As the populations expand in Colorado outside of Denver, Las Vegas, North County San Diego, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tucson, San Bernardino, Riverside, Albuquerque, etc; The West will need to look to transferring the load of cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Bernardino to getting water from the ocean through Desalination Plants. At one point during the last drought states had to make a choice between fighting fires or saving the water for drinking. This could have been a serious issue in CO, MT, NM, NV and AZ.

In 2003 and 2004 we saw the Hurricane Season bring much rain fall to drought areas of Southern and South West TX, to the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia. Along with the normal flow of storms has alleviated the drought stricken regions of the US, but realize as those reservoirs were filled up it was not business as usual, although some pretended and continued water wasting practices. The lawsuits over the building of new reservoirs by the Sierra Club in Colorado and elsewhere, reservoirs we desperately need if we are to continue to build our cities and suburbs. If we look at other nations, which do not have the area we do in terms of populi per acre, we can see that our incredible consumption must be mitigated with increased supply and also conservation. If our populations in arid regions continue to expand and we continue to lose population from rural America due to economics, jobs and agriculture farming changes as well as allow immigrants legal or otherwise without proper control of the direction of the flow of water and the education of that population we are leading for a major calamity. We must protect our dams and rivers along the Colorado River from International Terrorists as well as control our thirsty appetite for this finite resource.

There are issues and concerns with the flow of water in this modern era, we must not take it for granted, nor should we turn a blind eye to the serious nature of these issues. Water is life and we are not paying attention to the importance of it. The purity of the water we drink is also at issue, but many municipal water resources are as clean or better than bottled water, as a matter fact the bottled water companies use municipal water many times and talk about a profit. We must continue to find easy, inexpensive and successful ways to keep the pollution out of our rivers and streams which are the drinking water for those down stream or might flow into underground areas where shallow wells feed fresh water to homes, schools, government offices and businesses. There are many things that small business owners can do to mitigate such things. Likewise if industries will continue to look towards win-win situations and non-linear decision-making, we can find ways to serve our markets better, increase profits and efficiencies using far less water and do their part to help keep our water supply clean. There are also things our non-profits can do when they do their activities, for example;

http://www.carwashguys.com/fundraisers/ch2.html .

And the government agencies can find simple ways to assist businesses rather than making complicated and costly regulations. They should also be leading by example with their water conservation efforts and taking tips from the inside down to the employee level of ideas to help them do their job better using less water.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?