Message from our founder:

The world’s population has doubled since I graduated from high school, and, as every student knows,  no one can invent more water.  The Earth has all the water it will ever have, no matter how many people are born or how we use our water supplies.

Actually, there is less fresh water available for our use than when I was in school.  That’s because thousands of new chemicals, plastic compounds, industrial pollution and pesticides have made quantites of fresh water too poisoned for human use.  Plus,  new technologies have invented powerful pumps to empty groundwater reserves faster than nature can recharge them. This means we can’t count on finding water where it used to be. 

We haven’t always spent groundwater reserves wisely, and many are now permanently gone. Since agriculture and livestock uses 70% of our fresh water supplies,  growing enough food in the future without reliable sources of water will take innovations and new conservation practices. You, the next generation of leaders, can make better choices about our limited groundwater resources by learning to be water literate. You can help most by learning the water footprint of your food then choosing wisely.

Water and energy are the basic building blocks of modern civilization and both are challenged in the 21st century. Water is needed to make energy – electricity flows from river dams, solar panels require water, nuclear and coal plants need billions of gallons to operate.   Even when you turn on the lights, you are using water without knowing it. With the energy grid as it is now, no water means no power. Understanding the water-energy connection will be critical for how we solve the world’s carbon emission and fossil fuel challenges.

We can’t take water supplies for granted anymore

There just isn’t enough fresh water to keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 100 years.  Conditions in next 100 years will be very different all over the world and these changes will come home to you.  It’s smart to learn about what’s happening with water so your voice can be heard. Plus, it’s always more comfortable to be informed than to be surprised.   You can be part of the community working to create a sustainable environment for the future.  Just learning about where your water comes from and how you use it give you power to make choices.

Do you live in a city or the suburbs? Cities are growing and many depend on older, leaky pipes to carry water long distances.  Agriculture and cities often compete for the same rivers, lakes and groundwater supplies.   By 2025, the United Nations projects that 60% of the world’s population will live in cities, many of which are located in the world’s most water-stressed areas.  Some cities near the ocean coast lines may get short-term benefits from desalination plants, but desalination is expensive, very energy intensive and not a practical solution for global water shortages.

–Christie Batterman Jordan,  San Francisco,  November 2009

5 Reasons why you need to learn about water supplies now

Who uses the world's water? 70% Agriculture. 20% Industry. 10% Individual and Residential. To conserve water, your biggest impact comes from wise food choices. Example: One hamburger equals 2,500 gallons of water. Just giving up 1 hamburger a month saves 30,000 gallons every year

1.  The global economy means that you are using water from around the world.

You buy food grown in South America, Europe and Africa.  You wear cotton clothes grown in India and use computers and cell phones made in China.  Food and products flow around the world like never before, and with them goes the water that went into making them.

When food and products are exported, its water footprint is called “virtual water”.   Through virtual water, you are connected to people all over the world.  Collectively, our water choices in the US make a difference to millions of people in other countries.  And looming water shortages in countries that have strong agricultural exports will affect global security.

2.  Mountain glaciers are melting on all continents.  Rivers will fail.  Irrigation will fail.  Will we have global food shortages?

When mountain glaciers melt in the spring, water fills the rivers which irrigate millions of acres of farmland for billions of people. If rivers run dry, farmers turn to groundwater but there isn’t enough to compensate for lost river flow.  Seasonal water shortages mean that crops fail.  On a global scale,  disappearing glaciers threaten food security for everybody.

Melting glaciers in the Sierra Nevada and Rockies threaten water supplies in the US western states. The Andes, the Alps are retreating also, but the most severe problem is the Himalayan glaciers where spring waters fill the major rivers of India and China: the Yellow, Yangtze, Indus and Ganges Rivers.  China and India are the world’s largest growers of rice and wheat.  The looming threat of wide spread foot shortages is real.

3.  To have energy systems you must have water systems.  Understand the connection.

Water and energy are the basic building blocks of modern civilization and both are challenged in the 21st century. Energy supplies depend on abundant fresh water.  Electricity from dams needs dependable river flow.  Coal and nuclear plants need billions of gallons to operate. Even solar panels need cooling or water to manufacture.   In your home, the electricity to power one 60 watt light bulb takes 8 – 16 gallons of water to produce.  How many light bulbs are on in your house?

4.  Much irreplaceable groundwater is permanently gone.  We need to manage groundwater more wisely.

What a difference irrigation makes! This is an aerial view of fields using pumped groundwater to grow crops for export. If the groundwater cannot be replaced, the area loses it's ability to grow food in the future. Overpumping groundwater and using fossil groundwater is not sustainable.

Groundwater is hard to understand because you can’t see it.  Even the water professionals like hydro-geologists have trouble measuring how much water is available under the surface of the earth.  But, for a quick overview, there are 2 basic types of groundwater:  1) the type that can be replaced by rain or irrigation, and 2) the type that is sealed in rock-lined underground caverns that can never receive new water.  These are called “fossil aquifers”.

Because of new powerful pumps invented 50 years ago, we can now reach deeper into the earth and pump out this fossil water.  It’s ancient and irreplaceable.  The largest fossil aquifer in the world is in the US running under 7 states.  It’s called The Ogallala and is thought to be more than half empty.  For decades, we’ve been pumping out fossil water to irrigate corn, wheat and soybean fields (among other crops).  Most of the corn is fed to livestock to produce our meat.  A lot of the wheat is exported to other counties like those in the Middle East which don’t have enough of their own groundwater to grow grain.

One cow takes 674,000 gallons of water in its lifetime.

5. Billions of people live without clean water and their children are dying. Students in the US are part of a small percentage of people who can make things better. We need them involved!

In the US, we have the ability to make choices.  Most people sharing the world are struggling to just survive the day.  A hundred years ago, before the globalized economy and communication, we could live our lives and not know what was happening 1,000 miles away.  Now, we’re all connected and we all have the same problem:  Water is not available fairly and equally for everyone to survive and most people in the US are not using global water wisely. With your help and attention we can change this!  In college and in their careers, today’s high school students can invent ways to clean water.  They can teach your friends to conserve. They can shop knowing about water footprints.

They can be water literate. They can be a leaders, a policy makers, and creators of a better future.

Water is a life or death issue.  Choose life.

.