The Plunder of Our Water Supply Has Already Begun

Time for one of our periodic checks on the planet’s water supply and who’s doing what with it, because the situation is getting dire everywhere. There are Nazi ghost ships rising from their watery graves in the Danube. From Reuters:

The vessels were among hundreds scuttled along the Danube by Nazi Germany's Black Sea fleet in 1944 as they retreated from advancing Soviet forces, and still hamper river traffic during low water levels. However, this year's drought — viewed by scientists as a consequence of global warming — has exposed more than 20 hulks on a stretch of the Danube near Prahovo in eastern Serbia, many of which still contain tonnes of ammunition and explosives and pose a danger to shipping.

There are ripple effects, and then there are ripple effects. And then there are the sudden appearance of fully loaded Nazi ghost ships in the middle of vital waterways. Apparently, the world’s waterways have served as all-purpose dumping grounds for everything from possible mob victims in Lake Mead to Roman infrastructure in the Tiber to a collection of prehistoric dolmen called the “Spanish Stonehenge.” As the fifth chapter of Luke’s gospel tells us: For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. This includes Nazi ghost ships.

But that’s not the most ominous water news of the moment. For that, we have to come back to this country and visit Arizona, which went long on a bad ideas and is paying a fearsome price. From Arizona PBS:

Arizona is leasing farmland to a Saudi water company, straining aquifers, and threatening future water supply in Phoenix. Fondomonte, a Saudi company, exports the alfalfa to feed its cows in the Middle East. The country has practically exhausted its own underground aquifers there. In Arizona, Fondomonte can pump as much water as it wants at no cost.

Groundwater is unregulated in most rural areas of the state. Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually. The State Land Department says the market rate is $50 dollars per acre and it provides a 50% discount because it doesn’t pay for improvements. But the $25 per acre price is about one-sixth of the market price for unimproved farmland with flood irrigation today, according to Charlie Havranek, a Realtor at Southwest Land Associates.

Three-rail shot: a Saudi water company leases pieces of Arizona, and at cut-rate prices. So the Saudi water company can grow alfalfa for Saudi cows while draining the aquifers that serve Arizonans. The Saudi water company is raiding Arizona’s groundwater because Saudi Arabia has nearly exhausted its own supply—an exchange that ought to put other states on high alert.

Treating water like a revenue source is a terrible idea on its face, but charging bargain-basement prices for a terrible idea is an even more terrible idea. Water cannot be a commodity. It’s not pork bellies or cotton futures. Without it, all life dies.

Nazi ghost ships might be the least of our problems.