Petrocollapse: Can you live without indoor running water?

Written by Jan Lundberg
Culture Change Letter #101

The answer to the question 'Can you live without indoor running water?' is simple: you'll have to. The passing of abundant oil is not shaping up to be a soft landing for those with the fattest asses. And in this world, we all know which nation leads the way in obesity. Contrast this with the image of slender villagers carrying water casks on their heads, and how their food supply tends to be very local: this will be the envy of U.S. consumers caught short.

You can live without functional plumbing, but you cannot live without water. Some indoor plumbing may work after the energy crisis hits with all its might. But, as this report endeavors to warn, the water in your outdoor environment -- such as it is -- will be what you live on (or that doesn't allow you to live at all). What a discovery for the nature deniers to experience. Will frightened hoards be the rule in U.S. cities rather than the exception?

The average amount of water consumed per capita in the U.S. is 183 gallons a day (1990; U.S. EPA). This reflects public water supply usage, and it's twice as high in the western U.S. as in the east. One reason is that irrigation uses 81% of water in the nation. Problems with irrigation: huge energy demand for pumping; drawdowns of ancient aquifers, and salinization.

In Mesopotamia the salinization and deforestation once characterized the beginning of Western Civilization's illustrious march of degrading resources for profit and empire, culminating in today's occupation of Mesopotamia by the U.S. (The serpent is eating its tail.) Clean water is hard to come by in Iraq: 39% of the people don't have it. Deliberate bombing of water treatment and other such facilities has gone on through three U.S. presidents. Petroleum dependence for pumping, when petroleum is lacking in Iraq of all places, is another reason for poor supply. The contamination from petrochemicals and depleted uranium in Iraq is yet another matter for us water piggies in the U.S. to ignore as long as possible.

Back in the USA: picture the state of mind of ornery citizens if four in ten people had really bad or insufficient water. It will be over 9 in 10 come petrocollapse. This is because of the extreme dependence on massively complex and centralized water supply systems that are run with mainly energy or materials from oil and natural gas. Although most of the systems run on electrical energy, and coal is the largest source of electrical energy, there is still a petroleum infrastructure involved: necessary to keep coal supplies moving and for running any system in the U.S. today. Also, petrocollapse -- System Collapse -- is going to bring down the coal sector as well, although not as fast as bringing down the petroleum-supplied aspect of the grid.

Although "every effort" will be made to keep water systems pumping and purifying, when supplies of fuel run short and other systems in the economy are affected and come to a standstill, the basics of industrial progress will show their vulnerability to bad planning and overpopulation. [Community solutions, covered later in this essay, may hold some hope for water supply.]

Water "return flow" means supplies recycled, such as in grey water gathered for the garden, as opposed to lost as in irrigation. Next time you see someone using a gallon of fresh water to wash a spoon, ask the person if that water could be useful for growing tomatoes -- on the balcony if there's no garden.

The U.S. is going to have to throw certain laws and regulations out the window if people are going to use greywater and take other measures for sustainable living. If for some reason water privatization accelerates before petrocollapse, and price rates jump, the behavior of militant Bolivians could be the model in the U.S.A. The U.S. corporation in question was ejected from Bolivia by protesters, and the nation's official leadership lost almost all its clout. [Later in this column: water politics and water history.]

U.S. officials in power today will be laughed about in future, if they're lucky. One hears of future hatred for our whole generation, even of everyone alive today -- although that's going too far.

I try not to pay too much mind to the constant errors and schemes of the wealthy elite and power players. I wish I could say it's because I'm busy writing songs. My main job that I don't like to be distracted from is to point out the main runaway freight trains on the tracks: a collapsing economy and nature batting last. It sure would be nice if the little boys in DC and London (and in most capital cities) would behave themselves, but what can ya do? Vote for a different little boy? It's too late to stop the train wrecks starting to overshadow human drama of the so-called status quo.

I say "so-called" because the status quo of almost anything is going to soon become history. There's good and bad in that, but those many people and other species that don't make it are not going to appreciate the good aspects of complete collapse.

Running water will be cut off and "the pump don't work," not because, as Bob Dylan sang "the vandals took the handles." It will be because energy, usually petroleum, is used for pumping water from major sources a long way from and to the now-teeming cities and wasteful factory-farms. Meanwhile, even drawing some cold water out of one's tap means warming the globe due to pumping-energy. Oops, well at least "I turn the tap off when I'm brushing my teeth."


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