As Groundwater Dwindles, Powerful Players Block Change

Here are some of the people fighting efforts to conserve a vital resource that’s disappearing across the United States.

November 24, 2023

In much of the country, groundwater is being withdrawn faster than it can be replaced, a problem that states are struggling to address. And, as a New York Times investigation this summer found, the result has been declining water levels in nearly half the sites for which data is available.

The federal government plays no role in regulating groundwater extraction, leaving that to individual states, but a growing number of advocates and experts say Washington must intervene to protect the country’s depleting aquifers.

Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University, said the federal government should set minimum requirements for groundwater conservation, then step in when states fail to enforce those requirements, much like the Environmental Protection Agency’s approach to drinking water quality.

“The way we’ve been doing business cannot go on,” Dr. Lall said.

Ali Zaidi, the national climate adviser to President Biden, declined to directly say whether the federal government should take on groundwater supply.

The reluctance to talk about groundwater regulation isn’t surprising, according to Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat of California, a former attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and onetime director of the Marin Municipal Water District.

“They regard this as a hot stove they don’t want to touch,” said Mr. Huffman, the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries.

That’s because many Americans view the water under their land as “this domain of individual liberty, that nobody wants the federal government, or even the states, to have authority over,” he said in an interview.

“It just has to get really bad,” Mr. Huffman added, “before something like that happens.”

...

For complete article, please visit source link below. 


By:  Christopher Flavelle & Mira Rojanasakul
Source: New York Times