.)
But I think that you are setting up a false dichotomy that the sewers are in such dire condition that we should ignore all else. I think instead we should be looking at ways of leveraging and combining the issues – perfect case in point, the reduced-price rain barrels that MSD was selling this year. Another example, MSD is apparently changing their rate structure to take impervious area into account. What if you were to come up with a way to incentivise handling storm water on site and offer a design class or information on rain gardens. These area all basically trying to kill two birds with one stone.
On the conservation side you could simply offer information on drought resistant native plantings along with the bill, or perhaps offer reduced cost low-flow replacement aerators and showerheads. Or a rebate for installing low-flow toilets. These are all ways of trying to pass more of the cost of conservation onto the consumers.
Again, supply of the raw resource is not the issue, but we’ve still got to treat it all before and after, and we are pumping it both ways through a crumbling infrastructure. The less volume that needs to be treated and conveyed, the more money and time available to deal with infrastructure.
Good point James, I actually bought two rain barrels from MSD. One installed and was hoping for something more substantial for rainfall this past day. As far as rate structure, that was truly a common sense and bright idea to charge by impervious area considering the availability of technology and information.
We still have a lot of infrastructure that has to be delt with and we are not going to eliminate the need to have a water pipe coming and a sewer pipe leaving our houses/businesses. A one two punch would be great if the area could embrace it. New pipes/repaired pipes to reduce leakage and an active conservation and localize collection (pervious surfaces, swales, rain barrels, etc.). I also wich MSD would make a bigger financial committment to greenway corridors.
“A new study projects that all reservoirs along the Colorado River — which provide water for 27 million people in seven states — could dry up by 2057 because of climate change and overuse.”
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12887585
Whenever this Sunbelt-transplant longs for his hometown’s award-winning water, he drinks a Bud Light.