OpEd: Water use figures don't tell whole story
OpEd: Water use figures don't tell whole story
Guest Opinion
Water use figures don't tell whole story
by Scotty Cornelius
Moscow-Pullman Daily News, July 22, 2011
Cornelius
The report on Washington State University's water usage by Christina Lords (Daily News, July 9) extols their low water consumption for 2010. Let's put that into perspective. The 2010 growing season was significantly cooler than average, and June and September received much higher than normal rainfall, so all the major pumpers pumped less in 2010 than in 2009. WSU's pumpage was down the least at 4 percent. Moscow's pumpage was down 5.1 percent, Pullman's 6.6 percent and the University of Idaho's 8.5 percent. The city of Palouse used 11.9 percent less water.
WSU is to be commended for its many conservation efforts. But when it comes to consumption of a finite resource from which we all share and benefit, WSU does not exhibit total commitment. WSU's expansion of its golf course is an egregious use of this precious and limited resource. Our aquifer level is still dropping, and expansive irrigation has no place on the Palouse, whether it is for Naylor Farms or a golf course in WSU's backyard. Just because you've been a good boy in your front yard doesn't excuse being a bad boy in your backyard.
How is WSU able to legally pump all the water it wants when pumping from a limited underground reservoir? WSU acquired water rights to vast amounts of water decades prior to the current understanding of our aquifer, and it is now recognized that WSU has rights to water that likely doesn't exist. When expanding its golf course, WSU ignored its own water plan, which stated that the golf course would not be expanded until a source of recycled water was in place. Our aquifer level has been declining for 40 years, which is why the Washington Department of Ecology hasn't issued a new water right in Whitman County since 1992. But WSU believes it has the legal right to ignore science and pump our aquifer for expansive irrigation for an amenity not even central to the WSU mission.
Let's consider why water is precious. Almost all drinking water consumed everywhere is in some way recycled water, whether the source is from rivers or groundwater. For example, the Spokane aquifer, the source of Spokane drinking water, is an underground river. This water consists in part of treated municipal and industrial wastewater and water that has passed through farm ground. In contrast, the groundwater we consume is not an underground river, but is instead stationary, thousands of years old, and is only being slowly recharged. Much of it seeped underground when mastodons roamed the Palouse. Thus, predating the industrial age, it contains no farm chemicals, industrial wastes, drugs or endocrine disrupters. We are blessed with a water supply unsurpassed by any on Earth, one whose quality cannot be replaced by water from the Snake or Palouse rivers.
While WSU is proud that it is using less water, a more central question is this: How much water does it really need? And if the university is getting by with less water, why are its administrators spending tens of thousands of dollars on attorney fees to protect paper water rights that they do not need? What do they plan to do with these rights? Sell them?
The WSU administration needs to adhere to its own executive policy manual, which states in part: "WSU is committed to improve its performance in sustainability in all areas of operation to meet the needs of current generations without impairing the ability to meet the needs of future generations."
Scotty Cornelius is a 40 year resident of the Palouse with a focus on sustainability issues.
July 22, 2011