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Challenges to Social Action
In order to carry forth a water ethic vision based on Catholic social teaching, we realized that certain challenges present themselves as entrenched public policy, embedded power in the marketplace and our ingrained personal habits. These challenges need to be identified and faced before expecting any substantive social change. The Water Workshop considered five cross-cutting areas related to societal and environmental needs for clean and abundant water: public health, agriculture, supply & management, biodiversity, and energy. Participants clarified the concern for each of these areas, then identified some of the challenges we face to enact a water ethic and bring about a renewed earth.
Water and Public Health
Concerns
Twelve percent of the freshwater used in the U.S. is used for drinking water and sanitation. Seven percent is used for industrial production. Although water is the stuff of life, it can also be a carrier of disease, antibiotics, and toxins such as arsenic, nitrates, cyanide, mercury, lead, PCBs, and pesticides. Workshop participants expressed a vision where water supplies are clean and safe and readily accessible by all people. They also cited the following challenges as some that must be overcome to achieve that sustainable future.
Challenges
• Health issues may not receive national or even statewide attention because they are localized and therefore are not addressed in national public policy. Water pollution can be very localized such as cyanide contamination near gold mining operations. The water quality concerns of local, marginalized populations tend to go unheeded.
• Herbicide and fertilizer use on lawns, golf courses, and other recreational areas contribute substantially to water contamination.
• Existing public policy such as the Clean Water Act is not being implemented or is being watered-down and becoming more short-sighted.
• Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics and are becoming an important health threat. It is an increasingly common practice for poultry, pork, and beef producers to overuse antibiotics important to humans as growth promoters and to minimize health hazards due to overcrowding conditions in animal confinements. Unused antibiotics are flushed into water systems as a practice. Antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria are increasingly being found in water, air, and meat products. Antibiotics are also being over-prescribed by physicians and consumers, fixated on cleanliness, unnecessarily use antibacterial personal care and cleaning products.
• Many who compete for the use of water for economic benefit do not make management decisions for the common good, but rather for personal gain.
• People generally do not view themselves as caregivers for the earth, responsible for each other’s well-being and for that of the earth’s, too.
• Although education about water contamination is common in school systems, connections are not being made in formal educational settings, in churches, or in places of employment to foster a stewardship ethic among people.
• Privatization of water supply and sanitation systems seems to institutionalize the management of water as only an economic good to the detriment of the social good.
• There is no national water policy, so water policy is fragmented and geographically focused.
• The use of pesticides to kill mosquitoes and other disease-carrying pests contributes to water contamination.
Water and Agriculture
Concerns
Forty-two percent of the freshwater used in the U.S. is used in agriculture; 98% of which is used for irrigation and the rest for livestock, poultry, and fish production. Sixty percent of the water used for irrigation is used consumptively, that is, it is not immediately available for use down stream because it has evaporated, been transpired by plants, or become part of the crop; and about 20% is lost in conveyance. There is continuing concern about the inefficient use of water in agriculture, the degradation of waterways by agricultural practices; and increasing competition among water uses particularly in water scarce areas of the U.S. While expressing a vision that all farmers and ranchers should have access to affordable water, workshop participants also thought nonconsumptive uses should be minimized and that aquatic ecosystems should be restored. Several challenges were identified by participants that will make the desired vision difficult to achieve.
Challenges
• Agricultural water is inefficiently used and allocated.
• Trends toward larger and confined livestock and poultry operations concentrates more manure and related contaminants (e.g. pathogens, antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria) increasing impacts on surface and groundwater resources.
• Tax revenues are declining in rural communities as small, independent businesses lose market battles with distant large mega-stores. This strains the capabilities of municipal governments to provide quality water and sanitation and may encourage the privatization of these services.
• Trends toward the transfer of water from agricultural areas to urban areas threatens rural communities with the loss of water necessary for employment and community well-being.
• Farmers and ranchers increasingly compete with municipalities for limited water supplies.
• Increasing use of groundwater for irrigation is reducing groundwater availability for personal and municipal uses.
• Owners of mega-farms and mega-ranches often live far from the land they own and operators no longer realize their connectedness to the earth and their community leading to increased pesticide and nitrate contamination of drinking water supplies.
• Subsidized water rates for agriculture exacerbate the negative impacts of crop subsidies on developing countries and their resources.
• The possible effects of global climate change on agriculture are not being identified or are largely being ignored (e.g. impacts of long-term water shortages)
• People, industry, and governments generally do not approach water management with a long-term view for responsible stewardship.
• The federal government subsidizes the production of water-intensive crops in arid regions.
• There is little support in Congress and the Administration for water conservation legislative initiatives.
• The lack of knowledge of how food is produced makes it difficult to generate interest among the public and policy makers about agriculture and water concerns.
• In the absence of long-term national water policy in the U.S., water management is by crisis and tends to be of national or regional concern only when problems are recognized or conflicts arise.
Water Supply and Quality Management
Concerns
The annual renewable freshwater resource in the U.S. is 2478 cubic kilometers. About 20% of that available supply is withdrawn annually. On average, the price of water in the U.S. is $0.50 cubic meter. That’s relatively inexpensive when compared to the United Kingdom, $1.15, France, $1.17, and Germany, $1.81. Although the total water supply in the U.S. would seem to be more than adequate to meet current and future needs, the uneven geographic distribution of freshwater poses problems. People living in areas of water abundance tend to take water for granted, while those living in areas of water scarcity are embroiled in, sometimes unrepresentative, conflicts over water rights. There are major challenges that stand in the way of achieving a vision where all people have sufficient, quality water and where all parties affected by water management decisions are involved in the decision-making process.
Challenges
• Water distribution varies naturally by geography, fostering regionalization of issues.
• Water supply problems are more a matter of declining water quality and increasing consumptive use than water quantity.
• Improvements in water-use efficiency are needed in almost all sectors.
• Conservation is considered by the public to be practical only in emergency situations when technological changes have the potential to reduce residential water use substantially without altering lifestyle.
• Education about the impacts of consumer choices on water use is inadequate. Industrial water use depends to a large extent on the mix of goods and services demanded by consumers.
Water and Biodiversity
Concerns
Over a period of 200 years (1780-1980), the lower 48 states have lost 53% of their original wetlands. California has lost 91%. Wetlands play a key role in the overall health of rivers and provide critical habitat for freshwater fish and wildlife, the most threatened animals on the planet. Workshop participants expressed a vision where people understand the sacredness of water and where humans take seriously the stewardship of God’s creation including the restoration of "wet" ecosystems. They cited these challenges to that vision.
Challenges
• Uncontrolled land development that doesn’t consider impacts on water results in loss of or damage to ecosystems and biodiversity.
• Enforcement of the few government regulations that exist is difficult or ignored.
• Government subsidies support the sugar cane industry that has drained nearly 700,000 acres of the Florida Everglades disrupting the groundwater aquifer resulting in saltwater intrusion of the region’s water supply and the endangerment of more than 50 species.
• Deforestation of watersheds increases surface runoff and resulting flooding while reducing aquifer recharge.
• Emphases on treating water as an economic rather than a social good threatens natural ecosystems that also depend on water.
• Trends toward the transfer of water from rural areas to urban areas may disrupt environmental water uses.
• Biodiversity is not a high priority as a competitive use for limited water supplies. Economic benefits and personal gain generally override concerns for the common good and integrity of creation. This is even the case with uses that could readily accommodate biodiversity and water concerns such as recreation and tourism.
• Water quality impairments change the biodiversity of species. Fertilizer runoff from sugar cane fields nourishes phosphorous-loving cattails at the expense of native saw grass.
• Tinkering with "wet" ecosystems must be done carefully. Well-meaning efforts to enhance salmon populations through fish hatcheries in the northwest have inadvertently produced weaker strains of wild salmon and altered ecosystems.
• Although the consumptive use of water, that which prevents its immediate reuse (e.g. evaporation, plant transpiration, contamination, incorporation into a finished product), is decreasing nationally; the importance of further decreases varies by ecosystem and competition for limited supplies.
Water and Energy
Concerns
Thirty-nine percent of the freshwater used in the U.S. is used in the production of electrical energy and mining. The growing reliance upon electrical energy by consumers and the complex relationships between water and energy makes it difficult to achieve the participants’ vision where people accept responsibility for care of water and understand the connection between environment and human rights and the physical, cultural, and spiritual needs of people for the future. Some concerns related to this issue are: using water as a source of additional electricity and as a renewable energy source for pumping and treating water; international or multi-jurisdictional impacts of water impoundments, permanent flooding of private land for hydropower reservoirs, acid precipitation, and the impacts of mountain top removal and strip- and deep-pit mining on water quality. The relationship of water and energy was discussed subsequent to the workshop.
Challenges
• In the name of mining efficiency, jobs, and enhanced land development, mountain top removal is becoming the prevalent method of extracting coal in the Appalachian Mountains where entire watersheds are buried under the waste and streams are rerouted.
• Although air quality from coal-burning power plants has been regulated for several years, acid precipitation continues to plague ecosystems throughout North America.
• Runoff from coal stockpiles at power plants carries toxins to waterways.
• Uncooled water from unregulated power plants warms stream waters resulting in greatly reduced diversity of fish species important for the environmental health of the stream.
• Hydropower subsidies are provided to particular regions and industries.
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