Getting water on your brain

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Business as usual will run out of water this century.

Oregon’s soggy image gives a misleading impression about our freshwater resources, but consider the following: State records show that 18 of the state’s 19 river basins have more water rights than our streams can deliver in dry periods, and the pressures grow each day. The Cascades have lost half of their April 1st snowpack since 1955 and researchers predict the range will lose half again in a generation. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts our state will absorb a million new residents by 2025. From power costs to water bills to building permits to consumer demand for product transparency, this resource will bear on your business in the years ahead, as even slight changes in water availability or demand mean the difference between “enough” and “not enough.”

Whether building houses, fabricating computer chips, making sportswear, running a nursery, or brewing beer, you need water. Our changing world means business needs to understand this resource, both upstream and downstream. Think through how your business interacts with water. Not just how you use water operationally, but how it infuses supply chains and how it is used by consumers. Where does it come from and go to? Do you know?

Historically, this resource has been quietly but fiercely managed by the biggest water users (agriculture, hydropower, municipalities, etc.) and has been largely invisible to the rest of us. As the limits of our natural resources come into view, this must change, and rightly so. Water represents a singular case: It is a public trust resource and the necessary ingredient for life on the planet, with no substitute. When push comes to shove, people will have a deep commitment to its health.

Whether driven by consumer adopting green purchasing habits or clear requirements for water long term, many businesses leaders have begun thinking about water in a serious way. In San Francisco in December 2008, a corporate conference explored “water footprints”, looking at everything from direct withdrawals, processing, shipping, retailing and consuming. In 2007, Coca-Cola famously pledged to go water neutral, popularizing a concept that will no doubt carry for them a significant cost, but will also determine the long-term viability of their business.

As is typical with resources managed by the few and entrenched, Oregon’s track record in managing the resource ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. We pioneered an in-stream water right law that allows willing buyers and willing sellers to find a price that puts excess irrigation water back in stream to improve water quality, but we still have basins that are unresolved as to who owns water rights — Klamath Basin being the poster-child on that front. We created groundwater mitigation banking that keeps streams full and development happening, but we also have planning silos and permitting exemptions that run neighboring wells dry. We have invested millions in ecosystem resilience — likely the smartest way to get environmental results, and yet for cultural reasons, we largely do not measure use, leaving much of this scarce resource unmanaged.

The stakes are high and time is short. The water systems and practices in play today were designed for last century’s understanding of climate, economy, and society — not the coming one. The challenge will be to weave these components into a durable balance. The Oregon Water Resources Department was recently tasked by the Legislature to formulate an integrated water resources strategy for the state, our first. But rather than simply scheming for new supplies of water, we must look to smart use: rethinking old methods for harvesting and reuse; understanding the interplay of surface and groundwater; choosing efficiencies over traditions. These types of measures can help us derive the benefits of water without using it all up. But to do so, we must adapt and engage new thinking — and thinkers.

Congratulations. You just got the job.

¬Joe Whitworth is president of The Freshwater Trust, co-chairs the Water Subcommittee of the Oregon Global Warming Commission Natural Resources Committee and serves on the Oregon Agricultural Water Quality Advisory Committee as well as the Policy Advisory Committee for the State’s Integrated Water Resources Strategy. He can be reached at joe@thefreshwatertrust.org.