Event ID:
795702
Event Started:
10/3/2007 12:51:36 PM ET
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The watershed academy webcast will begin in about three minutes.
good day, welcome to this afternoon's webcast sponsored by the environmental protection agencies -- title today is Water, Energy, and Climate Change. I am with E pa's office of oceans and watersheds, I will be your moderator, but allow me to cover some housekeeping notes.
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Most people now understand that we have a climate problem but few appreciate how big it is or what it will take to solve it. This webcast will explore the dimensions of this problem and the ensuing -- managers at the federal, state, local level, along with the watershed protection community can do to rise to the climate challenge. The speakers will discuss opportunities to save water and energy together, there by reducing greenhouse gasses and -- agency officials and others can all benefit from hearing about the -- what we can all do now to protect our future. Let's meet our speakers.
Our first speaker, Susan Susan Susan sus -- she's served on the Louisiana governor's advisory commission on coastal restoration, conservation, to advocate for appropriate management of water resources in the face of climate change.
Don eldzer, the president of the River Network, a national nonprofit it organization providing technical seftance to groups across America. Served as -- will help watershed groups and others address the effects and root cause of climate change. Now that I introduced speakers let's get started.
Susan, take it away.
My part of this presentation will focus on how climate change will effect our rivers in the United States. If you look at slide two, this is a picture of rio grand E, one of the river that's will be feeling the impact of climate change very strenuously. We are learning from scientists that climate change is already effecting ecological and biological systems all over the world and the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change singled out water as an issue of concern all over the world. They are predicting in parts of the world hundreds of millions of people without enough fresh water. That there will be millions of people displaced by floods every year. Even in the United States where we have fairly sophisticated water system s, fairly abundant, we are looking at water issues. My purpose is to review what some some of the impacts are likely to be, offer reflections, suggestions on what people who care about rivers, whether they are regulatory, resource management people or watershed people or volunteers, what we can all be doing about that.
Go to slide three, please. I am very delighted to be presenting with Don Elder of the River Network. We are hoping this presentation will be a kind of partnership that we'll be undertaking over the next year or so to engage groups. Quickly, the structure is I will be going over at a 30,000-foot level the impacts of global warming on different kinds of rivers, different parts of the country. I will go through that first, then we will talk about solutions towards the end. So you know we will talk about the problems all over the country, then what can be done.
Let's go to slide 4, please. As I mentioned, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report in April of this year, pretty unambiguous, you probably read about it in the paper. The fact of climate change, the human impacts being a cause of it. They are predicting in this latest report that average global temperatures will go up somewhere, at least 4 to 5-degrees in this century, publicky up to -- and sea levels up to 23 inches. The sea level rise prediction does not take into account melting of Iceland, Greenland or Antarctica. The scientists felt the data, at the time, relatively new, did not weigh in on that. There's been a lot of attention since then, even in the newspaper just yesterday actually there was a story in the New York Times about how melting of the ice is accelerating at a level that, was not expected, and a lot of attention put on the melting of ice in Greenland as well, the pace of that being faster.
So that could, that will increase sea level rise possibly very dramatically, depending on how much that happens.
So, anyway, we are looking at increased temperatures, looking at some level of rise. What does this mean for America's rivers? Let's go to slide five. I am going to start in the western United States. We are going to start in this mountaineous area where rivers are fed by snow primarily. This is a picture of a mountain stream, you see the mountains in the background with lots of snow on them feeding that river. Very important to water supplies in a large part of the United States, particularly in the West. Many of the rivers in the West originate in snow-capped mountain ranges and supply water for manger cities in California, Colorado, other places. They supply water for agriculture production in major areas like the central valley of California.
So they are extremely, these rivers, the snow that feeds them are extremely important to that part of the country. What global warming will mean for those rivers F we go to slide six, one of the things already being observed is that there's a decline in the amount of water that is being stored as snow on these mountain tops. Many of you from that part of the country are aware that, at least the snow pack is a kind of mountain-top reservoir, a major way the water is stored in that part of the country. The reason the snow pack is declining is that air temperatures are rising and so less of the precipitation is falling as snow, more is falling as rain. So it doesn't store on the mountains, just runs off when it comes down.
This picture in slide 6 is a picture of -- on the left, Mount Hood in 1984, and 2002, roughly the same time of year. You see in this particular mountain how much less water there is, a way of dramatize integrity. On the right dramatizing it.
Over a 50 year period, the areas in red, circles in red, the places in the western U.S. where snow pack declined, size of circle, how much it declined. You can see in a few areas it increased, most parts of the West the volume of snow pack is declining.
Let's go to slide 7.
Just as important as the volume of water that is stored on mountain is the timing of when that snowmelts. What we are seeing, what is already being observe bed over the last 60 or 70 years is that the snow is melting earlier in the year, as much as 25 days earlier. This has important implications for rivers and ecological systems as well. Go to slide 8. One of the ways that this phenomenon of earlier snowmelt is being tracked is by measuring the day when the spring pulse happens, which is sort of the transition between the winter season and the spring that spring thaw.
Scientists have been observing when that happens over time. If you go to slide 9, this is the Scripps Institute, have documented that the spring pulse in many parts of the West, the parts in blue in particular, happening as much as 25 days earlier. This is a major change already being observed and we are expecting this trend to continue as average global temperatures rise.
Let's go to slide 10. We'll talking about about -- this is a river in the spring time, the water rushing very fast. It's important to all of the fish, plant life, aquatic life, have adapted over millennia to a certain timing of this pulse. It's a signal that -- will signal movement of fish, other kinds of things. And if the water starts moving faster, but certain other things, like insects hatching that are responding to the length of days or other kinds of things, that will not be changing, so it throws the timing off for a lot of species that are adapted to a particular sequence of events.
So, for example, the spring flow might be a signal for certain types of fish to lay eggs as a century time, and the insects the juvenile fish will eat will not hatch in time. It effects the survival of juvenile fish among other things.
Going to slide 11; in the West in particular this change in flow pattern is expected to have a very profound effect on salmon, steelhead, other fish species. The different species are adapted to a different timing, it's not a uniform effect. As one example, adult fish may arrive at the mouth of a river too late after a pulse happened, or a flow pattern they are used to diminished, might be harder to get upstream, may be more difficult for the juvenile fish, may not be ready to swim downstream when the -- happens. Sometimes eggs are laid in gravel beds that an early pulse will wash away. It's expected to be very disruptive to certain fish species. That's an important impact.
Let's go to slide 12. Another impact of climate change on western rivers is we're expecting, because of the run-off happening earlier, and because there will be greater evaporation from warmer temperatures, we're expecting to see less water in the rivers during the dry summer months. A lot of rivers in the West are already, a lot of demands place odd them, they are short of water in the summertime. This is expected to be aggregated by climate change and the way it's changing the pattern of precipitation and melt.
We are also expecting stream-side habitats, degradation of stream-sides habitat because of the drying of the soil. That will have an impact on the rivers themselves and the temperature of the rivers.
Let's go to slide 13. Because of increases in air teem tours and increase in land temperatures we are expecting the temperatures of streams in the West, everywhere really to, increase. So we are going to see warmer water and this is going to have a very profound effect on temperature-sensitive fish like trout and salmon. It has lots of impacts, the stream temperatures effect food sowrz sources, level of ox Jen oxygen in the water. Fish like salon, trout, temperature sensitive, will have a harder time as the term tour of temperature goes up, even a couple of degrees.
Slide 14. I want to talk a little about the human impacts of global warming, in the western part of the United States. Many of you know, as much as 90% of the water use in the West is for agriculture. It's already an arid regional, a lot of competition between agriculture and urban areas for water. One of the effects of climate change on agricultural land is because the temperatures, again, will be somewhat higher there will be a general drying out of the land. So it will take more water to irrigate crops even than it does right now. Right now as many of you know there's already a lot of competition for water supply. That is going to be aggravated by climate change.
The cities, as many of you know, continuing to grow in the West. This is a picture of the city of Las Vegas. 50 years ago, hard to imagine, Las Vegas had 25,000 people. Now it has almost 2 and a half million people. That place s tremendous strain on water resources in the area. Cities like this in the West are continuing to grow. We will see intensive cages of competition for water for human uses in this area of the country where water is already in short supply.
Let's go to slide 15. One of the responses to anticipated water shortage and increased competition for water is a kind of renewed interest in capturing, storing water in the West. There are several billion dollars of water projects already being planned, talked about. So there's talk afoot at least, movement in some areas for there to be development of more water infrastructure.
There are lots of things mitigating against that as well. They are very expensive, and so on. I am not suggesting this is already underway or going to happen. But there's a kind of impulse in that direction on the part of decision-makers and so on. The governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, very progressive, at the same time calling for new reservoirs for California. He's worried about water supplies. There's a problem with this reasoning actually for a couple of reasons. The picture you are looking at is Lake Mead. Surface area of 464,000 square acres, calculated evaporation from this at current conditions, more than a million acre feet per here. Reservoirs as a storage option are less prudent in a way, in an era of climate change because the warmer it gets the more water is going to evaporate. So As most of you know reservoirs are very destructive of ecological systems, water systems, they are not in many ways a very efficient way to store water as the temperature is going up.
Okay, let's go to slide 16. Just moving South a little bit, looking in particular at South western rivers, some of the rivers are also fed by snow pack, so they will feel some of the same changes as the western rivers. The sort of primary thing to think about, keep in mind in the southwest is the impact in terms of climate change is drought. It's already a drought-prone area, it's a natural phenomenon in that part of the country. But scientists are predicting a kind of permanent change, move toward longer, more severe, prolonged droughts. Some are predicting that the South western part of the United States will become more like the sonor an desert.
This is a map of the rain fall gradient across the United States right now. These red and orange areas in the southwest are expected to increase and the real dry dark areas are going to move northward and eastward. We are expecting that as a permanent change in the climate of that part of the country. It's interesting to me that the IPCCC report which covers climate issues, trying to make predictions for impacts around the world, singled out the South western United States as an area that will be particularly hard hit by climate change.
So what does this mean for rivers? Let's look at slide 18. A lot of the rivers in the southwest already dry up in the summertime or get close to drying up because it is so dry there, and hot. So the Fish and Wildlife, these marginal to begin with, the expectation is that there will be fewer perennial streams, more will dry up at least for part of the year. That the Fish and Wildlife that depends on those streams to be perennial streams may not make it or will be impacted severely. We are expecting a loss of perennial streams.
Let's look at slide 19. We are looking at dryer vegetative communities, a try drying out of the landscape, will be more hospitable to different kinds of plant communities.
Slide 20. Once again, we will see, as we see all over the West, much fiercer competition for water between cities and agriculture. That leaves aside the question of what happens to Fish and Wildlife resources, to the natural systems where you have such an intense competition between different human uses. The ecological values, the rivers are not all that well protected right now and they will be under a lot more strain as the cities and the farmers compete for water.
I am going to pause here, not a happy note to pause on, but I will pause here, we agreed we would take questions at this point before we move to the rest of the country and to the solution.
Thank you Susan. We will pause briefly to take questions. We are going to begin with those submitted online, and just as a reminder, you can submit questions online at any time by clicking on the question mark button at the top of the slides page.
We will begin with a question from Karen in Oklahoma. The question is: What does a large blue circle represent from slide 6 of the presentation?
Susan: It's where snow pack increased. There are parts of the West that, Scripps Institute was just studying the volume of snow pack in various parts of the country, and in some places it was actually increasing. The largest blue circle would be a place where snow pack increased by 60% over the last 50 years. It's not a uniform phenomenon by any means, but if you look at the slide, the red circles outnumber the blue by quite a bit. The overall trend is towards less snow pack. There's a prediction that if temperatures go up four or five degrees Fahrenheit there will be a 60% decrease over all in the western part of the country.
Okay, our second question comes from Ann in Maryland, who asks: How many regionals of change can we expect in the -- you mentioned West and southwest.
I will talk about the West, southwest, midwestern rivers, eastern and southern, and coastal rivers. We will look at five different areas. Is that answering the question?
Yes.
Our next question comes from Gina in Boston. She would like to know how do western water rights change when the water isn't there?
Well, that's a question that we will have a long answer. But I will tell you quickly, in most of the West the water rights are allocated according to a system called prior A propration. If you got your water 50 years ago your right takes precedent over somebody with a right 20 years ago. The earlier you got it, you have a prior claim on the water. It's called senior water rights, those who have gotten it more recently are called junior water rights. If the stream dries up, you are out of luck. There's a premium placed on water rights in the western United States.
Great. At this time, if anyone would like to ask a question over the phone, please unmute yourself, give us your name, organization, and ask your question.
Hi, this is Kyle, lib a regional 3, Chesapeake pay regional, my question has to do with the southwest regional, some of the recent stories about increased, because of the dryness, increase in the fires, impacts that is having on both human development and ecological impact. Could you talk about fires as an aspect?
Susan: I will, I had slides on fires but I had to reduce the presentation from 100 to 45 slides. I took out the ones on fires, but yes, scientists are documenting a kind of increase in the number of what they call very severe, catastrophic fires in the southwest, also issues of forest management and the accumulation of timber and so on. There are various reasons for the fires, but they are predicting with climate change as the land continues to dry out, there will be an increased number of fires, increased number of catastrophic fires, that burn so hot, over such an extent and time they burn all the -- the biological life out of the soil. The fire as a natural phenomenon in these systems, but they are looking at, anticipating an increase in these very devastating fires.
It's hard to say now whether a given fire, like a given hurricane or intense storm event is a function of climate change. Climate scientists don't point to a single incident and say it happened because of climate change, but say it's a trend. It's the kind of thing we will see more often regs anticipating seeing more severe fires.
Any other questions from the phones?
Okay, we actually have two more questions submitted online. From Shannon in New York, asking: What is the time scale you are referring to in order for water temperature to increase a few degrees? Is
The IPCCC report is talking about increases in global, average global temperature over this economic century. We are looking at 100 years, a little less than 100 years.
Other question: From Molly in California: Would continuity in buffer zone across multiple ecological zones allow for protection of -- species?
Susan: Yes, it will, but we will talk about that when we talk about solutions, that's one of the things we have to pay particular attention to if we want fish, and wildlife to survive in global warming.
Great. At this point I will remute everyone, and Susan, unmute yourself and continue on with the next presentation.
Susan: Okay, so we are going on to slide 22, will talk about midwestern rivers. This is a typical picture of a river in the Midwest, it's typical because it's a river in the midst of a very heavy agricultural areaScientists have observed, already are observing some changes in this part of the country. Already seen some warming in temperatures over the past century. The average global temperature has gone up about a degree Fahrenheit, but in the Midwest there is warming of about 4-degrees Fahrenheit in the northern portion of the Midwest, increase of rain fall of 10 to 20%, particularly heavy rain fall. Changes already observed and expected to continue as the climate continues to warm.
There are predictions that temperatures could increase in the area an additional five to 10-degrees, and rain fall could increase an additional 10 to 30%, much of that would be falling in heavy storms.
Let's look at slide 23, think about what that means for rivers. This is a picture of the Mississippi river at the time of the big flood of 1993. This particular picture of the river is just above, the main stem just above Cairo, Illinois. You can see how dramatically this flood overran all the flood control structures that were put in place over many years. This is what can happen.
Let's look at slide 24. That particular flood affected an area 500-miles long, along that river, destroyed 12,000 square miles, crops 12,000 square miles of farm land, so it was a very devastating flood. It is an example of what can happen when you have an increase in both volume of rain fall and severity of rain fall events.
Let's look at slide 25. As all of you know, floods have an impact on water quality as well as -- just severe storm event, where you have a lot of run-off you have increased run-off of soil, sediment into the river, as water quality impacts you have scouring of the river sometimes. When you do have an actual flood, picture on the left is a power plant that was affected by a flood. You will see the big piles of coal, little black stream going down the river there. That's an example of the kind of pollution that will sometimes accompany a big storm and flood because these industrial areas may be near the river, and so on. So the floods have a destructive effect on human life, property sometimes, and they can have very profound effects on water quality and the structure of the river. We have a lot of things to worry about with the floods.
Let's move to slide 25. We will talk about earn and South eastern rivers. The Delaware river, typical of rivers much more abundant than the western wisers. rivers. We think of threats as industrial pollution, run-off.
Slide 27. We are anticipating with global warming an intensive cages of the extremes of weather. So there would be both more flooding, particularly in the winter-time, expect to see more winter storms, winter floods, and more drying, dry conditions in the summertime. These are both illustrated here and something that is anticipated. So we will see again the heavier run-off during rain fall event and more drought in the regional. Let's look at k at slide 28.
Slide 29, a picture of a river bed in Virginia, illustration of what a summer drought can do to water availability. There will be draw-downs of reservoirs, other human impacts as well as impacts on the rivers in the East and southeast as well.
Slide 30. There will be, as there will be in other parts of the country, warmer water temperatures, from warmer air temperatures, effect on water and also the temperature of run-off running across warmer land. That is expected to have impacts on certain species, in particular in the East, this is a picture of the eastern brook trout, already a species in a lot of trouble. It's habitat has declined quite a bit in the North East and the midatlantic. As example, a species that is likely to be negatively impacted by climate change.
Let's look at coastal rivers. These rivers particularly in the East and along the gulf states are among our richest ecological resources, because they feed these estuaries that are so fortunate marine species. This is a picture of the Chesapeake Bay, really the mouth of the sus qa Hannah river. These rivers feed these eed these incredibly rich -- the green area is a picture of a large wetlands complex along the Chesapeake bay that provides a lot of winter habitat for water fowl and other birds.
What is global warming going to mean for these coastal systems, rivers that feed coastal systems? Let's look at slide 32.
These areas of coastal wetlands are going to be particularly vulnerable to sea level rise. I talked earlier about 11 to 23-inches, possibly more, but that at a minimum. These systems, coastal wetland systems are extremely sensitive to water level. I was visiting the Gulf Coast of Texas recently, talking to a woman who runs a kind of wetlands preserve, telling me we measure elevation in inches around here. At one elevation there's a plant community, at an inch higher there's a different kind. Extreemly vulnerable to sea level rise and will be impacted by it. A lot of these systems could be completely inundated by sea level rise, and if they are not able to migrate inland, which many times they are not, we will just see a major loss of these coastal wetlands.
Let's look at slide 33. This loss of wetlands is likely to be aggravated by a kind of human impulse in response to sea level rise, which is to armor our shorelines, this is an example of a coastal area bull bull K head. If migration, armoring prevents that, the wetlands will be lost, inundated. Something to be thinking about.
Let's look at slide 33. Another way that these coastal systems are vulnerable to intrusion. This used to be a cypress forest. This is not probably a function necessarily of sea level rise although it is a function of subsidence and that system, I spent a lot of time in Louisiana, that system has been altered very severely, gas and -- development. This is a particularly dramatic picture of what can happen when salt water gets into an area accustomed to fresh water, needs fresh water.
Let's go to slide 35. Many of you know that submerged aquatic vegetation along coastal areas is very important habitat for marine life, especially juvenile marine life. This type of vegetation is also extremely sensitive to water levels and to turbidity, so this is something we will expect to see a loss of, some of this kind of vegetation as sea levels rise.
Let's look at slide 36. Finally, most of you are aware of the high poxic zones in New Mexico, and also the Chesapeake bay, an area of very low dissolved oxygen. You think about the causes of that, the nutrients, so on, that come from run-off, you think about severe storms, so on, we are likely to see this problem aggravated by the kind of weather condition that's accompany climate change.
So we may be seeing an increase in these kinds of low oxygen zones that are, of course harmful to all kinds of creatures. So, let's think about solutions for a little bit.
going to slide 37. This part of the presentation addresses what is increasingly being called adaptation to climate change. What that means is what, given that a certain amount, even if we get a handle on greenhouse gas emissions, able to stabilize the levels that will avert catastrophic changes in the lands scape, even if we do that there's a certain amount of change already under way because of the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere. It's important to get a handsel on emissions, but also important for people who care about rivers, have regulatory, management responsibility for water resources, to be thinking about what we do differently to make, to increase the chances that these systems will survive these changes, that fish, and wildlife will survive changes to the climate. There are parts to this, regulatory moves, voluntary things, and there are various incentive base actions that can be take tone improve circumstances. I will go through a few of those. I don't think this is a comprehensive list, but I will try to address some of the problems that I was kind of raising in the earlier part of the slide.
I want to mention also, just before we get to that, that the general accounting office just recently came out with a report, raising concerns about the degree to which federal, in particular federal resource and regulatory agencies are incorporating climate change assumptions into their management plans and into their regulatory schemes. Their conclusion was basically that they are not very well, and it's important for them it to begin think being that, anticipating changes and incorporating that into the ways that we manage our resources. The GAO reports that federal agencies manage over 6 million-acres of land, 30% of the land mass, and more than -- miles of protected water. There's a lot at stake in the hands of federal, state and local government agencies. So it's important in particular for them to be paying attention to this, thinking ahead.
Let's go to slide 38, we will begin talking about these.
We talked earlier about the loss of snow pack, the pressures on water supplies we are seeing particularly in the western United States. The western United States is also an area where there are a lot of U.S. forests, a lot of forested lands, and a lot of it is public land. People have known for a long time that forests are -- these systems are really important contributors to water quality because of the filtering and so on, the lands do. They are increasingly being looked at from the water quantity standpoint, of absorbing water, slowing run-off, slowing by absorbing into the water table the release of water into streams. There's increasing interest in the management of U.S. forests and other forested lands as a kind of water -- something that will help the water supply problem, will help the problem of water just running off quickly and not being available.
So there are things that -- there's a type of watershed management, land management that can improve conditions and help mitigate the loss of water from snow pack.
Let's move to slide 39. Riparian restoration. This is a volunteer level. But we need to think generally in terms of two problems. One of them is the warming of streams, and as all of you know, if there's a robust riparian vegetation it tends to shade a stream and helps mitigate the effects of increased temperatures. Of course, riparian areas, if they are vegetated and left alone can absorb flood water and so on. For both of those problems it's important to be looking at riparian protection, restoration of all kinds, really seeing those stream-side areas as an important resource to help us cope with climate change.
Let's look at slide 40. In some areas, particularly where we are worried about particular species of fish like trout and others, stream course restoration can help. This is an example of creating a little slews way to -- removing barriers to make it possible for fish to migrate northward in serve of cooler waters. So just thinking about the structure of streams, kinds of obstacles there, how they are structured, the kinds of changes that can help fish survive global warming is something to think about. Sometimes it's done at a small scale and sometimes at a large scale. It can involve watershed groups, can involve individual groups, and can involve major government entities.
This is an important issue to be anticipating right now. There are lots of ways that in-stream flows can be protected, there are a lot of interesting things going on right now. Briefly, in-stream flows means making sure enough water gets in the stream, stays in the stream to keep the river flowing. This is made difficult by human diversions or withdrawals of rivers. Some of the wern western states in particular have varying levels of protection. Something we are working on right now in Texas a lots. It's going to be more important than ever in an era of warming climate, to have very robust protection for in-stream flows, to the extent possible to keep streams flowing.
There are lots of ways of doing that. Some of the western states, the key to protecting stream flows is to have -- thinking mostly of the western United States, where water rights are rigidly held, to have some level of flexibility in the way water is allocated and an ability to move water from one use to another in times of drought. In times of stress. Some states, like the state of Washington, have the capacity to shift water among users when certain drought conditions are triggered. The state of Montana has a water leasing program they have had 10 years or more that allows entities to lease water usually from farmers to keep water in streams, can be a win-win situation because they are paid for that. Sometimes it's water they are not necessarily using or sometimes they can be induced or helped to increase the efficiency of irrigation, and then there's water left over that can irrigate the same level of crop land, the same acreage, and have water left over. Lots of ways people are thinking about to protect in-stream flows. It will be very important for us to be very mindful of this, to be securing protections for in-stream flows as the planet warms up.
So that's a very important part. Let's go to slide 42.
A big key, Don eldzer is elder is going to talk about this after I get finished. A big key is really to make water available where it's in short supply, increasing pressures on it, for there to be investments in the maximum efficiency of water use. This is all users. We have here just a faucet, to represent the human or urban use. This is the, on the right, a picture of a low-impact -- sorry -- I forget what it's called, very efficient irrigation system.
There are some programs, some of the farm bill conservation programs are available to encourage to help subsidize a transition to more efficient water use in some instances. There are lots of things cities can do to create incentives for more efficient water use, to present, through regulatory means, ordinances, prevent wasteful use of water in cities, lawn watering at the wrong time, creating incentives for there to be the right kind of vegetation, landscaping that don't use as much water. There's a lot to be done on water use efficiency that will make it possible for to us allocate water in a way that maintains fish, and wildlife, along with the human economy in our cities.
Slide 43. We talked about floods, the obvious cor corollary. There are efforts in Congress now, interesting, to revise under the FEMA program, federal emergency management act, the definitions as flood Plains are defined in the futurethere's an effort now in Congress to make sure climate change is incorporated, those scenarios are incorporated into the definition of floodplains so we are calling a floodplain what we anticipate the flood Plains will actually be over the next 100 years, may not be where they are right dmow.
now.
Loots look at slide 44. Wetland restoration, a volunteer level project. It may not be obvious when can be done about wetlands, coastal wetlands in particular when sea levels are rising, but in fact, many wetland systems are really very -- they are able to adapt, historical records show they can adapt to rising seas if they have the right sediments and the right fresh water inputs, they call is vertical accretion, rise to keep up with sea levels in some instances, some whaft capacity to do that if they are handled, managed properly. The dealt aic ability to build up over time. If they don't know the have the right fresh water input, sediment inputs, that will not be possible. We really need to be able to look at coastal wetlands as a resource supporting marine life, fisheries, and think about what we can do to maintain, protect, restore the wetlands over the next 100 years.
Let's look at 45.- we have lost contact --
Are you still there?
Susan, are you still on the line?
Okay, it looks like we lost Susan. If I could get everyone to please move with me to slide 50. We will try to get ahold of her. In the interest of time we are not going to address questions at this point, but there will be time at the end of the presentation. Hold your questions at this time.
On slide 50 I would like to take a quick moment to tell you about the next webcast. The watershed academy team will present the 23 RD webcast, moving beyond -- featuring Tim Jones, environmental protection specialist at the environmental protection agency, and Dan Nees, at the world resources institute. Please visit the watershed academy web page at www. www. EPA.GOV/--
We provided with the presentation, unless you have a wrap-up to share.
Susan: I do. Well, shall I go through quickly the last couple of slides?
Sure.
Okay.
Slide 46, monitoring for temperature change, there are things that can be done. The state of Colorado just passed a law to set a standard for temperature they are going to monitor, enforce how dam and -- someone mentionedded earlier, a greater focus on stream corridor connections as a way of helping wildlife migrate, having greater continuity of habitat. Those are two final adaptations. Thank you.
Thank you, Susan. Again, we will address questions later on in the presentation. Again, please check out www.EPA.GOV/watershed webcast for more information on the October 17 webcast.
At this time I would like to turn the controls over to Don Elder. If you would like to go ahead, unmute yourself and take it away.
Don Elder: Hello? Thanks. I want to begin by thanking EPA for the invitation to the webcast, and Susan for her in-depth look at issues we could face as a result of climate change. We have our work cut out for us. Climate change will make many existing problems more difficult anding create many new problems. No one can be sure how it will effect people and wildlife in their particular area we need to begin now to prepare for the possible effects.
Therein lies a big rub. All manner of good ideas can be rationalized in the name of preparing for climate change. We can't possibly act on them all, . We need to reduce, not increase, impacts on fresh water systems in the coming years. Only the healthiest systems will be resilient enough to support life and use in the changing world. It's time to give water back to the many river and streams whose flows have already been altered and depleted.
Another reason to form a new long-term vision is we can't continue indefinitely on the current water path. We wouldn't be able to even if the climate weren't changing. We don't have enough water or money to manage through the century. Fortunately there are many practical steps we can take beginning right now to reduce water use significantly in the next few years. It will save water and money, a great deal of both, in fact. And it will buy some time while we prepare to make bigger changes in the following decades, changes to help us meets all the needs of our growing population and economy.
The best news is these changes will help us address the root cause of climate change itself. That's because in addition to saving water they will save energy. These energy savings can be obtained more quickly and cheaply than through most other energy conservation strategies. Unlike even the most benign energy supply strategies, such as wind and solar, saving engineer by saving water will actually improve the environment.
It's easy to convince people that saving water and saving energy where we can is the right thing to do, but few people yet realize there's such a link between the two or how much water and energy could be saved easily, quickly and cost effectively through water conservation, efficiency and reuse.
53. Here's a fact that gets a lot of attention. A typical American home today running a hot water faucet five minutes uses as much energy as leaving a 60-watt light bulb owe for 14 hours. We should certainly replace light bulbs, but -- for water treated, delivered, and discharged later.
54. By the early part of this decade U.S. public drinking water and sewage treatment used -- like most people, I had no way to put that big number in perspective when I first heard it. Turns out to be about 3% of total U.S. electric use today. It's about the same as the entire residential energy dmandz of the state of California, and more than the combined demand of the energy intensive paper and petroleum industries. The annual price tag is more than $4 billion, and has risen all the more rapidly as the cost of the energy soared. I am It doesn't needs to cost us as much if we use less water. Can reduce energy costs, other operating costs at treatment plants, saving money on our monthly water and sewer bills. Can delay, reduce the enormous cost of building new water and sewer plants when existing ones reach capacity. Even those not concerned about climate change, energy independence and health of streams and lakes should care about this.
55, as big as it is, public water treatment doesn't account for nearly all our water-related energy tab. We use tremendous amounts of energy each year to pump more and more water from lower and lower grounds water supplies, between basins, to pump from treatment plants to homes, industries, to heat and cool industries, and to pump water to sewage treatment plants. So many points of use it's hard to account for them all.
Let's account for what we can, looking next at residential water heating. 56. In 2001 residential water heating accounting for more than 104 billion kilowatt hours of electric in the U.S. how much is that? More than residential lighting indoors and out in the entire country. The electric water heating figure by definition excliewdzs the energy use of gas water heaters.
57. Today there are about two gas water heaters for every one electric in the U.S. That means the total energy use for residential water heating far exceeds the total for lighting, indoors and out. If we want to achieve the potential for residential energy efficiency, save money and resources in the process we simply can't ignore water use. In fact there's a grates argument to be made for beginning there.
58. Let's now take a look at the two figures we have a good grip on so far. The sum of the electricity use for residential water heating and public treatment plants is more than 180 billion-kilowatt hours, still omits water-related energy use, gas water heating, all water pumping, some regional's greatly exceeds the energy used in treatment plants, and all commercial, industrial and agricultural use. So how much does all that add up to?
59. I have not yet found any authoritative source for what that is, at least -- how much is that? In 2001, the year from which the above statistics were drawn, the average American house used 10, 561-kilowatt hours of electric the combined populations of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, district of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico E Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.
60. We certainly can't eliminate all water related energy use in this country, but we could eliminate a great deal of it. Every bit we save will lead to cleaner stream and lakes, increase water security and our energy independence, allow us to retire our oldest, dirtiest power plants that much sooner. That will help us reduce carbon emissions significantly and fight the root cause of climate change. It's worth noting many people think we are heading toward an inevitable water crisis this country. I am not among them. It's all too true chronic water concerns are acute in some areas. It's also true our water resources are finite, and population and economy have expanded over the past generation.
This leads many to conclude our total water use is increased proportionately and will continue to do so indefinitely. As we will see, though, the facts tell a very different story. While many countries with very high population densities, scarce water, vulnerable supplies may not be able to avoid a water and humanitarian crisis, the U.S. certain will can. We have abundant water resources, heavily developed them, cities and arid regionals are served by large relatively dependable sources of water from distant sources. We have the knowledge, technology and means to use the water we have much better, even in an era of climate change. With very few exceptions are cities have supplies ample for growing populations if it used well.
I will cite an important fact little known: Since 1980, while our population has increased by nearly 80 million, we have enjoyed one of the most sustained economic expansions in U.S. history, total water use has been virtually flat.
61. Most people are as tonnished to hear this. It flies in the face of conventional wisdom. For about 200 years our water use did go steadily up. As the population grew, spread out, we used water as a virtsually inexhaustible resource until it was clear it wasn't. Then we began to use it more carefully. The water use trend from 1950 to 1980 was rapidly up. During that figure it grew faster than the population and economy. Several things occurred about then that abruptly changed that. Some communities reached limits of their supplies, came to grips with the fact that securing new sources was either too expensive or -- they began to -- others become more environmentally conscious, began to reduce per capita use. Meanwhile, many farmers, having reached the limits of easily available inexpensive water began to change irrigation practices.
Many industries began to realize using water more efficiently was more responsible and more profitable. New technologies led to the use of closed-loop water systems that dramatically reduced use. Last, but not least, the requirements of the 1972 Clean Water Act began to have a big impact Nigh 1980. Better waste treatment allowed discharges to meet permit limits while greatly reducing use. In each peds period the population and economy has grown, but water use has hardly grown. There's no reason to assume that total U.S. water use has to rise in the future. In fact, there's great potential for it to fall rapidly beginning now.
62. Per capita use already is. In the 20 years between 1980 and 2000 it fell by 25%. We can take great pride in this, but we shouldn't become complacent at all. We still use far more water per capita than all other nations, rich and poor alike. We are starting to go in the right direction, but we should pick up the pace, make greater reductions in the next generation.
I would like to pause here, invite questions.
Thank you, Don.
As we said, we will pause briefly to take questions and will begin with those online. As a reminder you can submit at any time by clicking on the question mark at the top of the page. Katie in D.C. asks: Easily achievable water use reductions, what is easiest to get to first? The general public, industry, or agriculture?
I think there's easy reductions available in all three of those sectors. I think there's good potential for quick reductions through conservation and efficiency in the residential and business sectors in the next 10 years. I also think we can start to lay the groundwork for bigger reductions in the year that's follow. That will be the subject of a good bit of the rest of the presentation.
At this time I will open the phone lines so if anyone would like to ask a question please unmute yourself, give your name, organization before your question.
Hello, I am Dan from regional 3, EPA. In a major city, my understanding that the usage of water comes to about 100, 200-gallons per person. Does that include the industrial, let's say paper plant inside the city, is that compensated for or included in the water usage per day per person?
My understanding is there aren't a lot of standardized ways to determine that. That's one reason we see per capita daily use figures vary greatly from city to city, regional to regional. I don't believe industries are included in that calculation. The average per capita use for Americans, that I quoted earlier, includes home and business use, but also the use of water required to grow our food, and run our economy.
Are there other questions from the phone lines?
If there are no other questions from the phone lines we will go ahead, hand the controls back to you Don. If you want to go ahead, continue with the presentation.
Don Elder: This is Don, let's go to slide 64. I think it's time to move from scattered small-scale efforts that save a little water here and there to a high-priority national push to save all the water we can. To achieve our full water savings to tecial saving potential we needs to -- three areas, water conservation, efficiency and reuse. I want to make it clear from the outset, I know statistics about national trendses in and of themselves don't tell us everything we can, should, must do in any particular watershed. The imperatives, opportunities, needs, constraints for saving water and energy vary widely from place to place. But I believe if we open our mindses to new ways of water cons conservation we can save in virtually every watershed where people work and live today.
We have made strad strides but are no where near our potential. Let's explore one category at a time.
65. What's the difference between conservation and efficiency? In my mind conservation is about habit while fiduciaries is fiduciary efficiency is about hardware.
The basics are obvious, well-known, I won't dwell on them. Limit toil et flushing, run water in the sink only when necessary, be careful about indoor use and use water outdoors sparingly and intelligently.
66, several ways to encourage conservation, good education programs help, so do incentives from local governments, utilities. The things that help most are good laws, rate programs that reward cons vision and penalize waste.
67. Unfortunately, most of our local water rate structures today don't do either. They simply don't match our rhetoric about water being a precious finite resource. About one thirds of our water rate structures are water conservation -- in principle. But weak market signals, customers don't notice, and habits don't change. Water is so cheap increasing its cost a tad makes no difference at all in most people's water use behavior.
Slide 68. What's worse, about another third of our rates are flat, uniform blocks that don't change no matter how much a customer uses. The other third actually reward water waste by charging list per gallon the more a person uses. We can't be serious about using responsibly as long as this is the case.
69. Conservation oriented rate structures that send clear economic signals result in predictable change necessary behavior and associated water savings. One kind charges more per gallon as use reaches defined amounts. Another charges more in dry seasons than wet seasons. These two can be combined for more effect. The key is making the change large enough to be noticed. I am -- reducing from current rate necessary many places, because I think enough clean water to meet basic human needs is a basic human right, and that people with limited incomes should have access to enough water for drinking, cooking, bathing, for just a modest fee.
The next increment should cost significantly more, the last much more still.
One concern that's frequently voiced by utility managers, if their water sales go down their overall revenues will go down too. Two points I want to make about this. First: Overall revenues will go down in the utility leaves the same rate structure in place, but if managers but in place a well-dedesigned rate structure revenues can remain level or even go up.
70. The second, equally important point, is when water utilities maintain a supply side emphasis, focus on selling as much as water as possible, using the money to obtain new supplies when water runs out they will run out of water, money or both, particularly in rapidly growing areas. May run out of water first because it really is a finite resource. Or they may run out of money first because each new supply requires a lot of capital, time to secure and develop. Because new water brings with it new pumping and treatment costs, year in and year out from then on.
Eventually, in a pure supply-side utility approach costs rise enough that instead of growing, margins scrirchg, then disappear. Then the only thing to do is find more water somewhere, somehow, some way, pay what ever it takes to get it, pass the costs on to rate payers.
71. A much more sustainable, and fiscally responsible approach is to focus most of our efforts on managing demand. It's assume said in supply side it's at least -- in this model revenues can go down, but because long-term costs tend to go down as much or more the utilities margin can improve, can involve in efficiency or reuse programs. How much water could we save through conservation? For the moment, for the sake of constructing an easy argument let's say it's only 10%. I think it could be a lot more. We can start quickly by more broadly applying education programs, rate structures ordz inances that are proven to work. We can reduce 10% through conservation Aleen alone in the next deck adz.
72. The second big category. Efficiency. Conservation is about habit, and sfshs about hardware, neither is about hardship. Many guzzlers have been replaced by newer better water diswies devices over the waft 20 years, technology continues to improve. Today's best devices use much less waters than 10 to 15 years ago.
If every homeowner installed the best devices available today water use would fall by 30% tomorrow. The shift is taking place, that's one reason per capita use is falling, the shift would be faster if old devices were out like old light bulbs. Old water guzzlers wear out every two deck adzes. People need reliable facts and figures to see the upgrades, in a few months in some cases, when the water and energy savings are factored in.
74. EPA's -- availability of unbiased information should go toward accelerating change. If water and utilities were to begin to subsidize the switch. Energy utilities have run programs to help customers pay for all manner of energy efficiency upgrades, sometimes the entire cost outright recognizing they get faster, larger, more certain returns on these investments than pursuing expensive controversial uncertain new sources of supply.
Water utilities have been slower to take such stops but more have begun in the last decade. If the water and energy utilities work together the savings could be quick and substantial. We could make additional progress in the following years as the last of the guzzlers are replaced, state of the efficiency art advances.
75. Businesses and institutions such as schools, government agencies and hospitals can make the jump to today's efficiency standards even more quickly. In general, they have greater economies of scale, greater abilitys to finance large-scale efficiency upgrades that will pay for themselves over time. The shift in some business and institutional sectors has been quite rapid in the last few years, making the shift a national priority, financing with low-interest loans from revolving funds would accelerate it.
There's one more opportunity that musts be mentioned here. Most cities lose an unacceptable amount of water through leaks in the system. Usually already pumped, treated, terrible loss of water and money too. 20%, 30% or more can be saved. Let's look at industry, the major sector people assume is the cause of most water problems. U.S. industry does use a lot of water. U.S. industrial use ballooned, tripling to more than 250 billion-gallons per year. Since 1980 industrial use has declined for reasons already mentioned. Contrary to popular opinion we don't need to turn the industrial water use trends around, it's already going in the right direction.
77. It's also widely assumed that agricultural water use has risen steadily as population and production increased, but it hasn't.
78, that's because we have gradually been moving since 1980 from the least efficient irrigation methods to more efficient methods, to the most efficient methods, the now steadily growing micro-irrigation techniques. Just as with industry, we don't need to re reverse a bad trend in the sector. IT would be good to speed up the good positive trends in both. We can, and I believe we will.
79. Let's return now to the municipal sector. Not as large in absolute terms as industry and agriculture it is one of the big three still growing. Since so much of water related energy use is in this sector it's definitely worthy of special attention. Fortunately we already know what to do. Just as there are numerous ways to improve, education programs, good state, federal, local water efficiency standards, incentive and repro fit programs, leak detection and correction, all bring reliable results with returns on investment that are as good or better than supply-side approaches and much faster.
80. To meet the climate challenge we need to seize every available opportunity in this country to reduce energy and associated CO2 emissions quickly. No other energy savings strategy offers the promise quarter quick, substantial long-lasting rewards than water efficiency.
81. I believe water efficiency alone could easily yield a 10% reduction in per capita use in the next decade. Where else can we get bigger energy savings more quickly and where else can we do more to solve energy problems while actually improving the environment?
82. This brings me to the thirds and final way to save water: Reuse. For the sake of simplicity I am lumping two items that are quite different: Use of detained rain water and use of waste water. Of the three major ways reuse is the one with the greatest long-term effect of all.
83. In the next few minutes I want to ask you to use your imagination a bit. I am not calling here for anything completely unprecedented. To the contrary, every specific reuse practice I will mention does already exist. But unfortunately there's still quite few and far between, at least in our country. That's because in most places we are still plowing full steam ahead with the with the same basic water management system. Taking high-quality drinking water, treated as much as necessary to bring to standards, use once, mostly for things that don't require drinking water quality, get to a central point for treatment, then we throw it away. Meanwhile we put rain water running across hard urban landscapes, shunt down stream as quickly as possible, throw 2 away too, while developing expensive, elaborate, but not entirely effective systems to deal with the flooding and pollution they cause along the way, then cry we are running out of water.
Some day we will have to change because the path we are on is just not sustainable. We have spent $1 trillion on maintenance and repair in the last thrive years, that doesn't include the hidden costs, including the energy costs and other ongoing operating and maintenance expenses.
Some day, maybe 50 years from now, maybe 150, after we have finally made the shift, our descendants will look at the 20th century model and think what in the world were we thinking? Our current practices will seem archaic as dumping sewage water into drinking water systems, which we did not that long ago. We won't be throwing away nearly as much water, won't still be using precious high-quality drinking water to flush toil ets, water lawns, cool power plants and serve industries. The only question, really, is how quickly can we get to that day.
We certainly aren't going to rip up existing water infrastructure overnight, but we are going to repair or replace most of it anyway in the next 50 years. When we do, we can take simple steps to increase the potential for use of detained storm water, treated waste water in already developed areas. In newly developing areas we can set the bar high to ensure we create, take full advantage of every possible opportunity for reuse.
84. Let's start with one of the simplest things many of us can do. Rooftop rain harvesting is not a new idea. It's been around for ages, enjoying something of a renaissance today as a small but growing number of people catch on to its benefits. Ranging from simple systems, to very sophisticated systems that can store, use in and around the home.
85. Today we can also point to a growing number of larger scale examples. Seattle's King Center has a small roof print relative to the number of people who work there. Still, it meets most of the occupants' needs, saving large amounts of rain water and keep figure from entering city sewers.
People say yes, it works in Seattle where can rains all the time but it can't work here.
86. The fact is Seattle gets total less annual rain fall than most cities East of the Mississippi. The new Bank of America tower, 100% of the building's storm water will be captured, used, reused, to eliminate the use of city water for virtually all non-drinking water needs. The innovations buildings like these will likely be the norm before long, because they prevents so many water problems, reduce others, great rei reduce long-term costs, risks, for their owner and communities.
.
There's significant potential even in arid areas. Santa FE, could secure water through wide top use of rooftop rain harvesting, flush every toil ets, free up enough water to restore life to the Santa fay river.
Makes great sense in wet regionals because there's so much potential. In A arid regionals because there's no much needs.
Should Some things help us prepare for droughts, others for -- these can do both, to restore watershed, not degrade them. We are not running out of water in this country, but we are running out of time to store rain water. If we also quit throwing away treated waste water we can stretch our supplies much further still.
One problem with our old water model, it involved discharging more and more sewage to river and streams that aren't getting any bigger. As a result, higher levels of treatment are required over time. The costs, in terms of energy and money, huge.
The secondary treatment required as a minimum is adequate for many industrial and outdoor uses. The additional treatment already required in large and growing number of places is adequate for more uses in homes, businesses, factories, for some agriculture will uses and almost all outdoor uses.
Reuse of treated waste water has been growing in some places around the world for deck adzes, other prospereous nations, Australia, Israel and Japan are far ahead of us in meeting needs with recycled water.
In this country waste water use has a toe hold in Florida, Texas, California, a few cities elsewhere, potential is still tremendous in each of these places, virtually untapped every whereles.
Consider Atlanta, much Demand driven by outdoor uses, lawns and golf courses. . Severe pressures on drinking water have ensued. Recycling can reduce, even eliminate current conflicts. Even in the so-called rainy northwest where winters are wet, summers dry, many cities reach the limit of what they can withdraw from streams without unacceptable impacts to fish, reuse is catching on to stretch finite supplies.
In Portland, the area where most of the metro growth will occur in the next 25 years, pipes are being laid for the first urban dual distribution system. In St. Petersburg Florida, strong demand for treated waste water from the start, 90% from residential customers. Some of the places with the most acute issues, use of treated waste water is the only reason they haven't already had a crisis. For example, las Las Vegas Lang since required that cay cay case in owes use recycled water fwr outdoor fountains.
Southern California now has a burr Joning and well-regulated water industry. State rules clearly specify the types of treatment require the for the type of use, many industrial, commercial, agricultural, residential customers have come to rely on reuse.
One big reason that while the rest of the country's per capita energy use has risen steadily over this time, California's has not. Tens of billions of dollars that would have been wasted on expensive new supply-side projects, higher water and sewer bills have stayed in the local economy where they were saved, spent, or invested. If approximate saving water is nothing else, it's good business.
88. San ant Antonio Texas, you may have noticed the photograph of the famous riverwalk in the previous slide. Not known much of the water in it is treated waste water going back to work for the city. People keep flushing even in drought, this resource is more dependable, more desirable for many users. Steadily embraced, reducing pressures on the growpdz water supplies. Well-treated waste water is used in San Antonio for water recharge, restoring balance to overdepleted ground water system, preveptsing salt water intrusion into ground water supplies.
89. Recently, responding to the growing demand it has created San Antonio committed to major expansion of water recycling program. Like some other cities, San Antonio is also starting to capture methane, other greenhouse gasses, keeping it from entering the am as, using it to generate the electricity required. Many inspiring examples just beginning across the U.S.
90. It's easy to imagine a day in the not too distant future when we have access so treated drinking water, treated waste water, to storm water. Won't happen over night, but if we start now to capture water around our homes and businesses, to develop new infrastructure and replace existing infrastructure with water reduce in mind we could get a good start in the next 10 to 20 years, make tremendous progress in the next 50. 50 years sounds like a long time but it's a typical planning horizon. Just think about how different things could be by midcertain if we begin now to put all the pieces in place.
None. . 91. We would still need drinking water, precious resource. It's just as important to protect it from waste at end of the delivery system as it is to protect quality at the source.
92. Inside our homes we only need treated drinking water for about a thirds of our uses at most. Accidents, industries, we need for less. Outdoors we hardly need it at all. At least two-thirdses of our residential use, other uses could be met just as well with captured rain water or properly treated waste water.
93. Every rooftop, storm water detention pond, waste water treatment plant is a potential water source. Every city in this country is sitting on an invisible reservoir of conservation, efficiency and reuse potential. For many, that reservoir is as big or bigger than the supplies they already have, much bigger than any new water supply they can go get without major cost, impact and conflict with neighbors. It's time we started developing them.
Like all other water development projects, these will take time to complete. Unlike others, these can begin yielding water right away. By front-loading conservation and efficiency efforts, beginning now with reuse programs we can get a substantial amount in this dej decade.
94. There are simple first steps that can be taken in the next 10 years in virtually every city in this country to increase reuse. If we also begin now to replace, develop our water infrastructure differently, reuse could quickly accelerate in the following decades. I believe we could re replace drinking water use in the next 50 years.
Just think, we can reduce per capita use of treated drinking water by 20% in a decade, 50% or more this 25 years, and 75% in 50 years.
I think it's worthy of a national effort on a massive scale. If we can subsidize ethanol production from corn we should certainly heavily subsidize this. It's generated a lot of support but has only a marginal net effect at best while using a tremendous amount of water, causing a number of other problems for air, water and soil.
I have yet to hear of a single one that can top saving energy by saving water. It beats ethanol by a mile. It beats many potentials being explored, because we are certain it will work, residence ready to go now. It beats the greenest supply side strategies such as solar and wind because saving kilowatts is as good as generating them, cheap kilowatts, requires no use of land. It even beats other forms of energy conservation because of so much potential and so few side effects. No one strategy will be enough, we can't afford to subsidize everything that might do a little good. We need to consider all the options, choose the best and invest in them heavily. I employ convinced saving energy by saving water out to be at the top of the list. It will keep coal and oil in the ground, carbon out of the air, money in our pockets. I hope you will join the growing effort to get it at the top of our national list as soon as possible. Thank you.
Great, thanks, Don. Very much.
If everyone would move to slide 96. We will have time for some questions. I first would like to draw your attention to where you can obtain the speaker's contact information.
You are online click on the home button on the top of the screen. You will be returned to the homepage that has the phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Slide 97. The links button with additional resources identified for today's webcast. The feedback button, take a quick minute to submit the form as we really do consider your comments to improve our webcast.
We will now address questions, beginning with those submitted online.
Gina in Boston would like to know: Sounds like solar water heating would be one solution to help. What are the barriers to this, plumbing code or black of suppliers?
That is something I don't claim any expertise in. I agree solar water heating is one of the things that could make a big difference. I don't know of a lot of regulatory or other practical barriers to solar water heating. I do think tankless water heaters are one device that can help a lot of people in a lot of cases. They don't save that much water. They can save a little, because we spend less time running water trying to heat it up or get to, to the tap. They can save a lot of energy because we are not keeping a big tank of water sitting there hot 24 hours a day, seven-days a week when we don't needs it very often.
A lot of things such as solar water heating and more efficient water heaters that can make a big difference.
Second question comes from Mary in Florida. In response to leak detection have there been efforts by fuel pipeline companies?
I don't know if there's much effort at leak prevention. Sounds like a good idea to me. I would point you to the alliance to save energy, done a lot of great work with municipal water systems in other countries, but increasingly here lately. They have a program called waterGY, ways municipal systems can tighten their water and pumping system to save a lot of energy. That would be a great place to look for information about that. They have done a great deal on leak detection, elimination.
Okay. Our next question is from KIMBERLY in Maryland. She asks do you have any recommendations for reliable data on tankless water heaters?
I think probably the EPA website has that. I haven't looked lately. When I was researching the slide no the better part of a year ago I didn't have trouble finding lots of information on tankless water heaters on line; some from commercial company and others from nonprofit it. Seemed to be pretty uniform assessment of their potential. While I don't know of anyone in particular other than EPA to point you to right now I think it's pretty easy to find.
Thanks. Next question looks like addressed to Susan, so you will have to reunmute yourself. The question is, you mentioned reservoirs are not an efficient way to store water. What are the alternatives?
Susan: Well, it's not a complete alternative to reservoirs, but one of the things, resources I was talking about, the watershed management in National Forests, a more natural way, increasing the sponge Iness of the land, we won't eliminate reservoirs. I guess I am saying, looking at those massive structures as a way of meeting needs when they are berking increasingly less efficient is nab not the direction to go, very expensive. We need to be looking at water use efficiency in the ways Don is talking about. And other way ease of using reservoirs to store water more for use, less for flood control. That might mean a different kind of flood plain management so you don't have to have with as much space to store flood wrawrt. Other things like that.
I would echo all of that. Also, underscore the point that we don't think we're going to get rid of all reservoirs. We think they are probably going to be some feeds for some new ones in some places, but the problems with reservoirs that Susan pointed out are real. The difficulties of finding places to build new ones are great in the early 21 ST century. Other places to store water are in the ground with the good flood plain management, sponge Ier forests, a resource for later use, can help prevent overdrafting of ground water supplies. In it every city, every big building, I view the water that comes off the roof as a potential source. It's microstorage near the point of capture and immediate use can really add up, equal or greater to what a new reservoir would be for many communities.
Thank you very much. Actually, looks like we are out of time. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question or get it answered, please contact our speakers, the information is on the resource page. This does conclude the webcast. On behalf of the team I thank Susan and Don, have a great day.
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