Not a drop to drink

Forget oil -- an expert on the world's water supply talks about the vital substance we will hoard, ration and probably go to war for in the near future.

By Suzy Hansen

Aug 28, 2002 | At the 10-day United Nations development and environmental summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, this week, one of the most pressing issues will be the world's dwindling water supply. More than 1 billion people have limited access to clean water, a number that could triple in 15 years. The U.N., World Bank and National Security Council all have warned that water, not oil, will bring nations to blows in the future. This week, the New York Times launched a four-part series on the world's water woes; one article focused on the simmering tensions between Turkey and Syria over the Euphrates River, another on how such multinationals as Vivendi have driven Argentines' water bills through the roof. Imagine the tangled plot of "Chinatown" on a global scale: political corruption, corporate interests, the manipulation of water from distant lands, a drought-stricken populace and even, in some cases, murder.

The water-rich United States faces an increasing number of water problems as well. Although Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman has called water the biggest environmental concern of the 20th century, the Bush administration seems content to ignore such warnings. (President Bush declined to join the 100 world leaders at the Johannesburg summit.) A prudent handful of Americans take shorter showers and turn off their air conditioners; individual conservation helps. But Diane Raines Ward, author of "Water Wars," stresses that it is up to political leaders to protect our water and conserve for the future, and many of them are dropping the ball. Pollution and wasteful industries are just some of the factors likely to lead us into a future of widespread water rationing. As Ward explains, surreal but serious battles already erupt over things like the ownership of clouds.

Humanity has been gathering and controlling water from time immemorial, says Ward, but the effects of global warming -- rising seas and unpredictable weather conditions -- will make managing water even more difficult. In "Water Wars," Ward takes us from India to the American West, detailing the roots of some of the world's most worrisome water conflicts and most inspiring success stories. Salon spoke to Ward from her home in New York.

Are we in a water crisis now?

There are 1.4 billion people in the world, a fifth of us, that do not have enough clean water to drink. The United Nations has said that that figure is likely to double in the next 25 years. That's 2.5 billion people without water? I think that is a crisis. For us Americans, because we have seemingly so much of it, we haven't felt that. But now it's starting to affect us too. I think about water the most when I'm washing my dishes. I can wash those dishes until they're clean, but all over the world I have seen women who don't have water to wash their dishes. They wash them with dirty rags or they wash them with dirt. Every time I turn on my faucet, I think of the things I've seen and I feel luxuriously wasteful. I try to conserve and reuse my rinse water to water plants and things like that. But the fingertips of the crisis are on us. And we can do so much about it now if we really pay attention. There is enough water for us, but we have to plan for it.

A few weeks ago I was in North Carolina, an hour outside of Raleigh, where there's a drought. Cops were knocking on people's doors and telling them to turn off their sprinklers. Bars and restaurants were using plastic cups and paper plates. Should we expect to see more of this in the future?

I'm afraid so. We can't take water for granted anymore. Like you, I come from the East Coast and I've always had enough of it. We're Americans, so we get it delivered to us through the pipes. It's quite wonderful. When I started traveling around the rest of the world, I was absolutely appalled to find out that a very large part of the world's population doesn't have water in their homes. Forty percent of people have to travel, have to walk to wells, have to walk to pumps, sometimes miles, to get water.

Your passage about Las Vegas, where the limited water supply is being used on golf courses and silly fountains, was startling. What problems will Las Vegas and the surrounding areas see because of what they've done there?

Las Vegas uses incredible amounts of water. There's a housing development with a lake in which there are boats sailing on the lake. These hotels with their water displays are phenomenal. I was in Las Vegas three months ago, and in front of the Bellagio is this series of hundreds of fountains that dance in time to popular music. You really can't quite believe it unless you see it. I walked out of my hotel, and Celine Dion music was being piped, and the fountains were dancing back and forth and spiraling into the air. These kinds of displays are up and down the strip.

Next Page: Las Vegas gets even thirstier

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