Interior Launches WaterSmart Initiative

Interior Launches WaterSmart Initiative. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has signed a Secretarial order establishing a new water sustainability strategy for the United States called WasterSmart. The "SMART" in WaterSMART stands for "Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow." The Secretarial Order has several parts, all of which are focused on improving water conservation and helping water and resource managers make wise decisions about water use. SALAZAR: Unless we chart a new course, we will be left with water shortages and water crisis that could affect almost every community all across this country. The federal government's existing water policies and programs simply are not built for a 21st century pressures that we face today. We have population growth, climate change, rising energy demands, environmental needs, aging infrastructure, risks to drinking water supply and those are just some of the challenges that we face. We in the United States can do better. The order was signed at a press conference featuring a geospatial presentation on water supply and demand in the high-tech operations center at the Department's headquarters along with a detailed briefing by Anne Castle the Assistant Secretary for Science and Water. CASTLE: Countries shown in red are areas where they're using more per capita than the global average. You saw China in a very deep blue, and now you see the United States in the darkest red. We consume in America roughly three times per capita what the Chinese do. Consumption is one side of the water balance equation, the demand side, and supply is the other part. And we can't make the classic comparisons of water supply and demand without considering the dynamic side of the equation, the part that's changing due to population growth. That briefing connected several layers of population information and water availability analysis. It showed that the biggest use of water in the West was for irrigation purposes while energy production was the biggest use in the Eastern part of the United States. WaterSmart will provide a national framework to integrate and coordinate water sustainability efforts of the Department and its federal, state and private partners. WaterSMART will also support the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Census, which will be conducted for the first time in 30 years. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.