Guest blogger: On water, by Joe Podgor

Dear Kristin,

I fear that I won't be able to attend your water conference. But if I could, I expect that I would probably witness a scintillating session filled with insights on all the usual solutions. But even if all those mentioned were employed, I fear that the effort would be futile, as long as demand is allowed to continually grow.

This is a very simple problem to define. There is a finite amount of affordable, clean, and available drinking water, currently consumed at a predictable rate per capita in this region.

Even if that rate is diminished by conservation; the price, the quality and the amount is adversely affected by the continuing increase in demand due to the increase in population. This classic exercise in the principle of diminishing returns was somehow never recognized in the last forty years of water conferences that I have attended. It is assumed that population cannot be controlled, and therefore it must be ignored as a solution to the problem.

It cannot be ignored. If population continues to grow unabated, no amount of conservation will fill the gap. And if pricing the water as a deterrent is chosen, then ultimately you have priced an essential of life out of reach. Who do you punish with that? The poor and middle class. As the recharge areas of the aquifers are covered with the unavoidable pollution of new developments (to accommodate the new residents and workers), the safety of our water is compromised, and the cost goes up for additional treatment (even though there is no suitable treatment available on a large scale for many pollutants).

While price might one day restrict the locale to only affluent residents, the safety issue will be among the factors that drive even them out of the area in the long run. Unlimited growth is a cancer that will consume it's host.

There are techniques for limiting population. Aside from disease, drought and famine, it is within our power to limit density within land use zones; and it is within our power to establish a limited number of strategically placed zones in our region. This tool has been ours for half a century, but we have been afraid to face the inevitable. We are told that the law won't allow us to restrict the use of property, and yet we do it every day in our urban areas.

We have a property rights movement in our country that wants to overturn all land use restrictions, and seeks to require that the public buys the highest potential value of private property that becomes restricted, as a "taking." They would have you allow them to destroy the community and the quality of your life because they feel it is their "right" to use their property in any way they wish. I remember being on the staff of a magazine which interviewed the then Whip of the Senate, Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, who stated simply "your rights stop where my nose begins." That's the Constitution. That's a big part of what freedom means.

I have made this statement numerous times in my career as a water weeny, and I will add it here: the delivery of drinking water, in adequate quantity and quality for sustaining good health and general welfare, at the lowest possible price, is the only thing that government does for us on a daily basis without which we cannot live. And, that anything government does, or allows to be done, that compromises that price, quality, or availability, is a violation of our human and civil rights.

Unfortunately, local and state governments violate our rights on a regular basis, with every zoning expansion, every new highway to nowhere, with almost every breath they take. This is because politics in our state is under the thumb of those industries that pay for election campaigns. The payback is growth and favors. And we are the ones who really pay, with our health, our wallets, and our quality of life. We are the ones who are violated.

So, Kristin, until a serious effort is made to decreased the increase in the number of consumers, no amount of conservation or deterrents will resolve the problem. It's like setting our table for twelve guests, and then Uncle Harry invites thirty of his friends to join us. There won't be enough to go around, there will be no place to sit, and the dinner party will be ruined.

Our supply of potable water shrinks with every new development covering the recharge areas of our aquifer with a footprint of pollution. And the demand for that water increases with every passing day in which new residents move in to stay. Like the immovable object meeting the irresistible force: something's gotta give.

For now, it seems to be our rights, and our future.

Best wishes,

Joe Podgor