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Home  Community Voices Water Strategy for the U.S.
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Water Strategy for the U.S. |
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Written by Jim Thebaut and Erik Webb
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Friday, 05 June 2009 |
When it comes to clean drinking water, our planet is in crisis. Environmental degradation, lack of sanitation, population growth, increased demands and global warming’s impact on hydrological systems make addressing the water crisis an imperative. The United States can assume global leadership by solving our own drinking water and sanitation issues, restoring our national water policy, and coupling domestic efforts with international policy.
More than two-thirds of states’ chief water managers anticipate drought and other water disasters soon. Infrastructure investment is inadequate to maintain current systems, let alone meet the demand anticipated by another 100 million people over the next few decades.
Post-World War II, our nation faced a decade of drought that triggered intense national pressure to coordinate expansion of water supplies. Congressional committees and White House offices cooperated to allow accelerated water development projects. We then focused on the environmental consequences of expansion with greater emphasis on protection of natural resources.
Unfortunately, while addressing environmental issues our over-reaction to development allowed us to sweep away the essential coordination functions embodied in the White House Water Resources Council. The consequence is that our nation’s water policy has devolved into a tangled mess of competing initiatives and policies intended to govern increasing demands—managing runoff, abating pollution, improving quality, using reservoirs and underground water storage, improving conservation and efficiency—all overseen by a complex infrastructure of federal, state and local bureaus, departments and agencies with overlapping and competing responsibilities. As a result, we have a hodgepodge of laws and regulations that benefit some at the expense of others. At best, our nation’s water use and planning structure is fractured and inefficient. At worst, it’s headed for complete breakdown.
At the federal level alone, 20 agencies and bureaus, under six cabinet departments, directed by 13 congressional committees with 23 subcommittees and five appropriations subcommittees are responsible for water-resource management. Consolidation of these responsibilities would make managing water resources easier, but is unlikely. A more likely approach involves White House coordination of partnerships among federal, state and local agencies to create integrated water policies as part of a national framework.
Decision-makers at every level must embrace “integrated water resources management,” considering multiple viewpoints before making decisions. While this practice is gaining acceptance and application, it is woefully under-used in our highly fractionated U.S. water management system.
We must treat water as we would any other scarce resource and learn to live within our means. This requires efficiency and planning for sustainable use in the face of increasing demands for water, particularly in agriculture, industry and power production. One of the best ways to promote sustainability is to make consumers aware of the true cost of water. Our monthly water bills only reflect the price to bring clean water to our taps and not the true value of the resource.
Water management, resource expansion, environmental protection, and infrastructure maintenance are expensive, and much of the cost is redistributed through state and federal taxes and local and regional bond measures. Transparency about the real cost of water should be a fundamental principle, irrespective of the source of funds that underwrite the supply. The good news is that the United States has experience with integrating national water policy. The Water Resources Planning Act of 1965 created the Water Resources Council, empowered to assess the adequacy of water supplies, to establish standards for water projects, and to review agricultural, urban, energy, industrial, recreational and fish and wildlife water needs.
The Act also established a grant program to assist state development of comprehensive water and land use plans. This law was passed in an era before we understood the full environmental impact of our water resource management actions, and therefore needs to be strengthened to be effective. Nevertheless, the law creating the Council was never repealed. It is now time that we re-empower and revise the Act to coordinate the nation’s efforts toward sustainable water resources development.
This revision could incorporate the much stronger policy framework for international water policy objectives embodied in the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act (2005 which establishes access to safe water and sanitation as a major U.S. foreign policy objective. Merging our domestic and international water policy framework, and placing its operation directly under the umbrella of the White House, would unite and organize our national and international efforts and help solve both domestic and international water problems.
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