Essay 1 Rewrite

San Angelo, once known as the oasis of dry west Texas is now quickly becoming nothing more than a patch of dry dirt with a few buildings sitting on it. San Angelo has little more than a year’s supply of water left and is currently in Stage 3 drought, the most severe stage the region has ever declared. Stage 3 means that no watering of lawns is permitted, nor is the use of water to fill swimming pools. Recent rains in the area seem to promise a demotion to Stage 2 status; however the problem is nowhere near solved for long. There have been many ideas bandied around on how to fix this dilemma, one of those ideas is already in action, but is it the right idea or merely the cheapest?

The plans for the pipeline to the Hickory Aquifer, which is located about 60 miles away from San Angelo, have been slowing moving along for quite some time. However this plan has sparked much debate for the main reason that many residents feel that the Hickory Aquifer is an unsafe method of gaining the necessary water, while others argue that it is the only practical source.

Those for the project do their best to point out that the alternatives to the Hickory Aquifer are unconventional and unrealistically expensive to finance. For example, the desalination of brackish groundwater, a salty water that has a lower salt concentration than seawater, which is abundant in Texas would likely produce up to 16,050 acre-feet per year of water. This plan has a capital cost of $214 million. Plans for reducing water loss from evaporation, as cities lose more water from their reservoirs to the sun than they do to their residents, have a capital cost $13 million. Water reuse projects which could potentially provide up to 12,490 acre-feet per year of water would cost $131 million. These innovative plans are not funded by the federal government and would require some financing system before they could be adopted.

 Those against the project point out the snag in the Aquifer plan: the water has seven times the Environmental Protection Agency’s approved limit of radiation and the treatment facility, to rid the water of the radiation, will absolutely not be ready by the time the pipeline project is set to be complete, in mid 2013. Therefore, a plan has been made to dilute the radiation by mixing the water into the popular lake, Lake Nasworthy. Nasworthy is not only home to all sorts of recreational water activities, but also a plethora of wildlife, not limited to the native birds, fish, and nutria. This diluted radiation would then be pumped through every source of water, whether it be a residential home or a business, connected to the water line. This plan could have unforeseeable ramifications for every resident exposed to the potentially harmful radiation. However, this is the plan that San Angelo’s leaders have designated for the community, due to the fact that all of the water plans are unfunded by the federal government, leaving Texas grasping at straws that have no safe water attached.

            As it is unlikely that the funding will come through for any other source besides the Hickory Aquifer, it seems the residents of San Angelo Texas will simply, and quite literally, have to suck it up. Without the funding for a better, safer means of obtaining water, San Angelo has little choice but to continue with the plans for the Hickory Aquifer, no matter how detrimental it may prove to be at a later date. The arguments have reached stasis, in that those fighting against the project know that without some serious capital there is no way they can change the outcome of this project, they’ve agreed to disagree. The aquifer offers a solution. That is all. Nowhere did it say that it was a good solution. But then again I suppose beggars can’t be choosers, and San Angelo is begging for water.