Fishman Makes Waves in Atlanta

Last month Charles Fishman lectured a packed house at the AT&T auditorium about what we can do to ensure the safety and reliability of our water supplies. Known for his timely and incisive journalism with books such as The Walmart Effect and most recently The Big Thirst, Fishman did not disappoint.

First, some fun facts about water:

• Campbell's Soup operates a factory in Illinois that uses enough water to supply a city of 155,000 residents. Only 3% of it goes into the soup.
• Bottled water is one of the most common items sold in American grocery stores. Americans spent $10.6 billion on bottled water in 2009, something that flows out of our taps for almost nothing.
• It takes a lot of water to cool our electric power plants, and electric utility companies account for half of all the water consumed in the state of Georgia. The average household in the U.S. uses 100 gallons per day, but our indirect consumption based on the amount of electricity we use adds another 150 gallons.
• Antiquated distribution systems in the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County lose 15% of their water through leakage.

Charles Fishman is a great explainer, and this talent comes in handy for a subject as complicated as is our relationship with water.

Viewed on a global scale, water is a resource so vital that countries will sometimes fight wars over it. Fishman cautions us to think locally, where so many critical opportunities and solutions await our discovery.

But first we must overcome inaccuracies in our conventional wisdom about water that inhibit our ability to enact sensible water policies. This starts with the way we pay for it.

Fishman posits that we recently lived through a golden age of water, when we never had to think about water in its apparently limitless abundance. Most municipal water utilities have been happy to charge their customers only to defray the costs of treatment, distribution and disposal. The water itself was free.

Throughout this golden age we assumed that the water itself had no economic value. Amidst the regional "water wars" involving Georgia, Alabama and Florida we now know this to be false. Many regions of the United States are grappling with similar concerns about the adequacy of their water supplies, especially as we face the intensified effects of global climate change and extreme weather events.

So, water is priced too cheaply. Like all vital natural resources our use of water ought to bear a cost significant enough to spur its conservation.

Consider how higher gasoline prices spur the availability and popularity of fuel efficient automobiles. When was the last time you had a casual conversation with your friends about the price of water, the same friends who always know which gas stations have the lowest prices?

This applies not only to municipal water supplies. Most electric power plant operators withdraw vast amounts of water from our rivers and lakes and pay nothing for it. More in my blog, The Water-Electricity Nexus.

All of this matters out of our concern for our health, for economic development, and for the environment.

Fishman said we need to "tap" into our emotional attachment with water to develop new and innovative solutions. He calls it Smart Water and provided several examples.

Orlando, FL is one of several municipalities that has banned the use of drinking water for irrigating lawns. Time for us to re-learn the art of rainwater harvesting and graywater recycling!

Most of his examples come by way of the private sector, where business leaders are finding that conservation and water efficiency can be cost-effective business strategies. It has to go beyond the purview of the steely-eyed capitalist and into the consciousness of the public and our elected officials.

We currently spend almost as much for bottled water as we do for our public water infrastructure, which sorely needs to become more flexible in the face of weather extremes caused by climate change. The $10.6 billion or so that Americans spent annually on bottled water could go a long way to assure that our municipal water systems are safe, secure and environmentally-sound.

We clearly can afford it but so far lack the will.

Fishman's lecture could have tackled much broader issues concerning our relationship with water, such as the privatization of public water supplies and the contamination of supplies by agricultural pesticides. But he wants us to focus on the issues we can best address at a local and regional level.