The Big Thirst: The Great American Water Crisis

The Big Thirst: The Great American Water Crisis
by Leonard Doyle

The US drought is now so acute that, in some southern communities, the water supply is cut off for 21 hours a day. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a once-lush region where the American dream has been reduced to a single four-letter word: rain.

On Dancing Fern Mountain, in the hills above Chattanooga, Tennessee, two brothers worry about a beaver dam which is blocking access to the only fresh water supply for miles. “The dam is ruining the water and every time we tear it down, the beaver builds it again,” says Larry Fulfer. “People don’t think we should, but we’re gonna have to get that critter and kill him.”

With a slap of his tail, the beaver disappears. His dam is at the mouth of a vast underground cave system, where enough pure spring water emerges to supply the half-a-dozen families who live on Dancing Fern Mountain. “This drought has turned us into hillbillies,” says Larry’s brother, Brian, with evident disgust. “All we want is water in our taps.”

Ten miles away, darkness is falling over the mountain village of Orme as Tony Reames, the volunteer mayor, drives up a dusty track for an important nightly ritual. He is turning on the water supply for a couple of hours.

These days, the plight of the village of Orme makes the national television news. And as the mayor drives up the hill for half a mile he is followed by a crocodile of gleaming 4×4s and rental cars, carrying among them a crew from the Weather Channel, Fox News, ABC News and The Independent. Under the glare of the television arc lamps, Mayor Reames solemnly opens the spigot.

It is a daily task that has turned him into a symbol of global warming. The sight of a small village trying to cope without water for 21 hours a day has touched something in the national psyche.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/15/5255/

Boy, am I glad right now that I don't live in Atlanta... it's going to get awfully ugly down there, awfully soon.

Part of me feels like certain people there are getting what's coming to them, those who have recklessly and selfishly pushed for more pollution, more industry, less planning, less care about the environment. But a whole lot of more-or-less innocent people (or guilty only via their ignorance and inaction) are going to get caught up in this, too.

nt

I'm becoming increasingly concerned that "Peak Water" is going to be as big a component in the impending challenges of this crazy century as Peak Oil and Global Warming will be (though they're all interconnected).

The worst part is, if we could have (for all it's faults and flaws) Old America back with Gore as President and the post-WWII International Framework still partially functional, we ight be able to handle this as a species, certainly we would have better chance than we have now...slmi/none.

And does not even consider the most inconveniently-timed retreat of democracy around the world, BushPutinism sucking the life out of the only human institution really capable of semi-rational problem solving on a large scale.

The dark clouds are indeed brewing on many fronts all at once.

Gonna be one hell of a storm.

> These days, the plight of the village of Orme makes the national
> television news. And as the mayor drives up the hill for half a mile
> he is followed by a crocodile of gleaming 4×4s and rental cars, carrying
> among them a crew from the Weather Channel, Fox News, ABC News and
> The Independent. Under the glare of the television arc lamps, ...

Next time guys, stay at home and stop adding to the problem that (most of)
you keep denying exists?

:eyes: