I caught my first fish (a scrawny catfish) in Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. I first swam in the ocean off the Atlantic City shore. I threw my first snowball at my best friend Johnnie Greco half a century ago. I fearfully endured a hard landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier as part of the Navy’s Leaders to Sea program. Funny how many of the memorable moments of our lives have a connection to water. Since we evolved from aquatic creatures (sorry, creationists), it should be no surprise that water plays a central part in our lives. But it’s more important than that. Very, very literally, we can’t live without it. Even the ancients knew water would be an important issue. Moses brought water to the thirsty Israelites (or were they Jews by then; I can never tell when the former morphed into the latter) by smoting (Moses only “smotes,” never “strikes”) a rock? Sadly, Charlton Heston is not here today to replicate that feat; even David Fleming couldn’t alleviate our drought by smiting one of the Vasquez Rocks. Each American consumes about 150 gallons of water daily for drinking, cooking, bathing, flushing the toilet, laundry, watering lawns and plants, and on and on. With 305,205,000 Americans that’s a lot of water over the dam. Like water off a duck’s back, to use an appropriate clich & #233;, we keep ignoring the prophets of liquid doom who tell us that water is tomorrow’s oil, that more wars in the near future will be fought over water than land, and that we’d better start addressing the issue today if we don’t want to be thirsty tomorrow. Water is replacing oil as the likeliest cause of conflict in the Middle East. In 1979, when President Anwar Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel, he said Egypt will never go to war again, except to protect its water resources. Jordan’s King Hussein promised he will never go to war with Israel again except over water, and the former United Nations Secretary General bluntly warned that the next war in the area will be over water. The UN estimates that 70 percent of the water used worldwide is for agriculture. Much more will be needed to feed the world’s growing population, which is predicted to rise from today’s 6 billion to nearly 9 billion by 2050. If we go on as we are, millions more will go to bed hungry and thirsty each night than do now. It’s not as if our own water agencies are ignoring the problem. MWD publishes such page-turners as: Ten Great Native and California Friendly Plants, to Choosing a Smart Sprinkler Controller for Your Home, to the ever-popular Choosing a Dual-Flush or High Efficiency Toilet for Your Home. Since we take our water for granted, we’re likely to keep doing so unless we are hit over the head, or in our wallets. It took steep gasoline price increases to get us to move toward smaller, more efficient automobiles. A June 7 article in the New York Times pointed out that Riverside, Kern, San Louis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, “have begun denying, delaying or challenging authorization for dozens of housing tracts and other developments under a state law that requires a 20-year water supply as a condition for building.” How about if we raise the price of commercial, industrial, agricultural and residential water 25 percent a year? Then we take all that extra money and put it into implementing alternate strategies, such as desalination, that already exist. Humans can develop buildings, improve technology, and build cars and planes but we haven’t discovered how to create water and we’re not likely to. But with the majority of our planet covered with water, we CAN make the oceans serve as the source of the water we need. There are over 21,000 desalination plants worldwide, producing over 3.5 billion gallons of potable water a day. Desalination equipment is now in use in more than 120 countries, including Australia, China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain, and many more. Saudi Arabia leads the world in desalination and relies on it to meet 70 percent of the country’s drinking water needs. Here in Southern California, two projects are slowly winding their way through the maze of regulations and restrictions we place on anything new, one in Carlsbad and one in Huntington Beach. According to its developers: “The $300 million Carlsbad Desalination Project will have significant economic benefits for the region, including an estimated $170 million in spending during construction, 2,100 jobs created during construction and $37 million in annual spending throughout the region once the desalination plant is operational.” Most important of all, it will be a small step to addressing the ever-present Southern California drought. If the ostrich gets thirsty enough, he’ll bury his head looking for water. “Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes – one for peace and one for science.” — John F. Kennedy Martin Cooper is President of Cooper Communications, Inc. He is President of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, Founding President of The Executives, and Vice Chairman-Marketing of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley. He is a Past Chairman of VICA, Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter, and Past President of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at [email protected].
