Sustainable Water Policy Challenges

[cross-post from California Planning, March 2015, Vol. 15, Issue 02, p. 8 (here)]

Imagine waking up one morning, turning on the tap, and water does not flow . . . , for the next 1,000 years, or it’s saltwater, or toxic! Extreme paranoia or our new normal? Hopefully the former! Yet each day we read stories about continuing seawater intrusion, the worst drought in 100 years, fracking and other sources of ground water contamination, some of which are permitted by regulators, and the specter of a substantially dryer southwestern United States, including California. In addition, climate change presents society with complex uncertainties about future climate conditions, varying from the semi-benign to cataclysmic . . . (read more on page 8).

[Post prepared by Scott T. Edmondson, AICP, founder/past co-director and Research Program Lead of the Northern Section’s Sustainability Committee, one of the APA Sustainable Communities Division’s Sustainability Champions, and a strategic sustainability planner-economist at the SF Planning Department.]

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