Addressing America’s Water Crisis Could Also Cut Carbon Emissions | Article

In addition to a severe climate problem, the United States is increasingly threatened by a long-running water crisis in the West, despite the relief brought by recent, abnormally wet spells. While water scarcity is frequently overlooked as an element of climate change, these two issues are inextricably linked. It is well documented that changing climatic conditions have been the drivers of North America’s driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years. Less frequently discussed, however, is the role that water conservation efforts could play in proactive climate responses.

Not just a Western problem

As of April 2023, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reports suggest that Lake Mead and Lake Powell, straddling Arizona and Nevada, sit at a combined 26 percent full; last July, water levels reached their lowest point since the lakes were first filled in the 1930s. The Bureau's new water operations strategy suggests that status-quo usage will not keep the Hoover Dam operational. Meanwhile, the infrastructure that conveys this ever-dwindling supply of water to municipal water agencies and the farmers of America’s breadbasket is outdated and inefficient, graded a C- in the most recent report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

This water crisis does not affect everyone equally. The impacts are disproportionately felt by communities of color and the low-income residents of rural and farming communities, who are less able to adapt to crisis conditions. Earlier this year, a study by researchers at Stanford University found that drought-response measures—primarily water cuts—can create serious affordability crises and “pose a critical challenge to urban water security for low-income households.”

Some supply-side behavior changes can be made to save water, and Nevada has already passed legislation banning ornamental turf—that is, grass placed along road medians and other nonfunctional public spaces—in Las Vegas. Another 30 municipal water agencies have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Southern Nevada Water Authority to do the same by 2027. But the will to enact water conservation reform remains largely siloed west of the continental divide.

Credit: The U.S. Drought Monitor (produced through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Members of Congress from Western states have struggled for decades to frame these water shortages as a national issue. In a Washington Post Live event, This is Climate: Water, Senator John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) talked about the difficulty of getting policymakers whose hometowns will regularly get four or five days of rain in a row to understand the reality of living in a state that only gets 12 to 14 inches a year.

“They don’t even turn off the water when they brush their teeth,” he said. “[In the West] everything that water touches has value. People often say ‘Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.’ We have a long history of fighting over water because it is essential.”

Congress signed onto the 2019 Colorado River Basin Drought Contingency Plan to ration water access by the basin's states, but only after it had been negotiated by the seven involved states. Negotiations to make additional cuts are currently at an impasse. In order for water conservation to truly become an issue of national interest, legislators must understand that water policies are not simply adaptation handouts for Western states. They also have the potential to be a major contributor to a comprehensive national climate plan.

The water-energy nexus

Poor water management is a form of energy inefficiency. A five-year study of California’s hydroelectricity generation by the Pacific Institute found that from 2012 to 2016, “the drought increased California's electricity costs by $2.45 billion and contributed to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions.” And reckless water use does more than just reduce the capacity to generate renewable hydroelectricity: it also leads to unnecessary energy waste and emissions.

Water infrastructure has become one of the most energy-intensive systems in the country, and while it is worth acknowledging that there is a research gap on this subject and a need for modernized studies, what data exists is fairly conclusive. The Environmental Protection Agency found in 2008 that the annual treatment and distribution of water creates as much global warming potential as 10 million cars, and data from the California Energy Commission's 2005 report suggests that “water-related energy use consumes 19 percent of the state’s electricity [and] 30 percent of its natural gas.” As a consequence, inefficient water usage leads to higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The higher the water demand, the more energy must be poured into supporting that demand.

The inverse is also true, and more recent studies substantiate the idea that reducing the energy demand to distribute water can have tangible climate benefits. In 2018, an analysis of California’s drought-response Executive Order B-29-15 found that water-efficiency programs also substantially reduced electricity consumption and GHG emissions across the state. Just as importantly, these programs were as cost effective at mitigating GHG emissions as state electricity efficiency and emission reduction programs. According to the analysis:

The total electricity savings linked to water conservation are approximately 11% greater than the savings achieved by the investor-owned electricity utilities' efficiency programs for roughly the same time period, and the GHG savings represent the equivalent of taking about 111,000 cars off the road for a year. These indirect, large-scale electricity and GHG savings were achieved at costs that were competitive with existing programs that target electricity and GHG savings directly and independently.

A 2020 study by researchers at the University of California - Davis and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) further supports these findings. The study examined three different scenarios in which the electricity savings from water conservation programs were compared with those from Los Angeles's existing energy savings programs.

“Across all scenarios, the estimated energy savings secured through water conservation programs prove to be cost-competitive with the energy efficiency programs enacted by the utility,” the report found. And in some scenarios, “water conservation becomes a significantly more attractive pathway for saving energy.”

In short, while their effectiveness does vary by region, water conservation policies can be an effective means of reducing emissions from status-quo energy sources. And in the Southwest, where water conservation serves as a double-win climate solution, these policies may be the best method of reducing GHGs until the United States undergoes a full energy transition.

Allocating federal funding

There are many opportunities for the federal government to support water efficiency advancements. The most substantial lie in the effective implementation of the water infrastructure and research funding included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58) (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-169) (IRA).

Already, $11.7 billion for federal-state infrastructure partnerships and $4 billion for water conservation programs in the Colorado River Basin have been funded through the IIJA and IRA, respectively. However, Senator Hickenlooper pointed out that with regards to the IRA funding, the Bureau of Reclamation has only allocated about $800 million to specific drought-relief projects—meaning there remains another $3.2 billion in unallocated funding. Federal administrators must be strategic in where they choose to deploy these funds. Targeting outdated infrastructure by replacing leaky municipal pipelines, expanding programs like WaterSMART, and incentivizing localized water infrastructure systems could pay particularly high dividends.

Lastly, the Farm Bill's looming reauthorization presents an opportunity to invest in U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs. The 2018 Farm Bill had bipartisan support in funding programs like the Regional Conservation Partnership Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

Conclusion

Water efficiency programs should not supplant the ongoing work of energy efficiency efforts. However, when paired with existing programs, water conservation initiatives have the potential to multiply the GHG reduction benefits of energy efficiency practices—before even examining how they synergize with renewable energy technologies. Billions of IRA dollars remain unallocated, and widespread financing of better water infrastructure could both alleviate some of the water shortages faced by vulnerable citizens in the West while unlocking the greatest bang-for-buck reduction of greenhouse gases.

Policymakers must stop treating water as a ‘regional issue,’ lest they overlook a critical climate tool. Investing in more efficient water transport, use, and purification systems has proved to be one of the most effective methods of immediately reducing power usage and GHG emissions in the United States. Next steps could range from providing grant funding for regional and municipal water authorities to funding research for affordable, small-scale desalination. Pragmatic climate policy is complex and multifaceted, but it is evident that it requires improving our water infrastructure and use practices. This can be done alongside the other reforms under Congressional consideration, from restructuring permitting practices to advancing the IRA-funded development of renewable energy production in America.

Author: Tyler Burkhardt