Water supplies and global warming in RI 

Rhode Island is taking a long hard look at its future water supply, holding hearings at the State House, with a commitment by the President of the Senate (or at least his ghostwriter) to do something about water this year.  The goal is to have enough water for all human needs while at the same time making sure that our bodies of water, rivers, streams, ponds, the Bay, have enough clean water in them at all times to support the full array of life that normally would occur in them.  I am involved in a variety of ways in the public discussion, being a part of the writing team that produced the booklet, Water for Rhode Island, Today and Tomorrow, and helping to organize a conference of the same name.  The timing of the conference with the state house hearings is sort of serendipitous, but also it is just an idea whose time has come. 

Rhode island receives about 45 inches of rain each year with northern sections receiving a couple of inches a year more than southern sections on average.  One would think that a state with so much rainfall would be well stocked with water, but sprawl, economic development, and government policies over the last 50 years, including those that have made more and more of the state dependent upon the Scituate Reservoir and the Providence Water system, and limited the development of redundancy in the system, have contributed to the lack of water. 

I went to the first set of hearings to get my bearings, not sure if I would testify as I knew that one of the hearings was scheduled to have a significant allotment of time for my allies in this struggle.  But the more I listened the more I wondered if some of the things that were occurring to me would actually be discussed in front of the committee.  So at the end of the hearing I asked the committee chair if they wanted to hear about some of my thoughts.  She said they should hear them, so I am writing this to help myself prepare. 

One of the testifiers at the hearing noted that RI needs water to meet the demands of development, We want a healthy economy, and many potential large employers, such as a drug company need large quantities of water for their manufacturing process.  Last year the legislature passed a bill guaranteeing a large manufacturer a specific amount of water, but can any legislature guarantee what is not available? 

The problem, as I see it, is that folks keep building houses, even in places with limited water storage capacity in the ground,or stressed out water delivery systems, assuming water will be found, and we encourage various types of economic development without considering the consequences.  But the problem is that sprawl not only directly stresses water resources, factories not only use a lot of water, but that they also contribute to global warming, by increasing CO2 emissions, which can further stress the system and to paving which reduces the amount of land area able to absorb water on a rainy day and store it for a sunny day.

One of the likely effects of climate change is both larger rain events and longer droughts.  We are likely to have about the same total amount of rain on a year to year basis, but more and more of that rainfall will fall in a few big storms rather than be evenly spread out throughout the year. It also means more water shortages at the hottest and driest part of the year, requiring increased storage capacity for the lean times and concerns about stream flow and its effect on natural communities if we draw too much water from a basin. This is coupled with more flooding when it does rain. 

My point is that some of what our community seems to want adversely affects the underlying system that supports us.  Our tradition is to ignore the subtle effects on the ecosystem, hide the problem, build something bigger.  But we have reached the end of the rope.  Building more will ultimately give us less unless we really think hard about what we want and really keep our minds open to the way of natural systems as we develop our communities and economy. 

For those of you charged with holding these hearings and legislating based on what you learn, the task will not be easy.  You are being asked to balance issues that have competed strongly for many years in Rhode island, with a new ingredient involved, the spectre of global warming and what needs to be done to reverse it.  Can your policies for water in RI be integrated into policies to reduce paving, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels compatible with reversing global warming?  I, and I am sure many of the other people who testify during these hearings, can offer suggestions as to what might be the right course of action with details that may not be best handled in a setting like this.  I trust you will seek the best information so you can do what is best for RI.

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