For World Water Day, Bruce Murphy puts US water use into perspective.
Stephen Grigory, a San Antonio-based piping consultant, estimates that in his area “each time a golfer plays a round of golf it takes between 2,200 and 3,500 gallons of water to support his game based on golf course average water use.” San Antonio’s 56 golf courses alone suck up 6.4 billion gallons of water per year. To put that figure in perspective, consider that in Africa, average daily human consumption is 47 liters, or about 12.5 gallons. That means the San Antonio golf courses’ annual water consumption equals about that of 1.5 million Africans.
Water to Burn? (Morning News)
Actually, San Antonio sits on top of the Edwards Aquifer, and almost 100% of the water used for agriculture, including golf course watering, returns to the aquifer. Water trucked in for the Africans living in a desert is just lost, never to be seen again.
Oh, yeah, totally! The Don’t Worry, We’ve Got a Magic Aquifer plan seems to be going really well.
Every time I turn on a tap, I cross my fingers and hold my breath and wish really hard that I’ll always have all this free-flowing, clean water at my fingertips, and that my daughter will too. Do you think that’s gonna work? Gee, I sure hope so!
My point is that it does no good to decry a deplorable situation (drought in Africa) and point to an example that looks like waste, but isn’t (San Antonio golf course watering). Then you redirect further to a similar but different situation (the Guadalupe River Basin) where one person is expressing his personal opinion.
The water situation in Central Texas is a topic similar to politics and religion, where everyone has an opinion, and if you don’t agree with them, you’re wrong, period. I lived in San Antonio for a number of years, and the water situation was always in the news, from people against creating a new resevoir, to people wanting limits on other people’s water usage. They track the level of the aquifer like the Boston people track the total accumulation of snow. There are times when water usage is restricted, and there are bans on yard watering, and there are times when flash floods cause an over-abundance of water.
The problem in Central Texas is not lack of water, but how to save it when there’s too much, so you can use it when there’s much less. The problem in Africa is that people insist on living in deserts.
I grew up in a desert, El Paso, Texas, where there were times when you could crawl across the Rio Grande on your knees and not get wet. But people still live there, and many of them have outdoor pools. They also have cactus gardens, and “lawns” made of crushed rock. Water is available, even there, but it is a precious resource. If there wasn’t enough water, I know people would move away.
Please don’t let this make you think I don’t enjoy the ‘vark. Though I don’t often comment, I read you regularly, and like your posts, even those I don’t agree with. Thanks for your work.
I’m still not seeing anywhere in the article where anyone suggests that if people just stopped watering golf courses in Texas, people living in African desert would magically receive water. My “redirection” was to the site of the fellow quoted in regard to the golf situation, which is linked in the article itself. I can only conclude that you didn’t read the article, which is fine by me, but it doesn’t give us much of a basis for discussing it.
The problem in Africa is that people insist on living in deserts.
If only they would all move to San Antonio! Maybe they could live on the golf courses.