Water must be treated as a commodity

© 2007 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

Are we in New Mexico working toward a sustainable water supply? No. Rather, we are using political solutions for non-political water-supply problems. The Swickard Principle: Never use a political solution for anything other than a political problem.

The problem with water supply is that we are not treating water as a commodity, where, when there is increased demand, there is a move to increase supply. The government’s solution, instead, is to urge conservation. Another Swickard Principle: You can never conserve your way to plenty.

Look at gasoline prices. The government limits the supply by policies of limited drilling and no new refineries. When supply is constrained, prices rise. The solution to rising gas prices is to increase supply.

There is plenty of water, even in arid New Mexico. The issue is affordable water. You can purchase all of the bottled water you want. But the cost is too high to use it for all your water needs.

With conservation, each citizen uses less. Does that solve the problem? No. Conservation only works if there are no new citizens. Let us say you only flush or shower when the smell compels you. Lot of good you do if you strictly conserve and a hundred new people move into your city. Even with your personal sacrifice the supply problem increases.

The only way to have a sustainable supply of water is to treat it as a commodity. Rather than conservation or hoping for more rain, water must be made available on demand.

Water quality is an issue

Importantly, we must recognize a core issue of water supply that has not surfaced, so to speak. All water is not equal. One gallon of water is not like all gallons of water. There is a difference in water quality or we would not buy it in stores. Water is not fungible.

Fungible means that one commodity is equal to another. The City of Las Cruces can buy natural gas in Farmington and take delivery in a pipe from El Paso. The molecules of natural gas bought in Farmington are not the molecules delivered because natural gas is fungible. The dealer in Farmington puts a certain number of decatherms of natural gas into any pipeline while Las Cruces takes out of the El Paso supply pipeline the same number of decatherms of natural gas. Natural gas is fungible.

Water is not. There are minerals, salts and metals in water. The amounts and types vary. Some cause turbid odors and bad taste. A measure of this is described as total parts per million of dissolved solids (TDS). This is the total amount of minerals, salts or metals dissolved in a given volume of water.

This ratio of stuff in the water to the volume of water influences the quality and usability of the water. If the TDS is under 100, the water is very valuable. If the TDS is over 3,000, the water is not. If you put water with a TDS of 800 in your coffee pot, it will leave a white residue along with producing a taste that some find distressing.

Nuclear-powered desalinization is the solution

The solution is that our water supply must be made. Further, it must be made with a TDS under 100. And, it must be made at ocean’s edge. Local desalinization is stopgap since the water under our arid lands is vast but not infinite.

Ultimately, our water must be desalinated at the ocean’s edge and transported in a very large pipe to New Mexico. The only way to do so is to use nuclear power.

Nuclear power will be used much more frequently in the future for electric generation. The only question is when our country’s needs will overcome the political opposition. Nuclear generation of electricity frees the fossil fuels currently being used. These then are available for other needs, thereby lowering fuel costs in areas of home heating and transportation.

Additionally, having more nuclear power plants allows for large desalinization projects at ocean’s edge to replace the current efforts to buy distant water rights and ship that water to metropolitan areas. That is very expensive and leaves those areas without water.

Once nuclear powered desalination is the method for producing water in California, it will spread to Arizona and then New Mexico. When there is increased demand, all it will take is bigger pipes and more plants.

Three things will make this compelling: the purity, the cleanliness and the dependable supply of water that can be increased upon demand. The economies of scale will make it affordable at the total volume that is needed for all major towns to have this water.

We may not have the political will to do so, yet. One day, however, that is how our water will be supplied. It is just a matter of time.

Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.