How to solve America's water problems

In Florida, the water issue isn't seen as a choice between people and wildlife. It's seen as a choice between a profligate, sprawling Atlanta and a rural way of life built around a river. In the Panhandle, farmers and fishermen depend on the Apalachicola for their livelihood.

In Apalachicola Bay, the river's annual flood is part of the marine life cycle. Young oysters thrive because mature predator fish can't tolerate the low-salinity water. But because there wasn't a flood this year, German conches and stone crabs invaded the bay, feeding on juvenile oysters. That was devastating to oyster fishermen.

"They have had generations and generations that have made their living off the bay," fumes Dan Tonsmeiere, the Apalachicola Riverkeeper. "The sentiment here is that Georgia has not made even a rough attempt at water conservation. Atlanta, as much as they can build, they build. And they just keep coming back and wanting more water."

It's not fair to say Atlanta has done nothing to conserve water. The region is under Level Four Drought restrictions, which prohibit lawn watering, car washing and outdoor fountains. The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District offers vouchers to residents who want to buy low-flow toilets, says Pat Stevens, the district's director of environmental planning. (That's the best it can do, since real estate interests defeated a bill to require older homes to be outfitted with modern plumbing before they're sold.) At a University of Georgia football game, bathroom signs reminded fans, "If it's yellow, let it mellow."

But like other Georgia leaders, Stevens refuses to blame the Southeast's water shortages on Atlanta. It's the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers, she says, for not storing enough water in reservoirs, and releasing too much into the Apalachicola. (Carol Couch, director of the state's Environmental Protection Division, declares that "Our consumption is not the cause of the current situation.")

Perdue ordered a 10 percent cutback on water usage in North Georgia, then declared that his order was symbolic. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explained the reasoning: Admitting conservation reduces water use means admitting that consumption is causing the state's crisis. And that would mean admitting Atlanta should stop growing. No Georgia governor is going to say that. All those people moving in will just have to pray along with Gov. Perdue.

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Like so many San Diegans, the woman in charge of the city's water supply moved to California from a place rich in H2O, but poor in sunshine. Fern Steiner was a labor lawyer in Chicago when her husband decided "he couldn't abide the winters anymore." So they set out for the city with the mildest climate in America. Now, years later, Steiner is chairwoman of the San Diego County Water Authority.

San Diego is being sucked dry from all directions. This summer, some parts of Southern California received only 1 inch of rain. The Colorado River, a major source of water for the entire Southwest, is suffering through an extended drought. And a judge recently cut the city's allocation of water from the Sacramento River by 30 percent, to preserve stream flow for an endangered smelt. Because water is running short, San Diego will cut supplies to farms and nurseries -- meaning fewer oranges, lemons and avocados.

San Diego hasn't grown as rapidly as Atlanta, but it, too, owes its existence to technology, rather than natural surroundings. When the United States took possession after the Mexican War, San Diego was a hamlet of 650 people. Now it's the eighth largest city in the nation, fed by a public-works system of aqueducts and dams that allow desert California to import water from all over the West.

An adolescent city, San Diego built itself on migrants, who came for the beaches, or the naval base, and brought their Eastern habits with them. One of those habits was having a lawn, so San Diego had to find water to keep the grass green. But now there's no more water to find, and San Diego County is looking at adding a million people in the next 25 years -- two-thirds of them from births.

"We have captured every drop of water in that basin, and there's going to be less water over time," says Barry Nelson, a water expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. "It's the end of an era. People in the West are accustomed to meeting growth by tapping another aquifer, building another dam."

One of San Diego's solutions is to encourage Californians to start living like ... Californians. Grass is not a desert plant. San Diego hasn't gone as far as Las Vegas, which pays residents to rip up their lawns, but it helps schools and parks install artificial turf. And, it runs a Water Conservation Garden to showcase the types of native flora that belong in front yards. It's a philosophy known as "xeriscaping."

"Because the climate is so mild here, you can grow anything you want if you pour enough water on it," says Marty Eberhardt, the garden's executive director. "But now people are saying, 'I'd better take out my lawn.'" In its place, Eberhardt suggests brittlebrush, sage and primrose, or lilac, succulent, rosemary and agave. When San Diegans begin planting those desert flowers, it will be a sign that the city is finally learning to live in its own landscape. This is not just aesthetic: Eberhardt estimates that 50 to 70 percent of San Diego's water is used for outdoor landscaping. Grass is the county's most irrigated plant.

"My gut feeling is we're not going to have a choice," Eberhardt says. "All the global warming predictions show we might be in a multi-, multi-year drought."

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