Last century’s oil or this century’s water? We must make a choice.

ALBUQUERQUE- In the midst of the frenzy to find and exploit fossil fuels, we are sacrificing our most precious natural resource—WATER. 

Sure, oil is now priced at over US$110 a barrel (equal to 42 gallons), while in most parts of the US water only costs $0.51 per cubic meter (equal to 264.2 gallons).  That means that one gallon of crude oil is valued at $2.62 while one gallon of tap water is valued at $0.002 or one-fifth of one cent. 

But how reflective are these prices of the relative worth of these two commodities?  With countless alternative energy sources we can easily survive without oil, but we can’t survive without water.  It sustains all life on this planet and is vital to every aspect of our lives.

What would happen if water were publicly traded like oil is?  We’ve already seen what happens to the market price of water as soon as it is bottled and sold as a commodity—the price is suddenly equal to or greater than a soft drink.  That’s roughly 7000 times the $0.00025 a 16 oz. bottle of tap water should cost. 

We clearly take our water for granted.  And perhaps we take it more for granted in the U.S. than many other countries do.  Germany and France charge about 4 times what we do for water, and use about 40% less per person.

But what happens when our waterways and thus our drinking water become contaminated?  Our nation’s water sources are currently being polluted faster than at any time in the past.  In 2002, about 30% of U.S. waters were assessed by states for a report to Congress.  Results revealed that about 45% of assessed stream miles, 47% of assessed lake acres, and 32% of assessed bay and estuarine square miles were not clean enough to support uses such as fishing and swimming.  

Of perhaps even greater cause for concern is the fact that drinking water standards for levels of aluminum, foaming agents, fluoride, chloride, and a host of other viruses, bacterium, chemicals, radioactive materials and other contaminants, have not been established and are not regulated by the EPA.  So we simply don’t know how polluted our drinking water really is. 

And what will happen when our demand begins to outweigh our supply?  The EPA already estimates that 36 states will be facing local, regional, or statewide water shortages by the year 2013.   

Is our water (and our health) really worth a few days’ supply of oil?

Every barrel of oil produced requires a total of 1,851 gallons of water, according to the US Geological Survey.  This water is usually pumped out of underground aquifers that take decades to be replenished.  A process called “hydrofracking” is used in 90% of the drilling sites to get to the gas or oil, which involves shooting millions of gallons of water and drilling chemicals at explosive pressure deep underground to break up the rock.   Some chemical residue remains underground in the process.  The identity of the chemicals, which can be highly toxic, is protected as a “trade secret” thus making it difficult to know how to treat wastewater and what pollutants to look for in nearby drinking water supplies. 

The injection of fracturing fluids is not regulated by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act, thanks to an exemption for the Oil & Gas industry that was requested in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney.  In fact, the Oil & Gas industry is the only industry in America allowed to inject known hazardous materials into our underground drinking water supplies unchecked.   As if that is not enough, the Oil/Gas industry is also exempt from the four other key Federal Environmental regulatory act protections:  Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA/Superfund law, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, in addition to the public right-to-know provisions under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

Oil and gas drilling throughout the United States has resulted in thousands of wastewater spills, which have contaminated local drinking water sources.  In New Mexico alone, more than 700 cases of oil and gas companies polluting groundwater sources have been documented since 1990.  As per New Mexico’s antiquated mining laws, the maximum fine to be paid by the industry for groundwater contamination (or for any other violation of county or state laws) is $1000.

But the egregious assault on our water and our environment by Oil & Gas companies doesn’t stop there.  According to Friends of the Earth, oil companies are slated to receive more than $32.9 billion in handouts from U.S. taxpayers over the next five years.  So willingly or not, we’re participating in their plunder.  And with the world’s biggest oil companies reporting a combined $123 billion of record-breaking profits in 2007, it is hard to imagine how they have been able to continue to elude responsibility for their widespread contamination of our drinking water.

 

Last century’s oil or this century’s water?

Our most critical decision as we watch our natural resources become contaminated or destroyed is whether we will continue to cling to the last century’s antiquated fossil fuel dependence or whether we are ready to look and move forward. 

Will we continue to prioritize corporate profits over human health? 

Will we continue to compromise the health of our waterways—and the millions of life forms that depend on them to survive? 

Will we continue to burn fossil fuels, pollute the environment and exacerbate the global warming conditions that make our freshwater ever more scarce? 

Will we continue to take our limited clean water supplies for granted, overwatering our lawns, flushing clean drinking water down our toilets, and using many gallons more water than we truly need per day?

Or will we finally have the foresight to move toward the inevitable changes we must make, in hopes of sustaining the 7 billion people and counting on this planet? 

We need to finally shift to renewable energy sources that no longer pollute our air and our water.  We must begin to conserve the precious water we have left.  We should start paying a more appropriate price for our water, and demand that it be free of contaminants.  We need to hold our elected officials accountable for protecting our health, our environment, and our water.  

Ultimately we must look forward and begin making decisions based on the kind of world that we and our children will want to live in, in this century.

 

Elizabeth Beachy is co-founder of NUPRANA, a green business dedicated to making water conservation affordable and accessible to everyone.  Visit our site at www.nuprana.com to learn more.