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Website design By BotEap.comIn 1950, the US extracted 12 trillion gallons of water from the ground; in 1980 the figure more than doubled and continues to rise at an alarming rate. The Ogallala aquifer is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters (420 billion feet or 9,729,000 acre-feet) per year, which is equivalent to a total depletion to date of a volume equivalent to the flow annual flow of 18 Colorado rivers (4000 cubic feet per second).
Website design By BotEap.comTime magazine reported: “The Ogallala aquifer is drying up! Some estimates say it will run dry in as little as 25 years. Many farmers in the Texas High Plains, who are particularly dependent on the underground source, are now turning away from agriculture irrigation.as they realize the dangers of overpumping.The aquifer stretches from South Dakota through Nebraska, where two-thirds of its water is found, to Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas For the past three decades, farmers have pumped water out of the Ogallala as if it were inexhaustible. The annual overdraft, the amount of water that is not replenished, is nearly equal to the flow of the Colorado River. An engineering firm report, Camp, Dresser and McKee, estimates that by the year 2020 some 5.1 million acres of irrigated land will dry up.
Website design By BotEap.comToday, the American Southwest is the most irrigated area in the world, transforming a desert into a veritable Garden of Eden. However, this intense irrigation can destroy the soil through salt seepage. The 1,400-mile-long Colorado River supports 11 million people from Denver to San Diego. In fact, 1.5 million acres of prime farmland are irrigated by it today. This magnificent river is slowly being poisoned by the salt load from runoff from western soils and the concentration of salt, caused by evaporation and increased use of the river in the seven states it serves. Salt levels have exceeded 800 milligrams per liter and are expected to reach 1,200 m/l in the near future. The EPA’s maximum safe level for drinking water is 500 parts per million, more than 500 ppm is considered unsuitable for drinking. (That translates to one teaspoon of salts per gallon of water.) In addition to the depletion of groundwater sources, there is less precipitation on land and more in the ocean, due to changing air currents and changing weather patterns globally.
Website design By BotEap.comWHAT CAN BE WORSE?
Website design By BotEap.comAs if the dwindling water supply wasn’t bad enough, we are now rapidly destroying what little water we have left with hazardous waste. Toxic chemicals at thousands of hazardous waste sites across the country continue to seep into the nation’s subsoil, contaminating soil and groundwater, and poisoning the air. The US General Accounting Office says the Super Fund program will need to clean up more than 10,000 sites, which appears to be an insurmountable task at this point. Six billion tons of solid and hazardous waste are generated in the United States each year. Every year, US industry dumps 400 million pounds of toxins into our waterways, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A recent study projects that, at current rates, it will take 30 to 35 years and $253 billion to clean up most of the country’s known and yet-to-be-discovered toxic waste sites. The EPA projects that it will have to remediate at least 294,000 hazardous waste sites, and that number could reach 355,000.
Website design By BotEap.comTHE PROTECTIVE APPROACH?
Website design By BotEap.comEPA, in implementing the Safe Drinking Water Act, has failed to establish primary national drinking water regulations for organic chemicals. Since 1975, the EPA has issued only a very short list of maximum contaminant levels (MCl). The list includes some pesticides and herbicides, a small amount of inorganic chemicals, a standard for coliform bacteria, turbidity, radionuclides, and since 1979, trihalomethanes. A total of 130 priority pollutants.
Website design By BotEap.comThe initial facts are that there are currently over 100,000 chemicals that have been released into our environment, with approximately 1,000 additional chemicals added each year. However, the EPA only tests about three percent of them. In short, municipal water utilities are required to test for levels of only 130 or more chemicals when there could be hundreds or even thousands of chemicals present to some parts per million or billion that could be potentially hazardous to humans. How many compound chemical combinations are possible with a list of 100,000 individual chemicals?
Website design By BotEap.comHere’s an example of how terrifying the response could be. Water utilities add chlorine to water as a much-needed disinfectant to kill waterborne viruses and a number of bacteria. Most city water contains some degree of humic acid formed from decaying plant and animal matter. In addition to chlorine being a known carcinogen, when chlorine comes into contact with humic acid, four more individual carcinogens called trihalomethanes (THMs) are created. Combine just two and get four! Now imagine the possibilities of mixing tens of thousands into your drinking water.
Website design By BotEap.comWater is the single most important element in supporting life, second only to oxygen. We can live 40 days without food but only about 6 days without water. Water has three main purposes in our bodies. 1. Controls body temperature; 2. It carries the nutrients from the food we eat to every cell in our body; and 3. Water replaces body fluids such as blood plasma, lymph, digestive juices, bile, etc. It washes and bathes every cell in the body, cleansing and washing away waste materials and toxic poisons. If water is so vital to our health and existence, shouldn’t we be drinking the healthiest water possible? What would that be, you ask? Distilled water.
