Fresh Water

    A previous blog concerned a massive land irrigation project to use Great Lakes water or desalinated seawater. I subsequently received three comments, which expand the discussion beyond land irrigation to our need for fresh water in general. The first comment is extensive, and I repeat it here as a separate blog. The second and third comments are being added to this blog. Here is the first comment from Bob: 

"I appreciate your treatise on brackish and seawater to help solve the ongoing fresh water challenge.  The issue is one of the most important in America comparable to national security, extreme spending and national debt, illegal immigration, over priced and compromised educational infrastructure, and the increasingly impaired political will and moral character of our population.   What follows are a few additional thoughts, especially with respect to inland water challenges.

While conservation is very important, it is not a sufficient long terms solution.  Recycling, while insufficient, is also critically important.  However, present methods of recycled water processing for potable uses kills bacteria quite well but does not handle chemical and hormonal pollution that definitely affects human health adversely.  In states like Colorado and Oregon, mindless liberal politics of control have added to the problems requiring runoff to be wasted rather than allowing people to collect rainwater (a relatively unpolluted source) for personal use and natural recycling.   

Dr. Clifford Fedler, who has graciously consented to serves as a member of my small company’s board of directors the past several years and who principally works as the Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate school at Texas Tech University, has published a number of papers and slides over the past twenty years as part of power point presentations on the limit of renewable and available water on the planet given the world rainfall on land as well the impact of population growth.  His conclusions about how long we have to find solutions to emerging worldwide water crises are sobering. 

Some of Dr. Fedler’s research over the years has been in association with Dr. Nick Parker, a biologist with world recognized expertise in aquaculture, have done greenhouse studies in not only reclaiming waste water from feedlots but also in growing crops and in identifying crops and fish species that thrive in slightly salty or brackish waters.  There is still limited interest in pursuing these for commercial use even though they are somewhat economically viable even now.  The rural locations are still not where people particularly want to live and I am impressed by the disinterest of those who know the technologies to use this water and are most critical of the existence of “unregulated” industries and population who use water.  My friend Frank McKee reports that there are huge quantities of brackish water bubbling and spraying into the air in the desert of almost deserted far west Texas where he grew up.   The politics are complex even for the private sector where capital is increasingly difficult to acquire.

Dr. Fedler is also responsible for developing low cost animal waste and municipal waste water recycling in not only several small Texas cities and other U.S. locations, but in several foreign countries.  Dr. Fedler has also screened, tested, and identified some outstanding sources of available enzyme and bacterial methods of lowering the impact on existing sewer water preprocessing that also significantly reduce odor that are commercially available, but are difficult to market.  He continues to research the issue of chemical pollution.  It is an exciting set of proven (some still emerging) and practical technologies. 

In response to your comments on using water from the Great Lakes, I have long wondered why we could not create some infrastructure to capture the massive flooding that occurs every few years from the headwaters of Mississippi river (and even Canadian flood plains) rather than to allow it to do hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.  The money spent in rebuilding after floods only partially restores the status quo.   Some years ago I visited with some people who told me of such a plan and stated that there were some government studies to capture the fresh waters up stream in the Mississippi, store much in the badlands, and transport it (using wind power as a low cost in order to keep from using the more logical nuclear power option) to the Rocky Mountain front range cities of Denver and Colorado Springs and then allow it a large portion to gravity flow south through West Texas all the way to the Gulf of Mexico; but for the most part, such ideas were tabled because of rejection by the Indians according to the Bureau of Indian affairs, the Army Core of Engineers because of political directives, and the environmentalist who see the real issue as the need for world population reduction.   This is one infrastructure project that could possibly be self liquidating in a whole number of ways so that massive future cost of acquiring water in more costly ways could be avoided.  In addition there would be a projected probable return on the project even in the short term.    

Similar to President Lincoln’s initiative, (when the country was broke and preparing to fight a civil war), to use incentives for the private sector to build the transcontinental railroads, the resulting railroads literally exploded the economy of the country during and after the civil war.   This proposed water project would result in a several mile wide corridors for large pipelines and water canals and power transmission and roads and new communities to support infrastructure in addition to the explosion of high intensity aquiculture, agriculture, and hydroponics along the path.  The most important result would be the additional supply of water to portions of the nations breadbasket that feeds the country and the fact that many existing large cities would also be sustained.  Because the cities of the front range now import scarce water supplies from the limited rainfall over on the west side of the Rocky Mountains which is technically classified as part of the Great American desert, that scarce water could then be utilized flowing west rather than be pumped back east over the Rockies, thereby benefiting (and therefore gaining their political support of) many of the western states that are also facing both long and short term water crises of their own.    Dr. Art, your observations and ideas certainly have merit. 

In a country whose majority population is focused on self and “NOW”, this may never come about.   A project of Diverting wasted flood water is something akin to going to the moon, however, with the potential to create real jobs with a positive multiplier approach.  Though costly, it would be minimal in comparison to the 11 trillion dollar black hole of wealth transfer that has occurred in the war on poverty which has given us more poverty and generations of entitlement parasites who for generations more will eventually suck host America to death.   We can only pray for an awakening.

Your comments about membrane desalination for water along the coasts is more than valid given that most of the population of cities resides within a few miles of the oceans.  As you know, many coastal cities in the world outside of the U.S. must rely totally on this or other desalinization technology.  Due to quality requirements, price of water for city use can be higher than for irrigation.   Remember that a high cost of irrigation must be added to the cost of food and could further threaten our nation’s ability to feed itself, much less to export food and fiber to much of the rest of the world thereby contributing to a less unfavorable balance of payments.  Low cost American food also facilitates major charity programs to feed starving people in countries that are more politically corrupt, hate America, and have an equal vote in committees and in the General Assembly of the United Nations.   

Finally, there are some developing and even patented technologies to extract moisture from the atmosphere for higher value uses of water that would have the additional benefit of slightly relieving the demands on existing traditional water sources, especially in cities and industrial applications.   I hope to work in the future with several individuals who have already produced working early prototypes.   The challenges remain to minimize capital cost and more importantly to minimize the energy requirements, using passive sources where possible.  Mr. Eddie Slavens from Texas and his associate, Dr. Norman Arrison (who did the development of one system in Canada and holds an international patent) who presented this to me as a possible project, point out that there is as much or more moisture in the atmosphere than anywhere else on the planet.