In the American West, the phrase "first in time, first in right" amounts to fighting words for millions of people. The legal term means that the first to stake a claim to the modest trickles of water flowing down many arid western canyons and arroyos have the greatest rights to that water.

That means that citrus and vegetable growers often can use proportionately far more water than the thirsty new residents swelling Las Vegas, San Diego, and other sunbelt cities.

The U.S. Department of the Interior says that soaring populations in the Southwest will create shortages in many areas over the next quarter century.

But it may be more widespread and imminent than that.

In July, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that 36 states anticipate water shortages in the next 10 years. Some southeastern states are so worried that communities such as Tampa have built desalination plants usually associated with drought-plagued developing nations. Even some seemingly water-rich midwestern and northeastern communities face challenges in the future because of shifts in their populations.

Water has been likened to oil as to its growing value and scarcity. This reporters' backgrounder will frame the complex water issues emerging across the U.S., examine how changes in population are affecting them, and highlight how the news is developing on this issue. It is a companion piece and update to an earlier population/water backgrounder published in Environment Writer as part of this series.

Water Use

Water statistics can be confusing.

Despite concerns about future water shortages, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that between 1980 and 1995, while the U.S. population was rising by 16 percent, the amount of water used declined 10 percent. Also, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1999 projected that although the nation's population will increase 41 percent by 2040, water use will only rise 7 percent. Finally, water resources are seemingly so abundant that they are currently 14 times greater than the 402,000 trillion gallons that the USGS says America consumes daily.

So what's the problem?

Neither water use nor resources are equitable. Irrigation and thermoelectric uses alone take about 324,000 trillion gallons daily of water. Residential users only consume about 10 percent of the daily water usage. An individual will use between 80 to 120 gallons each day for drinking and cooking, bathing, flushing toilets, and washing dishes and laundry, according to 1995 figures supplied by USGS (2000 figures are scheduled to be released this fall).

The reason overall water use fell between 1980 and 1995 is largely reflective of improvements in irrigation techniques and reduced industrial use of water. Agriculture's share is so great, especially in the West, that while the USDA is saying water use will only rise 7 percent by 2040, it has also indicated that is a qualified projection that could change significantly, especially because of population pressures.

Further, while rainfall averages 30 inches annually, the amount varies significantly by geography. Arizona and Utah receive, on average, 7 and 15 inches of rainfall annually compared to 44 inches for Connecticut and 51 inches for South Carolina. Periodic droughts and floods also impact those numbers. Meanwhile, the populations of Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Utah are projected to rise 30 percent in the next 20 years.

"We seem to have a propensity to want to live where there is not enough water," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association, an association that represents water utilities and other water professionals.

Even water-rich areas such as the Southeast are being affected. Florida is one of the fastest growing states in the nation. Changes in the Everglades, increased pollution, and saltwater intrusion into groundwater are decreasing water resources.

There are also many competing interests for water among residential, agriculture, industrial, mining and energy users. Water is needed for navigation and recreation, and the demands from those quarters will increase along with a rising population. High concern about the environment also translates into a need both to protect water quality and also to conserve water resources for wetlands and for the good of endangered and wildlife species.

The bottom line is that population pressures will be a driving force on the issue of public drinking water for years to come.

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Some Areas of Conflict

Traditionally water is a local and state issue. But as conflicts increase over water rights, regional and federal issues increasingly arise. Nowhere is that more obvious than on the Colorado River that passes through seven states and Mexico.

Recently the U.S. Department of the Interior ruled that California has been taking more than its allotted share under a 1920s compact that governs usage. The federal government ordered Southern California to cutback voluntarily, and when that did not happen, it reduced the state's share by 17 percent. Yet ranchers and farmers in the Imperial Valley will receive the full amount they requested while Los Angeles and San Diego are scrambling to figure out how to overcome their deficits.

The Interior Department says the areas most likely to develop problems over the next 20 years include California's Central Valley, Denver, Las Vegas, the Rio Grande, the Texas Gulf Coast, and Salt Lake City.

"People in the East simply have no understanding how difficult the water problems are out west," says Trudy Harlow of the Bureau of Land Management.

But they are beginning to comprehend as fights between residents of water basins and states have become more common in some eastern states.

The burgeoning and sprawling population of greater Atlanta and its need for more water has been at the root of fights involving Alabama, Georgia and Florida over two river basins, the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF). Both watersheds have been described as environmentally rich and significant, but the states have different interests. For instance, Georgia has had plans since 1990 to build the West Georgia Regional Reservoir to supply water to Atlanta, and Alabama is also interested in tapping the river basins for additional water supplies. But Florida wants enough water flow to protect the oyster beds in the brackish Apalachicola Bay. The states have been negotiating compacts for both water basins.

Eastern water laws are different from those in the West, but burgeoning population growth has created shortage and conflicts between Maryland and Virginia over the Potomac, Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

Diminishing population can also create problems in older midwestern and northeastern cities where water mains are aging and will soon have to be replaced. The American Water Works Association estimates that $250 billion will have to be spent over the next 30 years to replace that infrastructure. As populations fall in cities such as Detroit and Cleveland, costs inevitably will rise.

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Possible Solutions

The historical remedy for supplying more water to thirsty users has been to build more dams. The American Farm Bureau Federation, which lobbies for agricultural interests, in recent testimony to Congress said its top solution for increasing water supplies should be to add capacity to existing storage facilities and build new ones.

But the days of the massive dam projects peaked in the 1960s, and the Bush administration under Interior Secretary Gale Norton this summer launched an initiative that looks at a broad spectrum of solutions for western states.

These include such alternatives as increased water conservation and desalination.

The USGS says that conservation has already helped dampen residential demand for water. For instance, while the population rose seven 7 percent from 1990 to 1995, public water use increased only 4 percent, largely because of conservation.

The big test for desalination is the Tampa plant that recently opened. Water experts say the next two years of the plant's operation will determine whether the economic projections made for the facility are feasible, demonstrating that desalination is affordable.

States such as Colorado have launched talks to see if public water users can lease water from farmers when they do not need it.

There is also growing interest in reclaimed water, or recycled wastewater, that could be used for industrial washing and cooling, fire protection, irrigation of non-food products, and car washing.

A technology called membrane filtration that can treat municipal drinking water for smaller systems at a lower cost is also becoming increasingly popular alternative.

Congress has recently been looking into what it can do with prospects rising that it may authorize a comparable assessment of water needs nationally.

But it appears more likely that the states, courts, and regulators will have to deal with such western doctrines as "first in time, first in right." It may take a drought or rising populist forces to change the law. But ultimately it may have to go the way of the western cattle drives, that is, just a memory of things that once were.

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Players and Sources

American Farm Bureau Federation, Washington, Press Office: 202 406-3600.

American Water Works Association, Denver, Colorado, Press contact: Sabrina McKenzie, 303 347-6140.

Population Reference Bureau directory of experts, sources, data.

U.S. Department of the Interior, Water 2025 program. Press contact: Frank Quimby 202 208-6416.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

U.S. General Accounting Office. “Freshwater Supply: States’ View of How Federal Agencies Could Help Them Meet the Challenges of Expected Shortages,” GAO-03-514, July 8, 2003.

U.S. Geological Survey, "Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995." Contacts: Deborah Lumia, hydrologist, USGS, Troy, NY 518 285-5668 or William Alley, USGS, San Diego, Ca 858 637-6825.

U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. "Water: Is it the Oil of the 21st Century?" and other hearings on water scarcity and population.

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