Some headlines are more equal than others.
You can imagine how excited I was when Bob Kobres sent me this article in phys.org. A discussion of drinking water from the smartest minds at Stanford talking about what would save us. Of course I had dramatic notions of what it was going to say about climate change and fires and recharging the aquifer.
Imagine how surprised I was to see what was never mentioned.
The future of America’s drinking water
In 2020 wildfires ravaged more than 10 million acres of land across California, Oregon and Washington, making it the largest fire season in modern history. Across the country, hurricanes over Atlantic waters yielded a record-breaking number of storms.
While two very different kinds of natural disasters, scientists say they were spurred by a common catalyst—climate change—and that both also threaten drinking water supplies. As the nation already wrestles with water shortages, contamination and aging infrastructure, experts warn more frequent supercharged climate-induced events will exacerbate the pressing issue of safe drinking water.
Gosh fires and climate change sound like big dam problems. I wonder what can possibly help get us through this?
W
hether it’s floods, fires, storms, droughts or sea level rise, climate impacts have a direct influence on water supplies. What types of climate mitigation policies should the Biden team enact to protect drinking water?
Marcus: Grants and low-cost financing for community preparedness, especially for underserved communities, to adapt and plan for climate impacts would make a tremendous difference. The federal government should be doing leading-edge research, technology development and dispersion for lower-cost sensor and treatment systems for drinking water. Finally, the administration can explicitly make drinking water its highest priority for research and development, funding, and updating regulations based upon science.
Ajami: Water has to be the central part of both climate mitigation and adaptation discussions. Today we are facing many challenges that are the consequence of our approach to securing water and energy resources over the 20th century, building infrastructure networks under the assumption of abundance and overlooking inherent environmental interlinks. Source protection, demand management and public engagement strategies should be at the center of any climate policy.
Wow these women sound really smart. I’m sure they know all about that animal that builds dams to save water right? I mean I’m sure beavers are among the many sound solutions they can access to solve the issue of course?
Groundwater supplies drinking water to 99 percent of rural populations, but overpumping has led to aquifer depletion and water contamination. What federal and state actions can alleviate growing pressures on groundwater?
Knight: We need to change our approach to land use planning by recognizing that the most valuable use for some land is to become a site for managed recharge of the underlying groundwater system. Getting more water into regions below the ground increases the amount of stored water and can help prevent subsidence. The challenge is identifying the optimal locations for recharge zoning and requires seeing below the ground to find coarse-grained materials, such as sand and gravel, that can act as fast paths to move the water from where it is at the surface to the required depths for recharge. This is an area of work I’m currently focused on and it presents great potential to replenish and grow groundwater reserves.
Ajami: I see our groundwater supplies as our social security system; we all contribute and withdraw from it at different times. Unless we collectively contribute to it and protect it from degradation and contamination, there will be none left for future generations to draw from. I believe collaborative governance and land use management are the two most important parts of achieving groundwater sustainability, and neither can work without reliable data sources and accounting mechanisms.
Any minute now I’m sure they’ll talk about beavers. Right?
Well no. If you were holding your breath waiting for them to mention the “B” word you’d have passed out by now and be long dead before it ever happened. Of course I couldn’t let that stand so I wrote these researchers about the difference beavers make in fire resilience, water storage and mitigating climate change. And then suggested they check out what our great speakers at the beaver summit had to say about these subjects.
Two wrote back that they were very interested and would check it out. Felicia said she’s going to attend for as much of it as she can. Riley says she is extremely cool and used to be the head of the SF EPA and they go way back. So I had to find out more. See for yourself.
[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/JOEl1kxjBco” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]
