LaurelFirestone

Great question! I think there is a natural human tendency to want to grab as much as they can of a scarce resource when it seems to threaten their survival. It is the classic tragedy of the commons challenge in many ways. So the key is creating legal, institutional and cultural shifts that allow us to think of our future and survival as shared with our neighbors. There are lots of examples of that happening. For example, the community of Farmersville extended water lines to a small community outside their City boundaries that didn't have safe water.

We need to shift how we think about water in particular, though. It is truly a human right and something no one can live without. CA passed the Human Right to Water Act in 2012 that says that it is the policy of the state that all human have a right to safe clean and affordable water for their basic human needs. I think that captures it right. The key is ensuring a basic amount can be affordable to all. Our current water rights and water financing systems need to shift to really achieve this, though.

Safe, clean and affordable drinking water is a basic human right! We have to address root causes of problems to achieve that - water protection, diversity in water leadership, and democratic water decision-making. And we have to look for shared solutions with our neighbors.

Secondary water markets are certainly very much part of the daily lives of low-income communities. Nearly everyone we work with carries five gallon jugs to fill up at a local water vending machine, buys bottled water, or has a filter of some kind in their home. I think the real challenge is that communities aren't able to access good information on what is in their water and how these different sources compare in terms of quality and safety. The information that exists is confusing even to me and I do this for a living! I think that everyone should have the ability to access reliable, affordable safe water from the tap. But until that is possible people will continue to look elsewhere. Additionally, I think to keep water affordable in the long-term, we will need to start to do dual plumbing and not treat the water we use for non-potable needs. It is crazy to treat water we use in irrigation and in toilets to such high water quality standards.

Desalination is a super important technology. But the places that it is most needed and makes the most sense is actually in-land where we can take out salts and contaminants like nitrogen from contaminated water, and where we have the most communities without access to safe drinking water (or now in the drought without access to water at all). I don't know a lot about coastal desal, but I do know that it is expensive and there are environmental concerns, but some Cities are very actively pursuing it in California.