permaculture

[loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com>]

"Whiskey is for drinkin' and water is for fightin' over."

If only we could survive on whiskey...

Loren Luyendyk
(805)-452-8249
Accredited Permaculture Teacher, PRI-AUS
ISA Certified Arborist WE-7805A
www.sborganics.com
www.surferswithoutborders.org
www.globalpermaculture.com




From: tagdesign@att.net
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2014 02:43:26 -0500
Subject: Fracking is using up billions of gallons of water in the places that 
need it most

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/fracking_is_using_up_billions_of_gallons_of_water_in_the_places_that_need_it_most/
WEDNESDAY, FEB 5, 2014 9:48 PM UTCFracking is using up billions of gallons of 
water in the places that need it mostThe country's most drought-prone areas 
are further strained by drilling, a new report findsLINDSAY ABRAMS   Follow
(AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)The tremendous drought that’s currently affecting 
California has the state anticipating the need to conserve its remaining 
water — Gov. Jerry Brown hasurged residents to cut their usage by 20 percent, 
and some are beginning to arguethat it’s time to make restrictions mandatary. 
As climate change worsens, we can expect dry periods like this — not just in 
California, but across wide swaths of the country — to get worse, the demand 
for water more pressing. And the 97 billion gallons of water needed to frack 
our oil and gas wells isn’t helping matters.Of the 4,000 oil and gas wells 
drilled in the U.S. since 2011, a new report from Ceres found, a full 
three-quarters owere located in areas of water scarcity. More than half — 55 
percent — were in areas experiencing drought. The Guardian reports on how 
fracking is increasingly competing with communities’ dwindling water 
supplies:A number of small communities in Texas oil and gas country have 
already run out of water or are in danger of running out of water in days, 
pushed to the brink by a combination of drought and high demand for water for 
fracking.Twenty-nine communities across Texas could run out of water in 90 
days, according to the Texas commission on environmental quality. Many 
reservoirs in west Texas are at only 25% capacity.Nearly all of the wells in 
Colorado (97%) were located in areas where most of the ground and surface 
water is already stretched between farming and cities, the report said. It 
said water demand for fracking in the state was expected to double to 6bn 
gallons by 2015 – or about twice as much as the entire city of Boulder uses 
in a year.In California, where a drought emergency was declared last month, 
96% of new oil and gas wells were located in areas where there was already 
fierce competition for water.“It’s a wake-up call,” James Famiglietti, a 
hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine, told the Guardian. “We 
understand as a country that we need more energy but it is time to have a 
conversation about what impacts there are, and do our best to try to minimise 
any damage.”