Aug
26
2011
U.S. Drought Monitor-Ga
Aug
26
2011
EPA’s Strategy to Protect America’s Waters
Water World
The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to complete a full assessment of US water resources to establish a baseline for tracking progress as part of its recently released strategy for protecting America’s water resources. In “Coming Together for Clean Water,” EPA outlines a basic framework for how its water program will address the nation’s clean water challenges in the next few years.
EPA’s strategy includes working to protect healthy waters, restore waters that are already impaired, expand actions to keep all waters clean, and continue to build projects and programs that support environmental sustainability, economic growth, and meet a wide range of community needs.
While carrying out the actions outlined in its plan EPA said it will rely on the rule of law and seek creative and more effective ways to implement the Clean Water Act. The agency said it will also rely on “robust science and cutting-edge technologies,” particularly in emerging areas such as climate adaptation, agricultural manure treatment, ecosystem services, integrated watershed approaches, and emerging pollutants.
Developing a Baseline
EPA and other agencies have already begun the process of developing a baseline assessment of US water systems. The National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) have provided information on the condition of inland and coastal waters using direct measures of aquatic life and ranking chemical and physical stressors. These surveys provide a baseline for the state of water quality across the nation against which statistically significant changes can be tracked at the national and regional scales.
An EPA/state “Monitoring and Assessment Partnership” is working to identify opportunities to further enhance the NARS program to support state and tribal water management needs, and identify and track healthy, threatened, and impaired waters. EPA will complete the first set of five Aquatic Resource Surveys to provide a complete picture of the condition of all waterbody types across the nation by 2012, and begin implementing a second set of surveys to track changes in water quality.
Protection of Healthy Waters
EPA will implement a range of actions to ensure that healthy waters are protected and prevent further pollution of lakes, rivers and streams. The agency will explore, develop, and make available more effective methods for ecological assessment, and the classification and identification of healthy watersheds. In partnership with state and local governments and stakeholders, the agency will also develop outreach and education materials targeting public awareness.
Finally, EPA will use CWA tools to better protect high quality waters. That could include revising regulations for water quality standards to strengthen antidegradation provisions, and protect headwaters that are threatened by resource extraction activities.
Restore Waters
In addition to the work underway in the Chesapeake Bay as part of the President’s recent Executive Order 13508, EPA will work toward the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.
In the wake of the Deepwater BP oil spill, the agency will lead efforts to restore and improve the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico, working with state, tribal, non-governmental, and academic partners to ensure that the Gulf’s waters are restored and protected.
EPA also is leading a multi-agency effort to restore and protect the Great Lakes through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. In other parts of the nation, focus will remain on nutrient pollution, which threatens the long-term health of important ecosystems such as the Mississippi River Basin.
Reducing the amount of nutrient pollution reaching waters is a top priority for EPA. The agency said it will work in close partnership with federal, state and local stakeholders using the best available peer-reviewed science along with regulatory and voluntary tools to achieve the desired goals. The agency said it recognizes that states need room to innovate and respond to local water quality needs, so a one-size-fits-all approach to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution is neither desirable nor necessary.
Action items include determining needed nutrient load reduction targets to restore and maintain water quality, and development of numeric nutrient water quality standards. As an added step, the agency said it would advance an open dialogue between USDA, states, and local stakeholders/landowners to determine how all parties can best cooperate to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from agricultural nonpoint sources.
Reduce Pollution from Discrete Sources
EPA said it will increase protection of U.S. waters from pollution by reducing current loadings and preparing for substantial predicted increases associated with development, urbanization, climate change and other factors. EPA will strengthen regulatory and enforcement actions to address water quality challenges and strategically undertake necessary modifications to current regulations to make them clear and enforceable.
The agency also plans to address increasing concerns about the potential for public health and environmental impacts in the vicinity of hydraulic fracturing and other resource extraction operations by relying on the best available science and statutory authority to ensure a balanced approach that helps the U.S. meet its energy needs in a sustainable and cost effective way.
The Office of Research and Development is currently examining the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and water resources. Based on the results of that study, EPA will work with federal partners and stakeholders to clarify CWA requirements for hydraulic fracturing wastewaters.
The agency also plans to strengthen the NPDES program to reduce pollution from point sources, including developing NPDES permit requirements to control pesticide discharges, information gathering for CAFOS, reducing pollution from sewage treatment plants, and developing effluent guidelines for key sectors such as steam electric, etc.
EPA will also promote the use of green infrastructure in combined sewer overflow (CSO) and municipal separate sanitary sewer system (MS4s) control plans as a complement or as an alternative to traditional grey infrastructure solutions. It will establish performance standards for stormwater discharges for new and redevelopment that will facilitate the use of green infrastructure to reduce pollutant discharges and realize other community and environmental benefits.
Sustainable Practices
EPA said it plans to develop and implement a renewed strategy on green infrastructure and innovative technologies to promote sustainable and cost effective practices. The agency will also support integrated water management at the state and local level, and will encourage solutions that reduce infrastructure costs and promote more efficient, regionally coordinated resource use.
Urban Waters is an interagency effort lead by EPA to work with local communities and cities to transform urban waterways into centerpieces of urban revitalization. This effort targets underserved areas and brings together state, tribal, federal, and local partners in an effort to foster understanding, public access, and enhanced stewardship of our urban water commons. A number of pilot projects are now under way.
Key actions include developing a systematic strategy to make green infrastructure an available tool for meeting CWA requirements. The agency will also develop policies and help direct attention toward more sustainable water management practices that better integrate water quantity, quality, energy requirements, carbon emissions, development, and land use at the watershed and aquifer levels.
To that end, the agency will encourage states to use the Clean Water State Revolving Funds (CWSRF) for projects that are consistent with EPA’s new Clean Water and Drinking Water Sustainability Policy. EPA will continue to work with states to ensure that all CWSRF programs meet the mandated requirement to use at least 20 percent of FY 2011 appropriated funds for green projects such as green infrastructure, water efficiency projects, energy efficiency projects, and other innovative approaches.
To read the full strategy, “Coming Together for Clean Water,” visit water.epa.gov.
WW
Aug
25
2011
Drought claims drinking water, crops in Ga
Atlanta Business Chronicle – by Carla Caldwell , Morning Call Editor
Date: Friday, June 17, 2011, 5:21am EDT
Severe drought conditions in central and South Georgia are causing wells to run dry and in some cases digging deeper isn’t helping. Emergency officials are trucking water in to some rural cities including Dawson and Doerun, Georgia Public Broadcasting is reporting.
In some cases farmers are using the water they have to save crops. Trent Mason, a pecan farmer in Fort Valley, said he is using his well to irrigate trees 12 hours a day, adding conditions are worse than during the last drought in 2007. He said he hasn’t had rain since April 1.
Farmers are reporting they expect huge losses due to the drought. Gov. Nathan Deal is seeking federal disaster relief for 22 counties. Agriculture is Georgia’s biggest industry.
Read More at
Aug
25
2011
Report: South to lose 23M acres of forests
Atlanta Business Chronicle – by Carla Caldwell , Morning Call Editor
Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 4:51am EDT
The South is expected to lose 23 million acres of forests over the next 50 years due to urbanization, weather patterns, land ownership changes, invasive species, and the use of bio-energy, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Forest Service, Reuters is reporting.
In Georgia and the Carolinas the decline could be as much as 22 percent. In Florida, as much as 30 percent of forests could be lost, according to the forest service.
“The summary report clearly demonstrates the urgent need for developing a collaborative strategy to conserve and restore southern forests,” Forest Service Southern Regional Forester Liz Agpaoa said in a statement.
The loss of forest land will result in more runoff water and decreased water quality along with an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires, analysis and computer models found, the report says.
The study is the first in-depth forecast on forests in the South prepared by the agency and was compiled with the input of more than 30 scientists, foresters and other experts with the Forest Service, state forestry agencies and universities, according to a statement.
Aug
25
2011
Designing BMPs for Drought
A study of the Southeast
Create a Link to this Article
By Richard S. Keagy, Jerry Regenbogen
While the Southeast United States is no stranger to dry conditions in the summertime, for most of 2007 and 2008 the region suffered its worst drought in decades. Around the same time, many developers and municipalities, spurred on by the water-quality requirements of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase II permit, had begun to focus on better stormwater management and sustainable site design practices. As a result, bioretention structures, those with a natural pollutant filtering capacity, were being more aggressively integrated into their projects. When the drought conditions took hold, however, these features not only became blights to the landscape as plantings died, but also posed potential problems for flooding, runoff, and water-quality issues when the rain returned.
Throughout this time, engineers and landscape architects at Stantec began implementing and experimenting with different stormwater management and low-impact-development measures to learn which ones, and which combinations of techniques, would be most sustainable during variable weather conditions, including drought. The project teams studied tailored combinations of best management practices (BMPs) to help determine how varied treatment trains can best accommodate bioretention capabilities, while limiting the risk of failure during periods of drought. They further identified basic parameters of bioretention design that allow this BMP to function more effectively in both wet and dry conditions.
Photo: @iStockphoto.com/neotakezo
Drought Wreaks Havoc on Southeast
By the fall of 2007, the southeastern US was reeling from a months-long, record-shattering drought. Between 80 and 90% of the region was in some stage of drought condition as monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Drought Monitor service, and, for first time in more than 100 years, many areas reached the most severe category of drought. As reservoir levels dropped precipitously, cities across the region were forced to restrict water. While the lack of rain impacted agriculture, recreation, and wildlife, it also revealed drawbacks in the design and operation of structures that capture, store, and treat stormwater.
The drought coincided with a time when many municipalities were implementing NPDES Phase II requirements related to stormwater management, particularly those designed to improve water quality through nutrient removal. To meet the requirements of NPDES Phase II, many developers had begun to take a closer look at best management practices that added a water treatment, or filtering, component to the traditional treatment regime. In most cases this took the form of introducing bioretention structures such as rain gardens, bioswales, and wet ponds, all of which provide a mechanism to store runoff, slow the rate of discharge, and, most importantly, filter pollutants via a carefully selected palette of native plantings and soil bed.
During the Southeast drought, a number of these bioretention BMPs failed and required costly, possibly avoidable, reconstruction. Understanding the role of bioretention structures in treatment systems, and designing them for utmost flexibility, were among some of the lessons learned during this period.
Adapting BMP Methods for the Future
Although bioretention is an effective means to remove pollutants such as phosphorus and nitrogen from stormwater, it cannot replace a properly balanced and integrated stormwater management system. Applying research from the EPA and the Water Quality Control Design Center to local municipal bids for stormwater management infrastructure, Stantec reviewed a host of BMPs to better understand how combinations of methods and their sequence—the treatment train—would enable developers to meet local permit requirements in the most cost-effective manner. At the same time, the exercise provided a framework within which bioretention can be applied in a judicious manner, reducing overreliance on a practice that may not withstand long-term drought conditions.
A recent review of BMP standards against a series of criteria such as total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) removal efficiency and quality control revealed there are typical removal rates in most locations in the Southeast. The values are indicated in Table 1.
Too often, engineers recommend the smoothest route to permit approval or the most common best management practice preferred by a local jurisdiction. Frequently, local jurisdictions drive the selection of best management practices for specific projects, and very often rain gardens are a preferred approach. A treatment train analysis such as depicted in Table 1 provides an opportunity for engineers to help jurisdiction staff explore a toolbox of different methods that can adapt to the specific project site while also considering future drought conditions. This flexibility can result in a solution that reduces the footprint of the more vulnerable bioretention structures without sacrificing their vital function in the stormwater management and treatment process.
As part of the BMP study, engineers and landscape architects reviewed specific types of structural and nonstructural BMPs and how to use them in a treatment train. The standards were subjected to a comparative cost analysis, looking at the cost of nine BMPs per square foot and the cost of a typical 5-acre
The drainage basin for these areas was key, as many jurisdictions in the Southeast limit the drainage area to 5 acres for some BMPs. This acreage limit is based on infiltration rates for those specific treatment types. The costs per surface square foot, shown in Table 2, are based on numerous cost evaluations including USEPA estimates; local Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, GA, construction bids; Mecklenburg County, NC, cost estimations; and several other resources. The costs are the median value from all the sources and also were very close to the construction cost estimates found in the two prototypical cities analyzed.
From this information, it is possible to develop a treatment train comparative cost analysis, responding to local treatment requirements, for any combination of BMPs (Table 3). Many engineers and jurisdictions are familiar with treatment trains. This is a standard way to combine BMPs to provide the required TSS, TN, and TP removal as well as other requirements, while adapting to project site
conditions.
The comparative cost analysis in Table 3 provides an approximate idea of the value of the potential treatment trains. The analysis provides design engineers a gauge by which to analyze how to keep BMP costs at budgeted levels and still allow some flexibility in the type of BMPs applied to a project. The owner or jurisdiction must also consider the maintenance cost for the BMP in their evaluations.
Upon analysis of Table 3, and factoring in the desire to reduce the amount of plantings (and therefore negative exposure to drought conditions), it is apparent that a grassed swale with an optimal bioretention area, or a grassed swale with a wet pond and a treatment wetland, may be the best option in situations where water treatment requirements necessitate some bioretention capability. As indicated in this study, there are in fact several treatment train options that could be considered. However, when trying to reduce liabilities during drought conditions, the best option would be to use the most cost-effective solution with the least amount of drought-vulnerable plantings.
Designing Flexible Bioretention Structures
Using an effective treatment train can mitigate overreliance on any one solution, but the fact is that bioretention may still be required to reach nutrient removal, total suspended solids removal, or detention requirements. So, what are the components of an effective bioretention BMP, one that can better weather long periods of below-average precipitation? Armed with
lessons learned from the prolonged Southeast drought, engineers and landscape architects developed a series of recommendations for municipalities and
developers.
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| Photo: Black Creek Watershed Association Rain gardens, such as this one at West Cary Middle School, provide an aesthetic component while serving an important stormwater management function. |
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| Photo: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Stormwater Services Linear rain garden captures runoff from adjacent impervious surface and utilizes flowering annuals and perennials for seasonal color. |
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| Photo: Stantec Roadside rain garden captures runoff directly adjacent to asphalt. Note the variety of textures attained through multipleplant types. |
Successful bioretention structures integrate sound principles of both landscape architecture and civil engineering, combining specific stormwater management calculations and soil profiles with aesthetically pleasing design features and compatible vegetation. Encompassing a variety of different low-impact-development systems such as vegetated swales, rain gardens, sunken medians, retention ponds, and wetlands, bioretention BMPs serve a dual purpose of reducing peak runoff rates and volumes while efficiently removing suspended solids, heavy metals, adsorbed pollutants, nitrogen, phosphorus, pathogens, and temperature.
Rain gardens in particular are gaining popularity outside their traditional role in residential landscapes. They are particularly useful on densely developed urban sites and are a solid
option for retrofitting failing stormwater management structures. Rain gardens can be small, formal, homeowner style gardens; large complex bioretention gardens; or multiple distributed units providing treatment in a large drainage area.
When rain gardens are added to the treatment train, they require only a few crucial, basic elements for success. The planting medium should contain the right mixture of topsoil, sand, and
compost. The plantings should generally be native perennial plant species that will not require much care after establishment. And they should be covered in shredded hardwood mulch to keep the soil moist and ready to soak up rain.
Other general recommendations include:
- An underdrain system that drains filter media within 48 hours
- Pretreatment and energy dispersion via other BMPs
- Sheet flow conditions into the facility
- Maximum contributing drainage area of 10 acres
- Maximum contributing drainage of 5 acres per inflow point
- Maximum ponding depth of 12 inches for water quality
Importance of Soil Conditions in Plant Selection.Across the Southeast, a variety of conditions exists, from the red clay of the Piedmont to the sandy soils of the coastal plains. A geotechnical investigation is the best way to understand the nature of local soil conditions. Soil conditions will dictate plant selection. The filter bed of a rain garden (controlled by its mixture of soil) allows water to infiltrate the garden’s soil. If the filter bed is predominantly clay soils, it will have excellent water-retention properties. However, it will lack the ability to allow surface runoff to move quickly into the soil. Consequently, large-particle-sized amendments will need to be mixed into the filter bed. Plant materials in clay soils therefore must have strong roots systems in order to penetrate these compact conditions.
Aug
25
2011
A Carbon Footprint Begets a Water Footprint
Hydrophilia
Becoming water wise.
Photo courtesy of Britt Udesen (aka Idaho Squatcher). See her videos on YouTube.
If you have a carbon footprint, you also have a water footprint. While the idea of calculating your carbon footprint has caught on and carbon calculators are all the rage (for good reason), few are paying attention to their water footprints. We all know that as Americans, we are the Sasquatch of the planet, rapaciously consuming vast quantities of raw materials, animal products, energy, water, you name it. But, did you know that every time you turn on the light switch, not only are you consuming energy and adding to your carbon footprint, you are also adding to your water footprint? The volume of water required to produce power depends upon the energy source, and varies from zero for wind energy to a whopping 70 m3/GJ for biomass energy. Thus, powering one home for a year on electricity produced from oil implies a water footprint of some 9,500 gallons of water (assuming one home requires 36 GJ power per year). Everywhere we see a carbon footprint – in the fertilizer, gasoline, electricity and other inputs required to raise, process, transport and refrigerate our food; in the mining and processing of raw materials for electronics; or in the production of cotton for and manufacturing of clothing; we see a concurrent water footprint, the largest portion of which is often directly connected to energy use.
| Primary energy carriers | Global average water footprint (m3/GJ) | |
| Non-renewable | Natural gas | 0.11 |
| Coal | 0.16 | |
| Crude oil | 1.06 | |
| Uranium | 0.09 | |
| Renewable | Wind energy | 0.00 |
| Solar thermal energy | 0.27 | |
| Hydropower | 22 | |
| Biomass energy | 70 (range: 10-250) | |
Source: Water Footprint Network
So, when you pause to decide whether or not to turn that light off, you might think about how you’ll be donating some water to the Chinook salmon fry in the nearest river. Turn it off. (During Earth Hour this past weekend (March 26, 2011 at 8:30 pm), people across the planet did just that as a stand against climate change. See what you can do to Go Beyond the Hour.)
Aug
25
2011
The Hydroleaf
A Solar-Powered Rainwater Purification System and Drinking Fountain
By Katherine Gloede on January 12, 2011
Mostafa Bonakdar, a design student from Tehran, recently launched a design for a solar powered rainwater catchment system. The Hydroleaf is a unique device that collects rainwater, then uses solar energy to power a water purification system which supplies a fountain on the same device.
The public hydration station features a photovoltaic solar canopy at the top of the structure that uses solar energy to power a water purification system. Rainwater is collected at the top of the structure and funneled through the purification system. A drinking fountain on the bottom of the Hydroleaf supplies the public with the purified water. The container is able to store up to approximately 60 liters of filtered water. The solar panels also offer a small shelter, perfect for covering a park bench or acting a bus stop.
The Hydroleaf has come with some critique including possible impracticality of the device due its high energy use. The ability for the structure to withstand harsh winter weather or high wind has also been called into question. The design has also merited much praise as it is a self-contained system that utilizes clean energy for water purification. Should the design prove efficient and practical, the Hydroleaf might someday provide safe drinking water to the masses, greatly reducing dependence on plastic water bottles and giving more people access to clean drinking water. We hope to see these in cities everywhere in the future.
Aug
25
2011
Coolest Water Fountain
SKYWATER
This spacey looking device is a real working public rain water filtering system called SKYWATER, developed in South Korea. Rain is collected from the ring and sent to holding tanks underground. When the flexible house is manipulated, water is sent back up thru the filtration system and out comes fresh drinking water. I have no idea why it looks the way it does but aesthetics aside, this is about the coolest water fountain I’ve ever seen.
Designer: Ji-youn Kim
Aug
25
2011
There Will Be Water
T. Boone Pickens thinks water is the new oil—and he’s betting $100 million that he’s right
Pickens hopes to run a water pipeline over 250 miles and 650 tracts of private property from the Texas Panhandle to thirsty Dallas Nancy Newberry
Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak trees, mesquite, and cattle. It has a desolate beauty, a striking sparseness. The county encompasses 924 square miles and is home to fewer than 900 people. One of them is T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and corporate raider, who first bought some property here in 1971 to hunt quail. He’s now the largest landowner in the county: His Mesa Vista ranch sprawls across some 68,000 acres. Pickens has also bought up the rights to a considerable amount of water that lies below this part of the High Plains in a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago.
If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it’s all a matter of supply and demand. “There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That’s the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing,” he says.
In the coming decades, as growing numbers of people live in urban areas and climate change makes some regions much more prone to drought, water—or what many are calling “blue gold”—will become an increasingly scarce resource. By 2030 nearly half of the world’s population will inhabit areas with severe water stress, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Pickens understands that. And while Texas is unusually lax in its laws about pumping groundwater, the rush to control water resources is gathering speed around the planet. In Australia, now in the sixth year of a drought, brokers in urban areas are buying up water rights from farmers. Rural residents around the U.S. are trying to sell their land (and water) to multi- national water bottlers like Nestlé (BW—Apr. 14). Companies that use large quantities of the precious resource to run their businesses are seeking to lock up water supplies. One is Royal Dutch Shell, which is buying groundwater rights in Colorado as it prepares to drill for oil in the shale deposits there.
Into this environment comes Pickens, who made a good living for a long time extracting oil and gas and now, at 80, believes the era of fossil fuel is over. So far he has spent $100 million and eight years on his project and still has not found any city in Texas willing to buy his water. But like many others, Pickens believes there’s a fortune to be made in slaking the thirst of a rapidly growing population. If he pumps as much as he can, he could sell about $165 million worth of water to Dallas each year. “The idea that water can be sold for private gain is still considered unconscionable by many,” says James M. Olson, one of America’s preeminent attorneys specializing in water- and land-use law. “But the scarcity of water and the extraordinary profits that can be made may overwhelm ordinary public sensibilities.”
THE BIGGEST PUMP WINS
Pickens, an Oklahoma native, geologist, and someone who calls himself the luckiest guy in the world, is the quintessential entrepreneur. He started as a wildcatter in 1956; three decades later his Mesa Petroleum was the largest independent exploration company in the U.S. But that’s not how Pickens made a name for himself—it was his hostile bids, one after the other through the 1980s, for oil companies far more powerful, far wealthier than his own. Pickens thought they could do more for their shareholders. He never took over any of them. He did, however, push them into deals they might not have considered otherwise, which helped reshape the oil industry.
He did, sometimes, make hundreds of millions when he sold his stakes. And shareholders did, often, benefit. He was briefly the most famous businessman in America, a corporate raider who always wished people would call him a shareholder activist.
By the mid-1990s, though, Pickens had fallen. After a brutal and expensive fight with Unocal, he gave up his raiding. He lost control of Mesa Petroleum after a series of financial and managerial miscalculations. He went through an expensive divorce from his second wife and retreated to his ranch. It was in the midst of this that he acquired a newfound regard for water as a commodity that should be bought, sold, and traded for the benefit of those who own it and those who can afford it.
In 1996 a local water utility made its first big purchase of groundwater rights in the Panhandle. The utility, known as the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority (CRMWA), bought nearly 43,000 acres of water, some of it just south of Pickens’ ranch, for $14.5 million. (Property owners in Texas, and elsewhere, can sell their water separately from the land above it.) That Roberts County would become the stomping ground for the Panhandle water wars was perhaps inevitable. Underneath it lies one of the world’s largest repositories of water, moving slowly among layers of gravel, sand, and silt. The Ogallala Aquifer stretches from Texas to South Dakota and contains a quadrillion gallons of water—enough to cover the U.S. mainland to a depth of almost two feet. Yet the extensive irrigation necessary to grow corn, cotton, and wheat in west Texas has left the Ogallala nearly depleted in some places. It is not an aquifer that is easily or quickly replenished. But the land in Roberts County is unsuited for agriculture, and so the Ogallala there is largely untapped.
Since the early 1900s, groundwater use in Texas has been governed by what’s quaintly called the rule of capture, otherwise described as the biggest pump wins. It lets landowners pump as much water as they can, even if doing so drains neighboring properties. This put Pickens in an uncomfortable position: If he didn’t sell his water to CRMWA, the utility could potentially suck some of it right out from under his ranch. So he tried. But “they told me to kiss off,” he says. Kent Satterwhite, who was then assistant general manager, says: “Boone was fairly insistent that we buy his water. It made him mad that we didn’t have the money to buy it.” That was the first of several contretemps between Pickens and various local water authorities. Pickens next approached the city of Amarillo, which also had begun to acquire water rights in Roberts County. It wasn’t interested, either, though it did purchase water from several other nearby landowners. “Amarillo was pissed off at me,” says Pickens, who has a long and fraught history with the city. When Amarillo turned him down, Pickens felt surrounded. “I had to find a buyer for my water,” he says, “or I was going to be drained.”
LANDOWNERS DIVIDED
There’s a saying in Texas: “Whiskey’s for drinking. Water’s for fighting.” Pickens decided to fight. In 1999 he created a company called Mesa Water and began to accumulate water rights so he could strike a deal with another city altogether. The hell with Amarillo. Pickens was confident he could sell his water: The population of Texas was expected to jump 40% by 2020, mostly in urban areas one dry season away from drought.
Pickens’ decision to get into the water business was regarded by some in the Panhandle as nothing more, or less, than a shrewd move by a man who knows the value of commodities. The economy of the High Plains region is based on people taking out the natural resources and selling them. If water that can’t be used for farming ends up in the taps of city residents hundreds of miles away, that’s fine. Pickens says he’s buying stranded, surplus water that needs to be rescued. Kim Flowers, who runs an 8,300-acre ranch in Roberts County, speaks for many landowners when she says: “People can do with their water as they wish as long as they’re not wasting it.”
In all, Pickens, CRMWA, and Amarillo have spent about $150 million to buy up nearly 80% of the water rights in Roberts County, undermining and outbidding one another along the way. One unsurprising effect of their competition is that the price of an acre of water has in some places doubled, to $600. That’s something in which Pickens takes pride. Much as he did in the 1980s, when he went after big oil companies he believed weren’t doing right by their shareholders, Pickens now talks about creating value for Roberts County landowners. They make money from selling their water while continuing to live, run cattle, and hunt on their property. “I told them I was going to raise the value of the land, and I accomplished that. The landowners are all tickled to death. I made our water worth something. And anybody with any sense would sell it.”
Not all Roberts County landowners wanted to do business with him, though. Pickens intended to pull water from an aquifer that is pretty much the sole source for the Panhandle, and that isn’t refilled quickly, and sell it to a place like Dallas, whose water use is the highest of any city in Texas. This seemed ludicrous, even reckless, to some. C.E. Williams runs the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District, which is responsible for managing the competing demands on the region’s share of the Ogallala. He puts it this way: “As a district, we cannot pick and choose where the water goes. But personally I am concerned. I have a son who is an irrigated farmer, and I have grandkids, and I want to make sure that they can conduct commerce when they want to.”
Pickens has a way of dismissing the complexity of a situation, sometimes even the possibility of an opinion contrary to his own. In this case, any opposition to his plan from anyone who is not a Roberts County landowner, who is not essentially a shareholder in this venture, he deems irrelevant. Williams, he points out, doesn’t himself have any property. “Water is a commodity,” he says. “Heck, isn’t it like oil? You have to come back to who owns the water. The groundwater is owned by the landowner. That’s it.” When it comes to potential buyers, Pickens cares about only one thing: how much they’re willing to pay. “Do I care what Dallas does with the water? Hell no.”
Republican State Representative Warren Chisum is a Roberts County rancher who owns 12,000 acres next to Pickens and sold his water to Amarillo in 2001. He would seem to be a natural ally. He’s not. “My water will remain local,” he says. “It’s controversial to ship it out of the Panhandle. When we run out, we’re done. The long-term value is to keep it here. That’s contrary to what Pickens wants to do. It’s his water. But he won’t be here in 50 years.”
In 2002, Pickens began approaching several of Texas’ sprawling cities, all of which share one defining feature: Their populations are growing so quickly that they are constantly in need of new supplies of water. But with water, as with so much else, location is critical. And Pickens’ water is far, far away from anyplace that might buy it. Pickens knew he’d have to build a pipeline, and to do so at anything resembling a reasonable cost, he’d need the power of eminent domain—the right of a government entity to force the sale of private property for the public good. Water utilities have that right. If Dallas agreed to buy Pickens’ water, it could extend such authority to him. But Dallas deemed Pickens’ price too high and declined to do a deal. So Pickens and his executives tried to create a Fresh Water Supply District—a government entity that would have that power. But they couldn’t get it through.
Over the next several years, Pickens continued accumulating water rights and began to lease other land, this time with the idea of creating the world’s biggest wind farm. “One of the great wind areas is right up where we are,” says Robert L. Stillwell, Pickens’ general counsel. “You can set it right on top of where the water is.” And since, one day anyway, Dallas may well buy both, Mesa could use a single right-of-way for the water pipeline and the electric lines.
In Roberts County there would be real economic benefits from the wind farm. “The wind is meant to sweeten the deal,” says Representative Chisum. “The big money for Pickens is in the water.”
It had been a decade since Pickens first realized the potential value of the water deposited eons ago in the sand below the High Plains. Now it was time to employ the one resource he hadn’t yet used: his lobbying clout.
POWERFUL LOBBYING
In January, 2007, the Texas Legislature convened in the grand statehouse in Austin. The 80th session turned out to be very productive, and one person who kept busy during that time was J.E. Buster Brown, a former state senator and one of the most powerful lobbyists in town. Among Brown’s clients is Mesa Water. “My job is primarily defensive,” Brown says of his work for Pickens. “I’m watching to make sure there is no legislation passed that creates obstacles to Pickens doing what he wants to do. I’m supposed to make sure nothing bad happens.”
Brown did more than that: He helped win Pickens a key new legal right. It was contained in an amendment to a major piece of water legislation. The amendment, one of more than 100 added after the bill had been reviewed in the House, allowed a water-supply district to transmit alternative energy and transport water in a single corridor, or right-of-way. “We helped move that along,” says Stillwell. “We thought it would be handy and helpful to everyone.”
After the bill passed, Tom “Smitty” Smith, Texas director of Public Citizens, an advocacy group, says several legislators were drinking coffee and reading through it. “Uh-oh,” one said. They’d just realized the amendment would help Pickens build his pipeline. “Many legislators were watching for this play,” Smith says, “and it still snuck by.” State Senator Robert Duncan, a Republican who represents Lubbock, says: “It probably should have raised our suspicions, but we were moving a lot of bills. And it would have been hard to hold up this one even if we’d discovered the amendment.”
Pickens still needed the power of eminent domain if he was going to build his pipeline and wind-power lines across private land. And by happy coincidence, the legislators passed a smaller bill that made that all the easier. The new legislation loosened the requirements for creating a water district. Previously, a district’s five elected supervisors needed to be registered voters living within the boundaries of the district. Now, they only had to own land in the district; they could live and vote wherever. The bill, as it happens, was put forth by two legislators from Houston; Brown says he and Mesa had nothing to do with it. “That wasn’t our bill,” says Brown. “I wish I could take credit for it.”
Pickens moved quickly to take advantage of the new rules. Over the summer of 2007, he sold eight acres on the back side of his ranch to five people in his employ: Stillwell, who resides in Houston, two of his executives in Dallas, and the couple who manage his ranch, Alton and Lu Boone. A few days later, Mesa Water filed a petition to create an eight-acre water-supply district with those five as the directors and sole members. On Nov. 6, Roberts County held an election to decide whether to form the new district. Only two people were qualified to take part: Alton and Lu Boone. The vote was unanimous. With that, Pickens won the right to issue tax-free bonds for his pipeline and electrical lines as well as the extraordinary power to claim land across swaths of the state.
No one at Mesa regards Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 as an unusual arrangement. “We’re no different from any other water or electricity supplier,” says Stillwell, meaning they, too, would use the power of eminent domain only as a last resort and for the public good. As for the suggestion that he wouldn’t have qualified to be a board member under the old rules, Stillwell says: “It doesn’t matter that I’m on the board. It would have been another me, just a local me.”
“WE’RE NOT HAPPY”
Pickens was ready to reach out to landowners along the route. In April, 2008, Mesa sent out some 1,100 letters to people along the 250-mile proposed right-of-way, from Miami, Tex.
, to a town called Jacksboro, just short of Dallas. The letters included a Texas landowners’ bill of rights, information on the condemnation procedure, a map of the route, and a list of open houses they could attend for more information.
One stifling evening in May, about 50 people showed up at the Twin Lakes Community Activity Center just outside Jacksboro. When the ranchers arrived, more than a dozen of Mesa’s public-relations consultants, hydrologists, and land men were waiting for them. Standing behind tables laid out with pens, cups, hats, and bags with the District No. 1 logo, the officials were available to answer questions about the 250-foot-wide corridor Mesa would use to construct, maintain, and possibly expand the pipeline and electric lines. While this arrangement allowed everyone to get information specific to their property, it also precluded any public questioning of the Mesa standard-bearers. This did not go unnoticed by the ranchers. “We’re not happy,” said one. “Pickens is pushing his power trip on us. I can’t fight his money. But if he asked first, I might have thought better of it.” Another said: “Land goes way back for a lot of people here. If you tell people you want their land, Texans raise their guns.” At the end of the evening, most of the pens and hats and cups still lay on the tables.
Pickens isn’t bothered that by his invoking the right of eminent domain, Mesa has inflamed landowners up and down the route. “It always does,” he says. Mesa expects to acquire the land it needs in the next 18 months and pay about $30 million for it; Pickens wants to begin construction on the $1.2 billion pipeline right afterward. It should take about three years to complete. If all goes according to plan, Mesa will be able to pump enough water to satisfy the needs of some 1.5 million Texans every day.
Pickens hopes to strike a deal with Dallas or the urban areas around it before Mesa starts building the pipeline. “Eventually they will need it,” he says. So far, though, the talks might best be characterized as preliminary. “We continue to meet with Pickens’ staff and engineers to get a better understanding of the proposal and so they can understand what our needs are,” says Mike Rickman, assistant general manager of the North Texas Municipal Water District, which supplies water to 13 cities north and east of Dallas. “Mesa has a lot of water. But how much will it cost to buy it and deliver it?” Rickman says that at some point he would have to consider the consequences for the Ogallala: “Does it make sense to take water from an arid portion of the state? We don’t want to harm our neighbors out there.”
In Roberts County, people hold on to the hope that pumping from the Ogallala can be controlled. In 1998, as Pickens and local water utilities began buying up water rights, the groundwater conservation district placed some restrictions on the rule of capture that it calls the 50-50 rule: Anyone who receives a new permit to pump can draw down the aquifer by only 50% over the next 50 years. Later, an additional limit of 1.2% per year was set. These essentially manage the depletion of the Ogallala under Roberts County; there, it is replenished at a rate of only 0.1% a year. Williams, who put the rules into place, says: “It’s like taking dollar bills out of your bank account and putting nickels back in. Even with a big bank account, there’s an end. That’s pretty much what’s happening in the Ogallala.”
Pickens has promised to abide by the 50-50 rule. “I don’t have any concerns about depleting the aquifer. All I’m doing is selling surplus water,” he says. “I’m not about to drain all the water out of Roberts County. I have my ranch there. But I could sure take it down 50% and not hurt anybody. And it could make a lot of people a lot of money.”
Join a debate about bottled water.
Berfield is an associate editor at BusinessWeek .
Aug
25
2011
Let It Rain
Green infrastructure strategies for cheap, effective, and beautiful rainwater management.
January 2011
By Katharine Logan
Perhaps my most vivid memory of architecture school comes from a studio in which we built a model of a neighborhood design, and then poured water all over it. The trick was to use enough little pieces of sponge in the model, representing rainwater retention strategies at a variety of scales, so that no water spilled onto the floor. Across North America, regions and municipalities are now trying this trick for real. Why? Because the centuries-old approach of piping water off the land as fast as possible and dumping it into waterways is failing fast.
Illustration by Shape & Color
Green infrastructure strategies for cheap, effective, and beautiful rainwater management. 
Each year in Philadelphia, a city with some of the oldest combined storm and sewer infrastructure in North America, billions of gallons of sewage over-flow from 164 outfalls into the city’s creeks, streams, and rivers during major rainstorms. In Milwaukee, a hospital study shows the number of children with serious diarrhea rising whenever the city’s sewers overflow. Run-off pollution from suburban and agricultural sources threatens New York City’s drinking water supply. And it’s estimated that every twenty-four months, rainwater run-off from the streets of Seattle flushes into Puget Sound a volume of oil equivalent to the Exxon Valdez spill.
Nor is the impact on water quality the full extent of the problem—the effecton water quantity is just as devastating. Conventional engineering practice treats rainwater as a problem to be carried off the land as quickly as possible. Under such circumstances, in a matter of hours pipes dump as much as a hundred times more water per minute into a stream than the stream, whose banks have stabilized over millennia, can accept. This wreaks havoc on fish habitat. In Vancouver, British Columbia, there were once over fifty salmon- and trout-bearing streams—by 2009, there were two.
Patrick Lucey is an aquatic ecologist and urban geographer, and one of the designers of the rainwater management system at South East False Creek, a LEED Platinum-certified neighborhood that served as Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Village: “In shifting to sustainability by design,” Lucey says, ”we’re really talking about shifting from a 2,000-year-old engineering convention to a fundamentally new approach to municipal infrastructure.” This approach is a form of biomimicry, a system based on nature’s implicit design principles, which he sums up in three steps: capture, store, beneficial use.
Starting at the rooftops, green roofs at South East False Creek retain and use a varying amount of rainwater, depending on the season. Water that isn’t captured on the roofs is caught in basement cisterns. Until it’s used for landscape irrigation or toilet flushing, water from the cisterns circulates continuously through neighborhood water features. Not only does moving water delight human beings, the movement aerates it and exposes it to sunlight, which keeps it at a level of quality good enough to swim in.
Once it reaches the ground, water at South East False Creek is kept in the open. Streams that were once piped and buried have been brought back into the daylight. Site water makes its way across a variety of permeable and textured surfaces either to a bioswale on the eastern edge of the project or to Hinge Park wetland on the site’s western edge, and from there to False Creek.
Key to the success of South East False Creek’s rainwater system is the difference between total impermeable area and effective impermeable area. The green infrastructure at South East False Creek makes a high-density urban development behave in the watershed like a site with an impermeable area closer to zero. Along False Creek’s rehabilitated shoreline, herring have spawned for the first time in decades. “That’s amazing,” says Lucey, “herring are very sensitive. That must mean you guys got it right.”
A little further south, but still in rain country, Portland, Oregon’s pioneering work in rainwater management has produced some of the most inspiring examples of street edge rain gardens anywhere, winning awards two years in a row from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
The SW 12th Avenue Green Street Project, built in 2005, converts an underutilized stretch of ground between the sidewalk and the street into a series of four planters that capture, slow, and clean street runoff, and allow it to infiltrate into the earth. The planters effectively disconnect SW 12th from the conventional storm system, and handle the street’s 180,000 gallons of rainwater on site. More than that, planted with trees and well-composed plants, and with tumbled concrete pavers defining their place in the street, they’re beautiful.
Similarly, the NE Siskiyou Green Street Project, built in 2003, consists of two curb extensions, familiar as a traffic calming and pedestrian safety strategy, but with curb cuts to allow rain to flow into well-designed plantings behind them. Cheap and simple, the rain gardens manage NE Siskiyou’s day-to-day rainwater on site, and are projected to manage 85 percent of a 25-year storm.
As well as the technical success and aesthetic appeal of sustainable rainwater infrastructure, its cost-effectiveness warms its welcome with municipalities struggling to maintain outdated and overburdened pipe infrastructure. In Philadelphia, upgrading the existing combined storm and sewer system would cost over $10 billion. “There is no way in the world that we could ever pay for something like that,” Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter told an audience at the recent “Charting New Waters” conference in Washington, D.C. Instead, Philadelphia’s Green City Clean Waters program proposes to spend $1.6 billion to achieve a safe and sustainable rainwater management system using green infrastructure.
Philadelphia has set a goal of transforming at least a third of existing impervious cover in its combined sewer system drainage area over the next two decades into “greened acres” that will filter or store the first inch of each rainfall. That first inch, it turns out, is enormously significant. Except in Florida, most rainstorms in North America deliver less than an inch of rain per day. So if a site can infiltrate an inch a day, it will treat 80 to 90 percent of its rain on site.
An early adopter of green rainwater strategies, Philadelphia has already completed projects to reduce the imperviousness of its public domain, including the creation of raised bed vegetable gardens and rain gardens in school parking lots, tree trenches in road meridians, bioswales in parking lots, and sidewalk infiltration planters modeled after the Portland examples. Neighborhood basketball players particularly appreciate Philadelphia’s pervious asphalt basketball courts, which are dry enough to play on much sooner after rainfall than regular courts.
Not only is Philadelphia implementing the first inch strategy in the public realm, it is requiring it for any private development that disturbs more than 15,000 square feet of earth. As a result, rainwater management is integrated early in the zoning and building permit process.
The city provides information and support to homeowners wanting to collect roof runoff in rain barrels, disconnect downspouts to direct runoff to pervious areas, or use site slopes to create rain gardens. To encourage retrofitting commercial and residential property for on-site rainwater management, Philadelphia is phasing in an initiative, which separates stormwater billing from the water bill, and ties it to the impervious cover of the site.
The public response to Philadelphia’s green infrastructure agenda has been overwhelmingly positive (92 percent), according to the city’s water department. In response to its Green Streets Survey, the department heard the public say, “I love the idea! It would make us healthier and happier all around,” and “we are proud to be a model neighborhood.”
Katharine Logan is an architecturally trained and LEED-accredited writer based in British Columbia.
This article appeared in the January 2011 print issue of GreenSource Magazine. Subscribe to GreenSource in print |Back Issues | Manage your subsciption | Read GreenSource digitally