OCR Text |
Show Spotlight Falls on Nation's Growing Demand for Water The ton of steel in the average automobile uses 285 tons of water to convert from iron ore. Each gallon of gasoline whose waste fumes intensify Los Angeles' An-geles' smog problem takes 25 times that amount of water to make. No one is urging Americans to jettison the funny papers from their culture, but to soil conservationists conser-vationists they constitute one of the problems that plague a nation na-tion that consumes 1,250 pounds of water for a five-pound Sunday newspaper, says the Christian Science Monitor. These statistics were cited at the 12th annual conference of the Soil Conservation Society of America to impress the experts that water is not just something you down in a crystal glass. They are cited to show that water is the most used material moving through our factories. The nation's water problem means that the U. S. uses 1500 tons of fresh water per person per year in agriculture and industry. in-dustry. Former President Truman's Materials Policy Commission has figured the nation's water needs will practically double in the 25 year span ending in 1975. How are we fixed for water? Dr. Omar S. Kelley of Saltsville, Md., says the answer depends on where we are living. "In some areas we have too much water at times and in other areas not enough. But it's safe to say that there are few places in the world without some kind of serious water problem." If it's not drought, its floods. "Arizona, California and New Mexico and the High Plains of Texas are presently using water in much greater amounts than the rate of recharge. Many of these farm areas developed at extremely large costs are facing imminent abandonment due to falling water tables." What can research do to forecast fore-cast more accurately the safe rate of withdrawal and get surplus sur-plus waters back into the underground under-ground aquifiers? Dr. Kelley says taking salt out of the ocean water is "one of the most striking developments with respect to total water supply." j But there's a long way to go be-1 fore an economic level is made. Research here and in Australia is said to have shown that certain chemical compounds greatly reduce re-duce evaporation from the surface sur-face of lakes and reservoirs. But the problem of keeping a chemical chemi-cal iflm over the entire surface of the water is not yet licked. The wind and the waves break the film and there is the problem prob-lem of how to keep it from spoiling spoil-ing the wild ducks' fun or nullifying nulli-fying other possible uses of the water. So far, says Dr. Kelley, our big hope is in the sky, and the big research quest in the last decade has to do with hauling more water out of it. The rainmakers rain-makers still have big hurdles. One-third of the nation's irrigation irri-gation water is lost by seepage in the canals and laterals, and until they can be economically lined, research has to keep digging. dig-ging. While water is only one of the many items that farmers have to deal with, the chief of the Research Branch says it is only through efficient use and conservation of soil and water resources that the nation can continue to supply the food and fiber to meet the needs of a population pop-ulation that is growing at a rate of two million persons a year. |