Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe Texas Paradox - Plenty Of Oil, But 30 Communities May Run Out Of Water By Year-end
Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water. "The day that we ran out of water I turned on my faucet and nothing was there and at that moment I knew the whole of Barnhart was down the tubes," she said, blinking back tears. "I went: 'dear God help us. That was the first thought that came to mind."
Across the south-west, residents of small communities like Barnhart are confronting the reality that something as basic as running water, as unthinking as turning on a tap, can no longer be taken for granted.
Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry's outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.
In Texas alone, about 30 communities could run out of water by the end of the year, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Nearly 15 million people are living under some form of water rationing, barred from freely sprinkling their lawns or refilling their swimming pools. In Barnhart's case, the well appears to have run dry because the water was being extracted for shale gas fracking.
EDIT
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)before there are serious protests against fracking?
PADemD
(4,482 posts)Low or no taxes or regulations, and no water.
Nihil
(13,508 posts)And what is her first response?
> "I went: 'dear God help us. That was the first thought that came to mind."
Not "I wish we hadn't been so stupid and wasteful in the past".
Not "I wish we hadn't elected the fossil fuel industry to rule us".
Not even "How are we going to stop this happening in the future".
Just "Dear invisible friend, please make it all better again so we can just carry on in our ignorance.
It's not only the problem of running water not being available that is
"as unthinking as turning on a tap".
OnlinePoker
(5,719 posts)What's the situation this year? Everything I see on Google goes back to this situation last year.