An Inconvenient Thirst: 9 Global Hot Spots
What follows is a picture of the groundwater challenges at home and abroad. I must concede that I became depressed while putting this together, but then remembered far more brilliant people are working on ways to manage our way out of this crisis. We just need more of these folks to make it a priority NOW, as UC Irvine/Jet Propulsion Laboratory water scientist Jay Famiglietti would tell you.
Andre Casasola/Orange County Water District A precious resource is ever more precious.
READING ASSIGNMENT: An Inconvenient Thirst: Water scientist Jay Famiglietti pleas for smart use of our most precious resource before it's too late. Will we listen?
LEARN MORE: JayFamiglietti.com
1) ORANGE COUNTY
Fifty percent of the water consumed in Orange County is pumped in. Despite Famiglietti praising water management here, those imports are in jeopardy. Drought, over-pumping and climate change have nearly tapped out the Central Valley, and the flow from the Colorado River via the Los Angeles Aqueduct may quickly slow. A magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquake could destroy the State Water Project, the 400-mile system that brings Sacramento River water south to arid SoCal.
Mark Greening/Orange County Water District Purified water from Orange County's award-winning Groundwater Replenishment System.
2) CALIFORNIA
See above and now consider this: Normally in California, one-third of our annual water supply came from groundwater. With this historical drought, it's now up to 70 percent. Since 1998, the state has lost enough freshwater to fill Lake Mead 1 1/2 times. If we pump from the state's aquifers at the current rate, it will be 60-100 years before they are bone dry. Some individuals' Central Valley spigots already don't have water coming out of them. 
Last Call at the Oasis/Participant Media Going ... going ...
3) COLORADO RIVER BASIN
Re-read Nos. 1 & 2 and consider this: The basin that supplies water to 40 million people and 4 million acres of farmland in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado lost more than 13 trillion gallons of water in less than a decade. Keep in mind it took millions of years to fill those aquifers. Add a declining snow pack and population growth and you can see why the West's long-term water security is threatened.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Surface-water depletion in the Colorado River Basin has left this "bathtub ring" of mineral deposits on Lake Mead, but groundwater loss is invisible.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print ArticleAdvertisement
How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce became the greatest (bumbling) enemy of America. 
One of Miami's most fabled private homes has a toxic secret. 
Summer Camp Nightmare 
