East Coast has a giant offshore freshwater aquifer | Hacker News Reader

East Coast has a giant offshore freshwater aquifer

arstechnica.com

37 pointsPaulHoule24 comments

The aquifer goes from Martha’s Vineyard to New Jersey plus they are looking into tapping it.

OK, but on the east cost, there is no shortage. I believe the only issue is the throughput of water treatment, local governments unwilling to maintain and build plants. Many of these plants are over 50 years old and only been maintained using duct tape and bandaids ;)

So where would this water go, plus how with will it be treated or are they assuming it is "pure" and just pass it on without treatment ?

> OK, but on the east cost, there is no shortage.

Yeah, why are they talking about tapping offshore aquifers in areas that average 40+ inches (and increasing as of recent years) of rain a year? It seems to me a solution in search of a problem. It would be far cheaper to build land-based reservoirs and other water management infrastructure, as you mentioned.

Nestle wants to bottle it ?

I know you are joking, but a thought like that crossed my mind too.

Advert: Pure water from ~20,000 years ago before man.

I know homo-sapiens were around, and maybe on the east coast. But Marketing People tend to make up things so they will sell :)

Private equity bought the Nestle water business. Now it’s owned by One Rock Capital.

vom Regen in die Traufe

It is hard to grasp that this thing that falls freely from the sky and covers most of the surface of the earth is in short supply in its drinkable form for a growing part of our species, to the point that we're now looking at offshore platforms to find it.

Yet golf courses will be green till the end of civilisation.

USA annual rainfall = 7000 Billion Cubic Meter [1]

Annual rain water runoff = 2100 Billion Cubic Meter. As per source runoff could be between 10% to 50%, taking 30% as a value [2]

USA annual consumption = 445 Billion Cubic Meter [3]

So, looks like one has to harvest 20-25% of the rainwater to be self sufficient (without tapping into ANY of the current source of water.)

[1] https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/topics/Wat...

[2] https://www.britannica.com/science/climate-meteorology/Amoun...

[3] https://irrigreen.com/pages/water-consumption-statistics#:~:...

The problem with this analysis is it's hard to get the water from where it falls to where it's wanted.

There may be pie-in-the-sky ideas of a water pipeline from Alaska to California, or from the Great Lakes to Utah, but the costs are prohibitive.

It is not about directly tapping into the rainwater collection, but managing the rainwater run off into ocean.

'Watersheds' are meant for that, and development of that is a serious endevor.

When rain falls on dry ground, some of the water soaks in, or infiltrates the soil. Some water that infiltrates will remain in the shallow soil layer, where it will gradually move downhill, through the soil, and eventually enters the stream by seepage into the stream bank. Some of the water may infiltrate much deeper, recharging groundwater aquifers.

https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...

> managing the rainwater run off into ocean.

Right. But how does that get water from high rainfall watersheds to the various drying out watersheds Americans love to live in and farm in?

> Freshwater is perhaps the world’s most essential resource, but climate change is enhancing its scarcity

To be fair, so is population growth (responsible).

Humans are like any other species, we will continue reproducing till we consume all available resources.

We did so since ancient times. The difference is, that with technology we constantly push the limits.

Having to find a spring vs. digging a well. But digging too many wells means the groundwater level drops. So a need for a new technology like desalination, etc.

I am so ready for desalination. Let the corps buy the mountain water, I'll continue to drink from the tap, knowing that a regulatory body like Thames water will always look out for me here in Surrey.

Yup. Corps have their priorities straight. Like using rain water to keep the Panama Canal going.

Most developed countries now have below replacement level birth rates

Darwin has a solution.

There is a correlation with education - longer access to it leads to lower birth rates [1] so in this regard humans are not like any other species.

[1] https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

Unfortunately most of the world's population do not pursue longer education. We'll have wars over water and arable land in the near future.

I think education is really a proxy for something else. It’s common for animals to stop breeding when the social and environmental conditions aren’t their ideal, even if they are healthy.

Living in the city changes the cost of having children. When you live in the countryside children are free labour on a farm; when you move to the city they become a huge cost.

Not true. Birth rates fall in developed countries like clockwork. Access to opportunities and control over our reproduction slows the growth rate to or below replacement levels.

We grow until we develop then we stop.

It's the cost of living, having children, and the inconvenience of having them in the cities that drives the birth rates down. As populations move to the cities they find themselves with a high stack of bills so they stop having children. Money is a resource too.

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