The fastest, cheapest way to reach artificial sustainability goals? Cheat.
When it comes to Western water supplies, that's the conclusion of Abrahm Lustgarten, senior reporter at ProPublica (@AbrahmL). As part of his series with Matter called "Killing the Colorado" which appeared in the New York Times, my former home state of Arizona faces circumstances the report calls "dire":
. . . calculations based on Arizona’s own water accounting suggest that demand could outpace its existing water supply in less than a decade. But its laws still don’t require an accurate joining of its surface water and groundwater supplies.
Is "cheat" too strong a word for this politically motivated indifference to hydrology? Probably not when compared to the political fireworks that will play out when the state runs out of water -- a decade or so at current run rates, and taking into account the regional drought.
Image Credit: Robert Lesser
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