Insights

Over 70% of our Earth's surface is covered by water.¹ Although seemingly abundant, the real issue is the amount of fresh water available.

• 97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water.
• Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; most of the remainder is present as soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater not accessible to human use.
• < 1% of the world's fresh water (~0.007% of all water on earth) is accessible for direct human use. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis.

Earlier this year, Toledo Ohio Mayor Michael Collins issued an emergency water advisory resulting from toxins produced by algae in Lake Erie that got into the city's water supply. Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake (by surface area) of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally or twelfth largest globally if measured in terms of surface area.² It is the southernmost, shallowest and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes³ and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time.  The Western Lake Erie Basin is the largest watershed in the Great Lakes, covering 4.5 million acres. 

From August 2 to August 4, approximately 500,000 people were without clean tap water to drink or with which to cook.  The only available option for residents was bottled and trucked-in water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Ohio Gov. John Kasich even declared a state of emergency for three counties as a result of the finding.

In 2011, Lake Erie endured an extreme bloom that turned waters green and closed beaches due to health risks.  According to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the primary sources of nutrient pollution are runoff of fertilizers, animal manure, sewage treatment plant discharges, storm water runoff, car and power plant emissions and failing septic tanks.  The Lake Erie algae bloom incident established that there remains a lot more work to do to ensure adequate water supplies for now and into the future. 

Oddly, there are no federal standards on safe levels for drinking algae-tainted water and no guidelines for treating or testing it either.  Ohio, Oregon, Minnesota, Florida and Oklahoma have set their own drinking water standards for microcystin, which can cause headaches or vomiting when swallowed and can be fatal to dogs and livestock.  Most of those states rely on a measurement suggested by the World Health Organization. 

The present world population of nearly six billion people use nearly 30% of the world's total accessible renewal supply of water. By 2025, that number may reach 70%.⁴ Yet billions of people lack basic water services, and millions die each year from water-related diseases. With this in mind, energy costs remain a major area of concern for public utilities and municipalities.  In the U.S. alone, municipalities spend nearly $4 billion annually on energy, while consuming almost 3 percent of the nation's energy resources and contributing about 45 million tons of greenhouse gases per year.⁵ 

The water dilemma - to produce more in a sustainable way with less water – creates the need for demand management mechanisms to reallocate existing supplies, encourage more efficient use and promote more equitable access. Policy-makers need to establish a structure of incentives, regulations, permits, restrictions and penalties that will help guide, influence and coordinate how people use water while encouraging innovations in water-saving technologies.