THE POWER, PROMISE,

9 Pages 2248 Words

THE POWER, PROMISE,
AND TURMOIL OF NORTH AMERICA’S FRSH WATER


The same wells that were overflowing with water centuries ago; today, are in danger of running dry. Water supply hasn’t changed; earth has the same water as it did when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Ninety-seven percent of that is salt water, and the other 3 percent is fresh water. That won’t change. The problem is simply people; our increasing numbers are abusing one of our precious resources. The world population grows by nearly 80 million people each year. The United States uses three times as much water a day-1,300 gallons per person- as the average European country. Water is diverted, disputed, dammed and polluted. Water is a commodity we can no longer take for granted. Water supply has inspired needs to create water ways to supply us with fresh water, to sustain life were it could not survive otherwise. I will be talking about the western water supply, development, pollution, and restoration.

We rarely think about it. It is at our finger tips. Fresh water is the blood of our land, and the nourishment for our crops. All together the United States uses 339 billion gallons of surface water a day. Lake levels are dropping around the United States. We do not have an unlimited supply of water. Here in Florida our aquifers yield more than

4.5 billion gallons of fresh water each day. Most Floridians look for ground water for their drinking supply-nearly twice our nation’s average. Water moves, if we have
something that we don’t want, we wash it away. We also store waste on our land, the problem is, that it stays there and eventually dissolves into our water supply.

Our water laws differ from state to state. Our water laws let us use natural springs for our water supplies, it lets you take water from anywhere if you were the first to get there. People can tap through the ground into an aquifer and take as much...