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  Tuesday  May 28  2002    01: 50 PM

Water

Garret mentioned his water woes and then I ran accross a couple of other pieces with the same theme. This is an issue that is going to get nastier and nastier as time goes on and bears watching. I live on a lake on an island in the Northwet (spelling intentional) and water is becoming an issue here too. And we are one of the areas that isn't having a drought! Too many people using too much water and the water table is dropping. Check out the water situation in your area.

A three part series on the water situation in Santa Fe courtesy of dangerousmeta!

Dispatches From the Santa Fe Drought

These days I'm heard saying "arrrgh" a lot because the main issue I'm grasping goes like this: In about three weeks, barring a miracle, the drought-whomped city water supply will run so low that homeowners will be forbidden from watering their plants. It's called a Stage 4 Water Shortage Emergency, and Santa Fe—a high desert city that bumps up against the Southern Rockies—has never entered such a crisis state before, though there have been three Stage 3s since 1996. (In Stage 3, which we're in now, you can water once a week.) In addition to the fatwa on yard and garden bubbly, Stage 4 would halt new construction permits—a dire outcome for a growing community. As for Santa Fe's all- important tourist economy … well, would you vacation here if the "City Different" becomes the "City Dehydrated"?
[read more]

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Atlanta's Growing Thirst Creates Water War

It has all the elements of a classic regional water war, pitting developers against environmentalists and state against state. Yet this battle is gripping not the parched Southwest, but the normally verdant Southeast, in a sign of future clashes around the country over an increasingly limited supply of fresh water.
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A book review from the Very Early Summer 2002 edition of Ralph.

Every Drop For Sale
Our Desperate Battle Over Water in a World About to Run Out

"The water-wars like those in Cochabamba --- and its historical predecessor, the Lake Owens theft --- are just the beginning. Already bruising legal battles and sword-rattlings are erupting across the globe. The Six-Day War was just such a water-war."
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