The fight for water

March 26, 2006

This op-ed appeared March 26 in the Gainesville Sun. It also ran in the Tampa Tribune on April 2.

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is vice president for research at the University of Florida.

As threatening as bird flu and terrorism may seem, the biggest cause of human suffering today is something that rarely appears in national newscasts or front-page headlines: water problems.

Worldwide, 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion people do not have basic septic or sewer systems, according to the United Nations. The result is an estimated 2.2 million deaths each year result from bacterial illnesses and other causes. Children under the age of 5 are among the most common victims.

Water scarcity and pollution are not life-and-death problems in the United States or Florida. But they are quickly becoming barriers to the growth of our economy and our communities. Equally troubling, they’re forcing difficult decisions between peoples’ needs and the needs of the natural environment.

These are the chief reasons that the University of Florida recently launched a think tank on water-related issues, the UF Water Institute. The institute’s mission is to bring together faculty members and graduate students at work on diverse water-related research. That goes for the sciences, but also the humanities and law.

The goal: innovative solutions to the complex problems surrounding water statewide, nationally and globally – problems that often have as much to do with resolving societal dilemmas as they do innovating new science or technology.

Disputes over who gets to use river and lake water, once confined to the arid West, are becoming common in the formerly water-rich East. From the Chesapeake Bay to Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, states are fighting each other over how to divvy water for people and for ecosystems. Meanwhile, some 40 percent of America’s rivers and 46 percent of our lakes are too polluted for safe fishing or swimming, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.

This year’s dry spring may remind Floridians of the wildfires, watering restrictions and clampdowns on new developments that accompanied the four-year drought that ended in 2001. Although the state has had ample rainfall until recently, the crisis continues to percolate. Across Florida, state agencies and rapidly growing municipalities are reaching limits on withdrawals, trying out alternative sources such as desalination or underground storage, and eyeing or imposing restricted water use.

This month alone:

• The Miami Herald reported that Fort Lauderdale has nearly exceeded its allocation from the Biscayne Aquifer, prompting city officials to propose sinking a straw into the already stressed Floridan Aquifer.
• In Central Florida, withdrawals from that aquifer have reached 625 million gallons per day, just 25 million gallons shy of the 650 million gallons that water managers say the aquifer can sustain, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Utilities have asked for 82 million additional gallons, setting up a possible conflict over how the remaining water will be distributed.
• State officials nixed several plans for new developments in Miami because it said Miami-Dade County does not have the extra 3.1 million gallons the developments would guzzle daily, the Broward Daily Business Review reported.

Water scarcity problems will only mushroom as Florida grows. Today, Florida residents consume about 8.3 billion gallons of water per day. UF demographers predict the state will grow 21 percent in the next decade. Between those residents and nearly 70 million tourists a year, total demand is projected to reach 9.3 billion gallons. Of course, that growth also means increased pollution threats to Florida’s 20 major rivers and thousands of streams and lakes.

Last year, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 444, raising requirements for water supply development and devoting $100 million to new supply projects and programs. That was a good step. But addressing the mammoth water problem will also require new ideas and innovations in engineering, public policy and environmental science. The UF Water Institute’s goal is to work toward meeting this need.

UF has a strong track record in water-related research and scholarship. Florida’s progressive system of water management was born at the UF law school. There, legal scholars wrote the Model Water Code that is the basis of the state’s current water law. UF environmental engineers, meanwhile, have been leaders in developing the techniques of wetlands protection and restoration.

The Water Institute will tap these experts, as well as UF’s social scientists, geologists and others. It is backed by a $1.2 million endowment funded with a donation from Progress Energy.

As the institute gets off the ground, it will focus on Florida, seeking solutions that provide for peoples’ needs, protect the environment and promote economic development. But because the nation and world faces many of the same challenges regarding water, the institute’s research will also have national and global relevance.