How Does The Pool Industry React To Worldwide Water Shortage?

by Eric Herman June 21, 2012 7:00 AM

photo of Hoover DamIn 1913, Philadelphia became the first major city in the U.S. to use chlorine to sanitize its public water supply. At the time, for more than a century, the City of Brotherly Love had been ahead of the curve in North America with its first sewage and drinking water systems dating all the way back to 1801.

Within months after the introduction of chlorine and modern filtration of water drawn from the Delaware and Schuykill rivers, the city’s incidents of infection from waterborne diseases — dysentery, typhoid, typhus and others — dropped more than 90 percent.

Within a few years, a majority of municipalities followed suit and the modern era of reliable potable water at the tap began. The development of these systems stands as an investment in infrastructure that is equaled only by the creation of our electrical power grids and interstate highway system.

That’s all a big part of why few of us in this country have ever had to think much about the availability of fresh water. At worst, we’ve been confronted by rising utility costs in some areas and the occasional annoyance of restrictions due to drought conditions, which often amount to little more than refraining from rinsing down driveways, watering lawns, having to request water in restaurants and very occasionally restricting water used to fill swimming pools.

Overall, we’ve enjoyed more than a century of abundant fresh water, the most crucial resource needed to sustain human life. And until very recently, we’ve used it as though it was available in endless supply. Unfortunately, that era of ignorant bliss is very likely coming to an end.

A crisis is looming caused by dwindling water supplies are increasing demand for the stuff — for farming, urban use, recreation and to sustain natural eco-systems. Here in the southwest, for example, reservoir levels are disturbingly low and years of below-normal rainfall are becoming the norm. You don’t have to do much digging to see direct evidence of the coming era of aquatic austerity. In California, a day’s drive through the San Joaquin Valley’s vast farm regions reveals huge tracks of barren land where water restrictions have caused what some call the “Congress-Created Dust Bowl.” Or, if you visit Lake Meade, the country’s largest man-made body of water (courtesy of the Hoover Dam) you see a massive “bathtub ring” of calcium carbonate deposits that reaches close to 100 feet above the current water line. And there are scores of articles online about the impacts of water shortages and dreary prognostications of a future defined by battles over water.

And that’s here in the U.S., where we have it pretty good. When you look beyond our borders and especially to developing nations, the picture goes from worrisome to tragic.

According to a number of sources including UNICEF and the World Health Organization, as of 2012, a staggering 884 million people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water, that’s just about three times the population of the U.S. Each year, approximately 3.5 million people, just under the population of Los Angeles, die of water-related diseases and lack of sanitation, a number that vastly exceeds deaths attributable to the world’s various wars.

I bring this up here not out of any do-gooder hand-wringing, guilt or doomsday rap, but because as an industry that relies on water as our primary product, and as one that possesses know-how and technology to help conserve this precious resource, I’m thinking we need to be ahead of the curve on this issue.

Rather than wait for crisis points where we can’t fill pools, spas and other aquatic features, we should embrace things like chemical treatment regimens and filtration technologies that help conserve water. We should promote the use of covers to reduce evaporation and heat loss, embrace landscape schemes that require less irrigation, and offer rainwater capture systems in conjunction with aquatic features. We need to do all of that and arm ourselves with facts that support the concept that pools and other features are not water wasters, but can be used as reservoirs that help protect this resource.

Also, it might not be such a bad idea for some of us to get involved on some level with organizations that are working to bring fresh water to people throughout the world that need it most. After all, in a world so rich with resources and brimming with human ingenuity, it’s really not too much to ask that all people can face their days without worrying where their next sustaining drink of water will come from.

Comments or thoughts on this article? Please e-mail eric@aquamagazine.com.

 



Eric Herman, former editor of WaterShapes, is senior editor at AQUA magazine.

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Comments (5) -

6/21/2012 1:47:05 PM #

world wide water shortage is a state of mind..... rediculous.... and more..... More being the amount of water , h2l that is being distilled by evaporation of the ocean, 80% of the earths surface, and considering "global warming" is increasing the evaporation.... if you get sucked in on global warming being caused by man...... the real thing is what the perception of the average public is .... recognizing that the press and tv and star struck scientists are pushing ...... Your local politicians and bylaws that are being used to say to us that we are running out of water is fueling a fear factor that is Working...... What is needed is the need to hire people to provide us with enough of that rain, no matter where it falls, to bring it to where ever we set up shop...... excluding death valley and the such......  locally in the PNW we even had a ban on allocating glasses of water at your restaurant  unless asked for ......  in the PNW it could only mean that the locals hired to supply water to everyone are incompetents .....

patrick venton

6/24/2012 11:00:27 AM #

The UN is pushing a concept called "Agenda 21" and as I understand it, it is basically a plan to control resources, including water, worldwide through "sustainable" building, control of private property, forcing people into more easily controlled central cities with public transportation, etc.

I know a wonderful family from China. The patriarch of this family escaped from Shangahi on the last boat out as the communists were taking over  when he was a boy. His family owned a home in the town they fled from. The communists took the home, tore it down and built a high rise there.  The desendants of a "remaining" family member are "allowed" to live there today. Sound familiar?

I am all for conserving resources- voluntarily. It is what sensible people do. However, I am not in favor of buying into anything the UN pushes. This corrupt organization is all about sustaining itself with our resources,  making a buck and increasing power over everyone else's resources. Follow the money. Remember "Oil for Food"? My land is my land. My business is my business. My resources are earned by me. They do not belong to the UN. They do not belong to the government.

I refuse to be scared into turning over my freedom and private property to the control freaks who attempt to control us all in the name of "the collective".  When I see the bigshots at the UN controlling their own sustainablility, restricting their own lifestyles, then I will take their concerns about "scarce resources more seriously. I bet they expect their glass of water with their  fine Scotch and only worry about restricting it when it is ours. That bothers me- a lot. Ask yourself this- why  did they all fly to Rio ( first class or on private planes, I betcha) and put themselves up in the finest hotels to have a meeting  concerning how to restrict the lifestyles of the rest of us if there really is some "crisis"?  If global warming, sustainablility, etc.etc. was that big a deal, wouldn't they be video conferencing over the internet to save resources? Makes you kind of wonder, doesn't it?

Merry

6/27/2012 1:13:27 PM #

In my opinion, regardless of your personal beliefs about the "water crises," finding ways to conserve water when and where you can will never be a bad thing. Until there is a viable way to either collect rainwater from a much, much wider area, or convert ocean / sea water into drinking water, we would all do well to be conscious of how we treat our resources. So long as there are areas of the world that CAN'T get fresh drinking water, I will remain concerned that it could definitely happen to me in my area - and you in your area!

Again, regardless of your personal views, your reputation as a business will be under the scrutiny of thousands of people who DO believe that there is a water crises, and it is what our customers believe that really will make a difference in our businesses.

In the pool industry, we are automatically put under a spotlight. Our industry is contingent on the ability for consumers to put large amounts of water into a pool in order to use it for recreational purposes. If areas continue to experience severe droughts, there is a good chance legislation will be brought up that makes it much more difficult to fill pools. Its not even necessarily the original filling of the pool that is the biggest concern, it is the fact that evaporation will require you to continuously be topping up your pool over the season. In some areas, the entire contents of a swimming pool will evaporate over a single season! That is thousands of gallons of water per pool per year.

Again, in my opinion, if the Pool Industry wants to amp up its water-smart reputation, every authority figure should be recommending pool covers for every pool to reduce the rate of evaporation and conserve up to 50% of the water a pool loses.

Monique Nelson, Flexible Solutions
www.liquidpoolcovers.com

Monique Nelson

6/28/2012 2:40:26 PM #

Here, here Monique! The over politicizing of this country has frozen the ability for progress in some very vital areas.  This isn't a matter of picking sides or yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. What it comes down to here is attitude and perception. And if you want facts just start reading and looking around you. This isn't propaganda. The fact of the matter is that all of mankind from day one has had a terribly wrong perception of water as being this eternal resource that will magically cleanse all the sins of society. In particular the industrialized nations who for so long and even still today see water as a way of disposing of waste and making it go away from thier little part of the world. This is why government has to get involved. The EPA clean water act is one example. It is horrific to me the lack of forethought that people had when it comes to water supply. One example would be that up until the early seventies straight raw sewage was being pumped into the Misissippi River. Industrialized agriculture has been responsible for washing tons of algae enriching nutrient into lakes and rivers which causes eutrophication, fish kills and higher evaporation. So, I suppose to use the term "shortage" or say there is a crisis in the lack of water is incorrect. There is and always will be plenty of water on the planet. That is not the problem. The problem is how we treat the water we have and the nonchalant attitude that has existed for so long in protecting it. Where the shortage crisis comes in is when we pollute the 1% usable water we have leaving less for the increased demand.  If we don't act to promote conservation and innovate ways to purify and restore water our industry( which in case you haven't noticed relies on water) will eventually be regulated out of existence. We can point fingers, cry foul, big government and blame the UN. What we should be doing instead is championing innovation that takes what we are all responsible for tainting and restores it.  We need to treat the water we use with respect and recognize it as the precious and vital resource that it is. Our water supplies shouldn't be viewed as dumping sites for waste as they have for so long. Water should be viewed with a concern for making and keeping it pure! Plain and simple our industry should lead the way in showing our customers that our goal is to make all water better, including what they are swimming or soaking in.

Terry Arko

6/30/2012 3:06:36 PM #



Imagine if the pool and hot tub owners in this area had systems in place to make the water in them as pure as drinking water. Imagine if the pool industry began to innovate and promote these kinds of ideas. See article below:

WSSC issues water restrictions; Laurel pools closed Saturday after power outage

High winds and pelting rain brought little relief to the current heat wave Friday night, and led to some new challenges: power outages, downed trees, water restrictions and a few fires outside Laurel that Prince George's fire officials say were caused by residents using candles for light.

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission Saturday issued mandatory water restrictions for all customers in Montgomery and Prince George's counties after Friday's storm left two water filtration plants and other facilities without power. In a release, WSSC officials said the restrictions are in place to allow for adequate water for fire-fighting and to ensure the water supply lasts until repairs are completed. Both Baltimore Gas and Electric and Pepco were working to restore power for WSSC, but officials could not say how long the water restrictions would be in place.

The water restrictions mandated by WSSC require the following:

• Stop all outside water use — no watering lawns, shrubs, flowers; no washing cars, no topping off swimming pools

Terry Arko

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