The White House wrapped up its day-long water summit on Tuesday with a dire warning about climate change that officials say is shriveling the American West.
An Interior Department report issued to coincide with the summit zeroes in on western states like California and others that have been facing water constraints and drought conditions in recent years, and says climate change is “a growing risk” for the states. It also projects wide-ranging impacts from depletion of groundwater to the loss of mountain snowpacks.
“One of the greatest challenges we face is dealing with the impacts of climate change on our nation’s water, which is really the lifeblood of our economy,” Deputy Interior Secretary Michael Connor said in an accompanying statement.
The report predicts a variety of problems throughout the states, including a 5 to 7 degree Fahrenheit temperature increase by the next century. Many scientists say if the Earth’s temperature goes up by more than 3.6 degrees, the effects could be catastrophic.
The report was issued ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in some western states like Arizona and Utah. It says both states will be impacted directly by climate change by limiting their access to water from the Colorado River Basin. The shrinking snowpack in the Colorado River Basin will mean water supplies will shrink for use in irrigation for crops, livestock and hydroelectric power plants, it said.
California will experience drastic increases in water demand, which will increase the need, and expense, of piping in more water from other states while also developing water recycling plants.
But with the potential for catastrophe comes an opportunity. The White House used the summit to underscore the need for new technologies to solve these problems, and announced more than $5 billion in private-sector investments from the likes of manufacturing giant GE.
The administration wants to offer “innovative strategies that will catalyze change in how we use, conserve, protect, and think about water in the years to come,” the White House said.
About 150 institutions committed to working with the administration to “accelerate development, demonstration and deployment of innovative technologies” to ensure that future generations have access to safe and reliable water resources, the White House added.
The investments include:
• $4 billion in private capital to invest in a broad range of water-infrastructure projects nationwide. That includes $1.5 billion from the firm Ultra Capital to finance scalable water-management solutions; and $500 million from the company Sustainable Water to develop water reclamation and reuse systems.
• More than $1 billion in private-sector funds for research and development. That includes $500 million from GE to develop advanced water, wastewater, and reuse technologies.
• The Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide $35 million in federal grants to support cutting-edge water science.
