The United States’ water problems are far more dire than many people know or will admit. Chattanooga and much of the area surrounding it have an adequate supply of the commodity at the moment, though that is no guarantee that will always be the case. Perhaps that’s why the community is somewhat insulated from an issue that besets much of the country. A recent report indicates that some of the nation’s most populous metropolitan areas could run out of water in a decade or so. That suggests that residents here and elsewhere ignore the issue at their own and the nation’s peril.
Chattanoogans should be familiar with the problem. A recent Georgia-Tennessee border crisis was sparked by a water shortage in Atlanta. When drought and overuse left that city with only a three-month water supply, Atlanta’s mayor and some top Georgia officials quickly looked north to resolve the problem.
What they saw was access to the Tennessee River near Chattanooga. All they had to do, they thought, was move the border slightly to the north and tap into what they viewed as an endless supply of water for a city and region starved for it. That idea, thankfully, wasn’t well received north of the border. The threat, for the moment at least, appears dead.
That doesn’t mean the issue won’t rise again if drought returns or if Atlanta and Georgia don’t move quickly to adopt long-range plans to preserve and conserve available water and to protect the environment. Without such steps, Atlanta’s demand for water will quickly outstrip supply and heighten tensions with nearby states like Tennessee, which has water, and Florida and Alabama, which share water with Georgia.
The delicate balance in supply and demand is not unique to Atlanta. Indeed, the crisis there is not as severe as it is in several other major U.S. cities, according to a report from an organization called 24/7 Wall St. Its report is based on information from Ceres, an environmental research and sustainability group, and from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The study identifies 10 urban areas that are most likely to face severe shortages of water and that have the greatest chances of running out water — perhaps within the decade.
Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio and the San Francisco Bay area, five of the United States’ 10 largest metropolitan areas, are on the list. So are Atlanta, Orlando, Tucson, Las Vegas and Forth Worth. Those aren’t the only places with pressing water issues; they are simply the ones with the most visible and documented danger.
Clearly the risk to water sustainability in many places in the nation is real, if often overlooked. Though there is no ready remedy for the problem, significant changes in planning and zoning regulations and renewed emphasis on conservation and protecting the environment will help.
That will be hard for many communities and agencies to accept, but they must do so. If they fail to develop sound water resource policies, the number of conflicts and outright battles over available water in the country likely will escalate to a dangerous level that will make the Atlanta-Chattanooga water dispute seem like child’s play.