WaterWired

Terrorism and Groundwater Redux: Is Weaponization Possible?

Today is the 14th anniversary of this blog. I often repost that original missive but will refrain from doing so this year and instead post my second one (9 January 2007), Terrorism and Ground Water. I have left it as is, even to the point of using 'ground water' instead of 'groundwater' - Bill Alley's USGS proclamation was still over two years away. I have also included a PDF of an article that appeared in an NGWA newsletter, Terrorists and Ground Water: Is Weaponization Possible?

Download weaponization_and_ground_water4282005.pdf

The graphic is also new.

Here goes...

I might as well jump in feet first with this topic, which sounds like the basis for a season of Kiefer Sutherland's 24. But I'm deadly serious.

Most of the concern for water terrorism has rightly emphasized the protection of water intakes and other entry points into water distribution systems and the development of emergency supplies and response procedures.  The contamination of reservoirs is generally considered difficult because of the large volumes of water involved and the resulting significant dilution.

But what about the intentional introduction of a chemical, biological, or radiological (CBR) agent into an aquifer, so as to cause a large number of deaths?  At first, this appears so ridiculous as to promote immediate dismissal of the concept.  If the contamination of a reservoir or storage tank with a lethal dose of a CBR agent is difficult to accomplish, then what about aquifers, whose water volumes are often measured in cubic kilometers?  But it may be possible that a biotoxin might prove more appropriate to contaminate an aquifer than a chemical or radiological agent.

Here are some of the questions that I think are important:

• Which aquifer types would a terrorist seek to contaminate?
• Which aquifers in the USA (and the world) have recharge areas that are well-known and accessible?
• Which aquifers have short travel times from recharge areas to supply wells?
• Which aquifers provide little opportunity for a toxin to disperse, sorb, react, or degrade? 
• Which aquifers have relatively low storage volumes between recharge areas and supply wells?
• Which (bio)toxins might be suitable for terrorist acts directed at aquifers?

In terms of vulnerability, certain types of aquifers come to mind - karst, fractured rock, and volcanic rock aquifers.

I have attached a pdf of a brief article I wrote a few years ago that was published in Ground Water News and Views, a newsletter of the National Ground Water Association. At the time some criticized me for broaching this topic, lest I give some people ideas. If that's the case, we should probably not discuss anything unpleasant, since there may be some "copycats" out there. I like to think that if more people had thought about commercial airliners being used as weapons of mass destruction we might have avoided 9/11.

I am also attaching a recent excellent article by Peter Gleick on "Water and Terrorism".

Download weaponization_and_ground_water4282005.pdf

Download GleickWaterTerrorism06.pdf

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - attributed to Edmund Burke

Hope you enjoyed it. Comments are always welcomed, especially since I have not looked at this topic in 15 years. I'm sure there is more to say. Maybe my interest will be piqued.

Enjoy!

"Statistics are people with the tears wiped away." -- Anonymous

Colorado River Blues Redux: Going, Going...Gone? (2008 --> 2021)

This is a repost of an article I published on 2 December 2008: Colorado River Blues: Going, Going...I did not intend to add 'redux' to the title and repost it until a few minutes ago. I read a Tweet from friend and colleague Michael van der Valk, who re-Tweeted the post preceding this one, Ground Water: The Water Budget Myth, one of my all-time favorites. I had been reading current depressing articles about water woes in the Colorado Basin. So I thought it might be enlightening to see what was occurring in late 2008. Some of the links may be broken. I added a CRB map, which was absent from the original post.

Interesting to see Wall Street's current interest in the CRB. Could The Water Knife be far behind? 

Enjoy! 

This post is appropriate, given that I am in Las Vegas for the NGWA's Ground Water Expo. The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the NGWA. I'll be curious to see whether the economy affects attendance. The Expo is in Las Vegas every other year, and I think we broke 6,000 attendees in 2006.

I am staying at the venerable Las Vegas Hilton, which, when I arrived in Nevada 32 years ago, was the second-largest hotel in the world after a Moscow hotel. Now I doubt if it is in the Top 15 in Las Vegas, much less the world. That's how this town has changed. The State of Nevada had fewer than 500,000 residents when I arrived in 1976; now, the Las Vegas area alone has over 2 million.

But the LVH has kept up with the times, though - Barry Manilow is playing the showroom. Awesome, dude!

I'm ensconced in a huge suite on the third floor, all for just $125 per night. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this treatment. But I'm still being charged $13.99/24 hours for WiFi, so I guess I'm not THAT special.

Great seeing Kevin McRay, NGWA's Executive Director, and Brent Murray, chair of AGWSE, NGWA's largest division. Two good guys.

Sorry for the digression.

So here is the "appropriate" post, but it's is not good news. Bad enough the economy is tanking, but alas, the Colorado River is not doing much better, according to Patty Henetz's article, published in the 29 November 2008 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn.

That's grim news for all of us in the West, perhaps most especially for the 10 million residents along the northern stretch of the Colorado River -- Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado -- whose water rights are newer, and therefore junior, to those in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn.

But the best is yet to come.

Dozens of scientific studies issued since 2004 have documented the Colorado's decline.

The river's annual flow has averaged 11.7 million acre-feet this decade, according to federal records. In 2002, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation measured only 6.2 million acre-feet passing Lee's Ferry below Glen Canyon Dam, the lowest flow of the decade. Even after this year's above-average precipitation, Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined are at 57 percent capacity.

A 2007 U.S. Geological Survey report found that, by 2050, rising temperatures in the Southwest could rival those of the nation's fabled droughts, including the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Hotter weather is expected to reduce Colorado River runoff by at least 30 percent during the 21st century.

If the USGS is correct, and if this century's trend persists, average annual flow in the Colorado could fall to 8.2 million acre-feet per year.

Imagine that. The Law of the River requires 9 million acre-feet to pass Lee's Ferry on the way to the Lower Basin and Mexico. Under a strict interpretation of the law, the Upper Basin could be left with nothing.

You can read the rest of the article. Even Peter Gleick and Pat Mulroy would not be able to make things right.

But at least Las Vegas is using less water these days.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the CRB...I was in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually) several weeks ago with some colleagues. At Arizona State University's remarkable Decision Theater we got a taste of high-tech decision-making. It is part of the Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS).

We heard some interesting things, but one in particular made an impression on me. One of the folks told us that in the Greater Phoenix area, if you go to a local politician/water manager with a predictive model that shows a future with less precipitation, you're out of luck. They're not even thinking about that possibility. Heads in the sand, or what?

I think I am getting close to finding someone who is "thinking about the unthinkable" regarding Southwest water and depopulation, particularly in the Colorado River Basin.

"Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon.  Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor's orgy is now a democratic institution - 'Topless Pizza Lunch'."  ~Alistair Cooke

"Do you know what we call tourists in Las Vegas? We call them 'marks'." - desk clerk, San Remo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

This is a repost of an article I published on 2 December 2008: Colorado River Blues: Going, Going...I did not intend to add 'redux' to the title and repost it until a few minutes ago. I read a Tweet from friend and colleague Michael van der Valk, who re-Tweeted the post preceding this one, Ground Water: The Water Budget Myth, one of my all-time favorites. I had been reading current depressing articles about water woes in the Colorado Basin. So I thought it might be enlightening to see what was occurring in late 2008. Some of the links may be broken. I added a CRB map, which was absent from the original post.

Interesting to see Wall Street's current interest in the CRB. Could The Water Knife be far behind? 

Enjoy! 

This post is appropriate, given that I am in Las Vegas for the NGWA's Ground Water Expo. The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the NGWA. I'll be curious to see whether the economy affects attendance. The Expo is in Las Vegas every other year, and I think we broke 6,000 attendees in 2006.

I am staying at the venerable Las Vegas Hilton, which, when I arrived in Nevada 32 years ago, was the second-largest hotel in the world after a Moscow hotel. Now I doubt if it is in the Top 15 in Las Vegas, much less the world. That's how this town has changed. The State of Nevada had fewer than 500,000 residents when I arrived in 1976; now, the Las Vegas area alone has over 2 million.

But the LVH has kept up with the times, though - Barry Manilow is playing the showroom. Awesome, dude!

I'm ensconced in a huge suite on the third floor, all for just $125 per night. I'm not sure what I did to deserve this treatment. But I'm still being charged $13.99/24 hours for WiFi, so I guess I'm not THAT special.

Great seeing Kevin McRay, NGWA's Executive Director, and Brent Murray, chair of AGWSE, NGWA's largest division. Two good guys.

Sorry for the digression.

So here is the "appropriate" post, but it's is not good news. Bad enough the economy is tanking, but alas, the Colorado River is not doing much better, according to Patty Henetz's article, published in the 29 November 2008 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

The drought gripping Utah, Southern California and the rest of the Southwest this century shows no sign of ending. Scientists see it as a permanent condition that, despite year-to-year weather variations, will deepen as temperatures rise, snows dwindle, soils bake and fires burn.

That's grim news for all of us in the West, perhaps most especially for the 10 million residents along the northern stretch of the Colorado River -- Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming and Colorado -- whose water rights are newer, and therefore junior, to those in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Making matters worse, the Colorado -- the 1,450-mile-long lifeline that sustains more than 30 million souls and 3.5 million acres of farmland in seven states, 34 tribal nations and Mexico -- is in decline, scientists warn.

But the best is yet to come.

Dozens of scientific studies issued since 2004 have documented the Colorado's decline.

The river's annual flow has averaged 11.7 million acre-feet this decade, according to federal records. In 2002, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation measured only 6.2 million acre-feet passing Lee's Ferry below Glen Canyon Dam, the lowest flow of the decade. Even after this year's above-average precipitation, Lake Powell and Lake Mead combined are at 57 percent capacity.

A 2007 U.S. Geological Survey report found that, by 2050, rising temperatures in the Southwest could rival those of the nation's fabled droughts, including the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Hotter weather is expected to reduce Colorado River runoff by at least 30 percent during the 21st century.

If the USGS is correct, and if this century's trend persists, average annual flow in the Colorado could fall to 8.2 million acre-feet per year.

Imagine that. The Law of the River requires 9 million acre-feet to pass Lee's Ferry on the way to the Lower Basin and Mexico. Under a strict interpretation of the law, the Upper Basin could be left with nothing.

You can read the rest of the article. Even Peter Gleick and Pat Mulroy would not be able to make things right.

But at least Las Vegas is using less water these days.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the CRB...I was in the Phoenix area (Tempe, actually) several weeks ago with some colleagues. At Arizona State University's remarkable Decision Theater we got a taste of high-tech decision-making. It is part of the Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS).

We heard some interesting things, but one in particular made an impression on me. One of the folks told us that in the Greater Phoenix area, if you go to a local politician/water manager with a predictive model that shows a future with less precipitation, you're out of luck. They're not even thinking about that possibility. Heads in the sand, or what?

I think I am getting close to finding someone who is "thinking about the unthinkable" regarding Southwest water and depopulation, particularly in the Colorado River Basin.

"Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon.  Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor's orgy is now a democratic institution - 'Topless Pizza Lunch'."  ~Alistair Cooke

"Do you know what we call tourists in Las Vegas? We call them 'marks'." - desk clerk, San Remo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

Mississippi v. Tennessee Groundwater Kerfuffle: Is More Trouble Brewing?

Nothing like a little click-bait for a title.

It's true that the decision reached by Special Master Eugene E. Siler, Jr., last month supported Tennessee and the other defendants, the City of Memphis and Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW). You can read about Judge Siler's decision in the Memphis Flyer and DeSoto Times-Tribune (BTW: Siler did not say 'Water is infinite' - the paper misquoted him) and my take and that of water lawyer Jesse J. Richardson by clicking here. And note that Siler's decision is really a recommendation that will be presented to the Supreme Court, which has the final say.

With all the above as preface, we now know why Mississippi insisted upon investing almost 15 years to get Tennessee to quit taking all that groundwater from the Memphis Sand aquifer. They wanted to save that water to make beer! Instead we now have Memphis Sands beer! I kid you not (much). From the Wiseacre Brewing Company:

From deep within the Earth’s crust, the finest drinking water on the planet springs forth to Memphis. This unique aquifer supplies WISEACRE with the most necessary of ingredients for the production of crisp, light-colored lager. The rains that fell to earth 3000 years ago are filtered very slowly through hundreds of feet of fine grain sand, culminating in a huge underground lake filled with 57 trillion gallons [Note: ~175 MAF) of virtually mineral-free water. From this prestigious water reserve, we supply Memphis with Sands, our one-of-a-kind Lager. Beauteous in its simplicity, it is very low in bitterness and full of delicious flavors of bread and crackery malt.

Of course that underground lake is fed by an underground river.

I have heard and read that the water quality in the Memphis Sand aquifer is very good - low TDS (total dissolved solids) - although there are concerns about pollution. At least one company was interested in bottling water from the MSA which I think they wanted to call 'Graceland', but that proposal went nowhere.  

I cannot take much credit for all this. My former Master's student, Courtney van
Stolk, works in Seattle but is from the Memphis area. While there buying food and drink for the holidays, she discovered Memphis Sands beer and posted about it on her wonderful blog, Blue Marble Earth. Read the rest of the story there, including ratings of the descriptive material, can art, and most all, the taste. I won't give anything away.

Wonder if there is a low-carb brew?

Enjoy!

“Beer’s intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.” - Ray Bradbury

CRS Report: 'Management of the Colorado River - Water Allocations, Drought, and the Federal Role' Updated: 15 December 2020

Yesterday it was the Columbia River; today it's my favorite river, the Colorado River. Charles V. Stern and Pervaze A. Sheikh have updated (15 December 2020) this important CRS report:  Management of the Colorado River: Water Allocations, Drought, and the Federal Role.

Lots of graphics - click on them to enlarge them or if they are not showing properly.

Download CRS_Report_Mgmt_CO_River_Fed_Role_15December2020

Overview
The Colorado River Basin covers more than 246,000 square miles in seven U.S. states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California) and Mexico. Pursuant to federal law, the Bureau of Reclamation (part of the Department of the Interior) manages much of the basin’s water supplies. Colorado River water is used primarily for agricultural irrigation and municipal and industrial (M&I) uses; it also is important for power production, fish and wildlife, and recreational uses.

The water apportioned to states on the Colorado River is widely acknowledged to be in excess of the river’s natural flows. Although a majority of the basin’s precipitation originates in the Upper Basin, the Lower Basin also has been extensively developed by the federal government. Consumptive uses of Colorado River water typically exceed natural flows, causing an imbalance in the basin’s available supplies and demands. These trends are exacerbated by a drought in the basin dating to 2000, which has raised the prospect of water delivery curtailments and decreased hydropower production, among other things. In the future, observers expect that increasing demand for water supplies, coupled with the effects of climate change, will further strain the basin’s limited water supplies.

River Management
The Law of the River is the commonly used shorthand for the multiple laws, court decisions, and other documents governing Colorado River operations. The foundational document of the Law of the River is the Colorado River Compact of 1922. Pursuant to the compact, the basin states established a framework to apportion the water supplies between the Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River, with the dividing line between the two basins at Lee Ferry, AZ (near the Utah border). The Upper and Lower Basins each were allocated 7.5 million acre-feet (MAF) annually under the compact (plus the right to an increase of 1 MAF per year in the Lower Basin); an additional 1.5 MAF in annual flows was made available to Mexico under a 1944 treaty. Future agreements and court decisions addressed other issues (including intrastate allocations of flows), and subsequent federal legislation provided authority and funding for federal facilities that allowed users to develop their allocations. A 1963 Supreme Court ruling also confirmed that Congress designated the Secretary of the Interior as the water master for the Lower Basin, a role in which the federal government manages the delivery of all water below Hoover Dam.

Reclamation and basin stakeholders closely track the status of two large reservoirs—Lake Powell in the Upper Basin and Lake Mead in the Lower Basin—as an indicator of basin storage conditions. Under recent criteria, dam releases from these facilities are tied to specific water storage levels. For Lake Mead, the first operational shortage tier (“Tier Zero”) under which Arizona’s and Nevada’s allocations are decreased by specified levels would be triggered if Lake Mead’s January 1 elevation were expected to fall between 1,075 feet and 1,090 feet above mean sea level. This operational tier is currently in effect, and this is expected to remain the case in the near future. As of August 2020, Reclamation projected a 49% chance, depending on the hydrology assumed, for additional curtailments (i.e., a Tier One or greater shortage) at Lake Mead by 2024.

Operational Changes and Drought Contingency Plans
Despite earlier efforts to alleviate future shortages, the basin’s hydrological outlook generally has worsened in recent years. After several years of negotiations, in 2019 Reclamation and the basin states transmitted to Congress plans to further alleviate stress on basin water supplies. Congress authorized these plans, known as the drought contingency plans (DCPs) for the Upper and Lower Basins, in April 2019 in the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan Authorization Act (P.L. 116-14). Among other things, the DCPs obligate Lower Basin states to additional water delivery reductions at specified storage levels (i.e., reductions beyond previous curtailment plans), commit Reclamation to additional water conservation efforts, and put in place plans to coordinate Upper Basin operations to protect Lake Powell storage levels and hydropower generation. Despite the success of DCP negotiations, many remain concerned about the Colorado River Basin’s long-term water supply outlook, including the potential for a compact call (a “call” on water rights between the Lower Basin and Upper Basin) that might lead to a protracted legal issues. Climate change, tribal water rights settlements, and state and local water supply development in the Upper Basin could further constrain water supplies. A central question facing the basin’s decisionmakers is whether current “interim” guidelines will be renewed prior to their expiration in 2026 and what other changes might be made as a part of those agreements. 

Congressional Role
Congress plays a multifaceted role in federal management of the Colorado River Basin. Congress funds and oversees management of basin facilities, including operations and programs to protect and restore endangered species. It has enacted and continues to consider Indian water rights settlements involving Colorado River waters and development of new water storage facilities in the basin. In addition, Congress has approved funding to mitigate water shortages and conserve basin water supplies and has enacted new authorities to combat drought and its effects on basin water users (i.e., the DCPs and other related efforts).

Keep going - lots more to go!

Enjoy!

“A man of the West will fight over water, women, and gold, and generally in that order.” –Sen. Barry Goldwater (1909 - 1998)

CRS InFocus Report: 'Overview of the Global Humanitarian and Displacement Crisis'

Talk about displacement behavior! I was grading an exam question on hydrophilanthropy when the need for some (benign) displacement behavior hit me like a ton of frozen popsicles! So I decided to post this CRS 2-pager (11 December 2020) by Rhoda Margesson: 'Overview of the Global Humanitarian and Displacement Crisis'.

Seriously - this is important stuff!

Click on the graphics if you wish to display or enlarge them. 

Download CRS_InFocus_Global_Humanitarian_Displace_Crisis_11Dec2020

Introduction
Even before the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the global humanitarian and displacement crisis was unprecedented. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) anticipated that in 2020 more than 168 million people worldwide would require humanitarian assistance and protection due to conflict and disaster. For 2021, UNOCHA’s estimate has reached 235 million people. The United States is the single largest donor, consistently providing nearly one-third (more than $9.5 billion in FY2020) of total humanitarian and emergency food assistance through global accounts.

Types of Crises and Affected Populations
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that at the end of 2019 (latest global data available, before the pandemic), more than 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide due to armed conflict, widespread or indiscriminate violence, or human rights violations. Those displaced included 26 million refugees, 4.2 million asylum seekers, 45.7 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and 3.6 million Venezuelans displaced abroad. UNHCR estimated that a further 10 million people remained stateless. Natural and weather- related disasters affect millions of people a year who often require urgent and prolonged assistance due to sudden events (such as earthquakes or storms) or protracted ones (like drought conditions). On average, disasters displace 26 million people annually. In 2019, more than two-thirds (68%) of all refugees and Venezuelans displaced abroad came from five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Burma.

Some populations moved voluntarily, while others had to flee. Economic migrants, who often leave poverty and unemployment to seek better livelihood opportunities or family reunification numbered approximately 272 million in 2019 (roughly 3.5% of the world’s population). Refugees and others forcibly displaced, including vulnerable migrants, often faced a different set of circumstances. Instead of choosing to leave their place of origin, they were forced to do so for reasons such as ethnic strife, violence, human rights violations, or natural disasters.

U.S. Policy
The United States is a major contributor to international humanitarian relief efforts. In the past five fiscal years (FY2015–FY2019), the United States provided $44.0 billion in global humanitarian assistance with funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Agriculture. Congress has given the President broad authority on humanitarian issues and flexibility to respond to disasters with a wide range of assistance. On a bipartisan basis, it has consistently supported humanitarian efforts as a means of responding to natural disasters and conflict-induced crises in the short term, mitigating humanitarian impacts, and promoting a U.S. presence.

In practice, the provision of U.S. humanitarian assistance is typically case- and time-specific and may include assistance through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms and humanitarian partners; protection activities for vulnerable populations; support for countries and communities hosting the displaced; encouraging donor contributions; and building response capacity. The plethora of humanitarian emergencies, including food security challenges, and human displacement worldwide will likely continue to receive the attention of the Administration and Congress. The Administration’s FY2021 budget request for global humanitarian assistance was nearly $6.27 billion, a decrease of 35% from the FY2020 appropriated amount of $9.5 billion. Congress has continued to support humanitarian assistance through appropriations legislation. FY2021 appropriations bills, as passed in the House (H.R. 7608), total $9.6 billion for global humanitarian accounts and specify additional funding for the COVID-19 humanitarian- related response.

Read on...more to absorb.

“The next time you see an ad for a water charity featuring a cute, dark-skinned child and a deep-voiced announcer who says, ‘Last year, we drilled 50 wells in Terra Buena and one was in Rosa’s village,’ you need to ask, ‘How many of those wells are still working?’” - @WaterWired