The first item on any preparedness list should always be fresh water. Whether you’re storing it or locating access points it is without a doubt the most critical element of any SHTF plan.
Without it you’re dead in 72 hours.
As we progress through the 21st century fresh water will become harder to find, especially fresh water that hasn’t been polluted by mass industrialization. In America, for the time being, we enjoy a fairly decent fresh water supply (we’ll avoid mentioning fluoride, lithium, radiation, pharmaceuticals and the host of other chemicals we find in America’s water supplies), especially when compared to the literally billions of people who don’t have access to anything remotely resembling filtered and treated water. Countries like India, China and the entire continent of Africa are all struggling to keep their populations hydrated.
As more people join the human population our water resources will become further strained. We use fresh water for everything. In the following video Future Money Trends notes that it often times reaches the point of ridiculousness:
Like oil, it takes water for many goods.
A cotton T-shirt: 400 gallons.
Denim jeans: 1,800 gallons.
A car: 39,000 gallons.
A barrel of beer: 1,500 gallons.
One ton of steel: 62,000 gallons.
Consider how much water it takes to grow our food, feed our animals, and ourselves.
The situation is serious.
It is our view that before the end of this century – probably even before we hit the halfway mark – super powers will go to war over water resources.
For the preparedness minded, we stress that any preparedness plan should include not just water storage planning, but water access planning that may include strategies such as rain harvesting. If you are looking to acquire a retreat property, access to water should be one of your primary considerations. Can you drill a well? Do you have access to a river that is near the mountains so that your supply is not contaminated? If not, do you have access to equipment such as an atmospheric water generator, or perhaps a manual desalinization system for those near oceans?
Future Money Trends warns that one of the largest aquifers in the world right here in the United States is going dry – and it will run out of fresh water within 60 years – and that’s if we don’t completely pollute the water table with chemicals, pesticides and radiation. Perhaps we have even less time.
We won’t run out of water tomorrow, but there may be a time in our lifetimes, and certainly in the lifetimes of the generation being born today, that water will be more valuable than anything else on the planet and very difficult to acquire. So difficult, in fact, that billions of humans may die as a result.
I also fear that we are quickly running out of drinkable water. Just look at Texas. Rivers ceasing to exist, fires starting just from the heat of the dried plants. I fear that there will be wars over water. I hope you all are somehow able to prepare for water shortages. Thankfully, I have a well, but if the aquifer disintegrates, then what? Good luck to all.
Come out West sometime. 🙂
Here in Oregon, water is definitely not a problem… we get way more than we want or need. OTOH, the parts of the Western US that aren’t the Pacific Northwest are a whole different story.
In Utah, Idaho, Western OR and WA, and Nevada… water rights are king. Land is cheap, but water rights are expensive as hell. When you buy property in these areas, water rights do not come with it unless you specify that in the purchase(which also means you’re not allowed to drill a well w/o them).
There have already been flare-ups and legal fights over water rights… see also this page: http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcrights/arcrights.html
Thing is, the populations are still rising but water supplies are still the same volume. This means less water to go around.
Now, when I lived in Utah (near Salt Lake City), we had two water meters/pipe systems: one for culinary (drinking), and one for secondary (irrigation, outdoor washing, outdoor use, etc). Culinary water was expensive, and you only used it for things like cooking, drinking, bathing, and laundry. Secondary water was cheap, but it only lasted until the catch-basins along the Wasatch front ran dry (in good years that was September-October, in bad years, mid-August).
Long story short, water is already, and has for quite awhile, been a contentious issue in some areas.
I don’t even want to know how bad it could get in places like Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Water is a *big* reason why I will completely avoid considering any BOL in the drier areas of the US.
Water is not a problem in Arizona if you know where it is. It won’t quench the thirst of LA, but it will quench mine.
Another threat to water resources is the new fuel technology that separates oxygen and hydrogen in water and uses the hydrogen for fuel.
Of course, once the Bilderberg / UN joint venture eliminates a large segment of the population with Agenda 21, there will be enough fresh water to go around as demand drops!
All right; I am going to keep this real short and sweet.
“IF” water is indeed is going to be criticality in short supply, be it tomorrow, next week, next year or the next two fu**ing decades, who cares. Why not remedy the situation now?? I don’t know about other countries but we have every means to rectify “any” shortage here in the United States.
I started thinking about this back a couple of years ago when California, Pelosi and her blithering ILK/California environmental wing nuts got legislation thru to cut off the water to the farmers in central California valley over a fucking minnow/an endangered species, Oh Please. It’s a stupid fish, WHO THE HELL CARES, IT’S A FUCKING FISH!!!!! IT’S BAIT!!! ODD DAMD, HOW STUPID CAN IT GET???????
OK, enough of that rant. The remedy;
We need to fill up the aquifers and have an excess supply right?
What is the primary way to get water down into aquifers?
Answer; gravity.
Let’s engineer and excavate monster reservoirs that are specificity designed to percolate their water down into the said aquifers, hence gravity.
So we got these monster reservoirs that perk water into aquifers. Great!
Now; where do we get all of this fresh water that we seem to be so short of ????
Now think real hard, this is going to be a tough one.
HOLY SHIT; IVE GOT IT!!!
How’s about we take and redirect fresh water rivers with all of the minnows and Delta Smelts (endangered species mind you) into the monster reservoirs AND FILL THEM THE FUCK UP??????
Every odd damd fresh water river in this country eventually ends up in the friggen OCEAN—SALT WATER DAMIT!!!! For those that haven’t got a clue, YOU CAN’T DRINK OR USE SALT WATER, FOR ANYTHING!!!!!!
Every minute of every of every hour of every day, billions of acre feet of fresh water exhausts from the lands of the world into the worlds oceans. WHY? What do we really need to be concerned about replenishing the water in the oceans???? REALLY????
Maybe Nancy Pelosi wants to put it all in a plastic bottle?
We have the Army Corp of Engineers, Navy Seabees and a shit ton of American contractors, some the largest and best in the world. And let’s not forget, we have roughly 24+million unemployed people in this country, there’s your real Horsepower.
WATER SHORTAGE? MY ASS!!
That idea makes too much sense, they’ll never go for it
Hammerun,
The P.O.S Pelosi has her hand in everything, the water shortage was because she needed it for her Starkist Tuna company that she holds the majority of shares in.
It’s not that easy.
No, really, it isn’t.
First mistake? You’re relying on the government to do the job, and to do it right. Never going to happen.
Second mistake? Look up there at the whole water rights thing I laid out. If you do *anything* concerning water in the Western US, even on your own, you’re going to quickly run into a metric shit-ton of lawsuits from water-rights holders.
Thirdly, it’s not as easy as you think. The engineering won’t quite work that way – in order to build something capable of watering even a mid-sized city? Tell you what – go measure the volume of a city reservoir sometime. Not the area, not the length or width… the volume. Making a hole that damned big would require a lot more than a backhoe and good intentions, you know? Oh, and you have to get the water out of it if you intend to use it, which means both pumps and a lot of electricity (most water systems use gravity or artesian pressure. Rarely do you have pumps doing the work 24/7).
You could eventually get something built that would do the job, but by the time you do, population would have grown beyond it, and it would have blown a lot of money and time.
I’m really not trying to burst your bubble, and honestly Pelosi is a raging c*nt in my estimation, but the plan just ain’t gonna work.
Odd Questioner;
I don’t want to rain on your rant and parade or anything but, look at this. http://www.dvlake.com/index.html.
Things you have to look at first, if we as a nation are going to survive this friggen mess.
What is more important?
Obviously people are by far, way on top of the list. Water rights can be purchased, at some price. If not there is always eminent domain. Now don’t go off on me and start yowling about the State taking away somebody’s private property. Here’s the/a remedy for that. Loosely said. Say a guy has 200 acres and it appraises at $2million. Pay him 5 times the appraised value, who wouldn’t go for that? If indeed water is so important this will be a viable alternative. Of course this could be utilized in any eminent domain situation. Sighting the increased future tax revenue. What an investment!
There has to be a path made legislatively to sit on the lawyers, environmentalists, some whacked-out land owners, fat assed Senators’ess and Goofy Congresswomen / we know who we are talking about don’t we?
I fully believe and know first hand the absolute importance of water. I live in a desert.
Without water were dead.
I didn’t say this was going to be easy, not even close. But this ridiculous dog and pony show we are forced to endure is psychotic. Politicos championing environmental causes to be in the limelight and begging, demanding and twisting arms for a payoff is bullshit and to has to stop and stop NOW!!
I beg to differ as far as impossible quite on the contrary. Everybody “EVERYBODY” needs water. And anybody who wishes to stand in front of this should be steamrolled.
If we adopted the English system (the looser pays and add financial sanctions to extend to the attorneys as well) that will cut a whole pile of this lawsuit bullshit out. The attorneys have to be accountable for their actions as well and it’s about time. They have been getting a free ride for way to long. Flying under the guises of “everybody has a right to representation” fine as long as everybody involved pays the piper in the end. They get their percentage when they prevail how’s about they to pay when they loose? They then might be a might more selective with the cases they decide to accept, don’t cha think??
Lastly; I have seen what a Government project and the Army Corp of engineers looks like first hand. I served a carpenter apprenticeship here http://www.libbymt.com/areaattractions/libbydam.htm
I believe the final total was 14.8 million yards of concrete in 7 years and backs water up 42 miles into Canada and you say we can’t figure out how to dig a big hole? Really??
Hammerun: Unfortunately, the Libby MT dam can only withstand a 6.5 earthquake. At the rate things are going I wouldn’t live downstream from it, and wouldn’t count on getting my water from any other man-made structure either, when the Changes hit.
Nature is in process. Process is slow, but process is happening.
@Hammerun:
Err, your link points to a man-made open lake. Not seeing the link.
“Water rights can be purchased, at some price.”
Yes they can – but not to the point where people start going thirsty, and there will always be holdouts (especially farmers and ranchers), no matter how much money you throw at them.
“If not there is always eminent domain. Now don’t go off on me and start yowling about the State taking away somebody’s private property. Here’s the/a remedy for that. Loosely said. Say a guy has 200 acres and it appraises at $2million. Pay him 5 times the appraised value, who wouldn’t go for that?”
At those rates, your price tag has shot up into around a billion greenbacks for only enough water rights to keep 500k citizens’ throats wet. Also notice that water rights do not come with property purchase. Note further that cash-strapped states such as California is currently writing IOU’s to keep running.
We haven’t even touched on the environmental impact requirements, the environmentalist lawsuits, the time it will take to process all that eminent domain taking, the lawsuits from farmers, ranchers, and industries who need that water for irrigation…
…and that’s just the tip of a very ugly (and likely found to be unconstitutional) iceberg.
Haven’t even touched on the technical aspects yet. But I do want to touch on one:
“I believe the final total was 14.8 million yards of concrete in 7 years and backs water up 42 miles into Canada and you say we can’t figure out how to dig a big hole? Really??”
I can go one better – Hoover Dam and Lake Mead behind it was built in six years by 1930’s technology, and filled up in less than four.
However, *both* types were built by stringing a concrete dam across a narrow gap. Both instances utilize existing terrain to accomplish their goal.
However, there are very, very few natural caves of sufficient size to hold the water you’re talking about.
Lake mead is 35.2 cubic kilometers in volume, or 8.4 cubic miles. You’re not going to dig out a cave that big in less than four decades, let alone seven years.
The biggest we’ve ever managed as a species is in Chongqing, China: it is an underground nuclear power plant, took 17 years to excavate, and measures in at roughly six cubic kilometers.
But, there are places we do agree, but sadly…
“If we adopted the English system (the looser pays and add financial sanctions to extend to the attorneys as well) that will cut a whole pile of this lawsuit bullshit out.”
Tort reform would be frickin’ awesome. Too bad it’ll never happen. You’re talking about a government of the lawyers, by the lawyers, for the lawyers.
“Everybody “EVERYBODY” needs water.”
Yep. Problem is, there are too many people living in places where there simply isn’t enough of it to go around.
When you talk like that nobody will listen to you except for the people in your trailer park.
We have polititions,banksters,etc doing everything ILLEGAL and fed police go after Indian wood at Gibson guitars or goat milk!!
Since 08 no 0ne has gone to jail for wrongdoing!!
We are quickly becoming a lost breed.
It is time we do something about it!
Water is already privately owned in many countries now. Big international companies have bought the “rights” to this water and sell it back to the people of that nation. Of course if you are poor you can’t afford to buy it and so you get your water from rain puddles or polluted surface water that is so dangerous that the big guys won’t touch it. It is already happening.
Many, many years ago, the Southern Calif Water District bought up most all the water rights in (formerly beautiful and productive) Antelope Valley in eastern central California. Now, the Antelope Valley is a desert and Los Angeles area is getting a part of it’s water supply from the run-off from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
A bit farther north, the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas become part of the state of Nevada. I was just there and noted that that area in Nevada which gets the run off is a highly productive agricultural area. Not so in the Antelope Valley because all the water in the valley goes to southern California.
Ive gotten into the water reclimation end of things here.
I can get quite a bit of water the tuff part is storring it.
I have a 275 gallon system that i use for natural watering of my gardens., and another 50 gallons i keep as drinkable if i need it as reserve.
Also made a large bio filter, its slow..but for rain water it does nicely, but its only supplimental water . I have never needed to rely on it.
But at least its a start. I also have a 60 gallon sand filter and two 1 horse pumps. and there is a stream up the road
I also have a well head on my property, its capped..but i know where it is.
Water – “The New Commodity”!
There will be a time when water will be more valuable than gold!
MU
Come on everyone….why do you think those ice bergs are coming loose…..its not “global warming” they gotta refill the auquifers.
Everyone laughed at me living in Buffalo, NY, yet we have all the great lakes water rolling by us just down the street. Just got out of the pool where I was swimming in great lakes water. I’m staying right here.
Ditto from Western Oregon… most “serious” preppers consider what are commonly known as “Western Redoubt” states, but there’s one big Achilles’ Heel there: Water… or rather, the lack of it.
There are some pockets in these states where water is plentiful, but they are few. Most of it is bone-dry in summer, and hard to get sufficient water for.
I get chuckled at by these ‘pros’ when I mention setting up my BOL/BIL here in the Pacific Northwest. Honestly though, I think it’s perfect: plenty of water, relatively mild temperatures, fertile soil, more trees and wood than I can shake anything at, excellent people, and easy-to-get isolation.
Damn.
Just reading that makes me thirsty.
I’ve gotta go get a glass of water……
I’ve built a reservior at my house thats spring fed, best water in the world. Even in drought conditions it still runs, thank God. I’ve had oldder people ask if I still use the spring. The previous owner used it 30 years ago. I’ve had older women ask to use the water and a vine they call turkey foot for thrash in babies. LOL, can’t stand city water anymore.
The water pipes and purification systems in many older cities are way over due for replacement. Another thing to make you out and pound down a couple beers tonight.
i have always been very suspicious of the government and their building of levies and reservoirs and flooding valleys….arguing and fighting with mother nature is stupid..she always gets her revenge. and when she does get peeved, it is usually something that man has tampered with, changed, or built that gets destroyed. people are greedy and so is government..flood valleys so everyone can have electricity. build levies so folks can buy and build homes in flood zones…take away water so the most fertile valley in america cannot grow food..
Levies are a strange idea. Counting on a pile of dirt to keep your town from being flooded. Maybe not so good a location for a town.
Need I say it? Ok I will.
Tell New Orleans that! LOL
You know I love this website but today is a first for me.
I call bullshit.
We are not going to run out of water. Give me a break.
then you are blind.good luck
Havok – There will be a time whereas “Fresh Drinkable Water” will be a valuable commodity.
It’s already happening around the world.
Don’t call Bullshit too soon…. Never say never,
It’s going to happen.
With respect,
Man Up
I dont know man, it just sounds ridiculous when our planet is covered by water on 80% of it.
They would need more people patrolling it for “water poachers” then people in the US using it.
Hell, if you just dig enough you will hit ground water.
80% of our planet is covered by water. Less than 1% of that is not ocean water, and less than 0.01% of fresh water is actual accessible liquid water.
Now here in Western Oregon, yeah – we got water beyond belief. I could rig up a typical ranch-style 3-bdrm house with rain catch-basins… and get enough water from that annually to not only keep a family of four from going thirsty, but to water a large garden, keep the grass green, and for each family member to take a daily shower. I’d probably still have water left over to boot.
In New Mexico? You’d be lucky to get enough water out of the same rig to keep two people from dying of dehydration, and they’d have to ration it *very* carefully.
Ridiculous that people already buy bottled water. In my area, the folks down the road spent right at $67,000 for a 600′ well and got salt water. We’re about a 100 air miles from the coast and have a mountain range between us.
Feel free to drink the ground water. I don’t and won’t. I haul drinking water from a community (subscription) well 5.5 miles away. I use rain water for most everything else and in the winter, I melt snow on the wood stove.
Cheap potable water is going away fast. Just who is going to pay for transporting potable water from where it is abundant to where it is scarce? The problem isn’t water so much, but where the population centers are. Look at SoCal. It is a desert with millions of oxygen thieves who want everyone elses water. They pump water over mountains to supply the LA metroplex. And folks wonder why Cali is broke?
My farm is full of natural springs and we share with our neighbors. You got to bring your own jug or bucket. The springs have never ran dry even in the worst drought in state history. Witch happened when I was a kid rivers dried up for the most part leaving only the deepest hols for fish to survive. creeks and ponds dried up in many counties but, not our springs! We have the best tasting water in the state.
Now I know what Grandpa meant when he use to say we had the best farm in the state. “Can’t make good moonshine from well water ~ Boy.” And could he ever…make shine!!! he used to sell it to his school teacher when he was a kid…Helped pay the farm off with it to. 🙂
Thats funny! my kin were ridgerunners too! Kept ahead of the revenuers too…never did get caught!Good people!
———————————————————
In regards to some of the ideas I hear being tossed around…I have deeded rights to two springs not on my property,and deeded rights to the groundwater under my property…I dare some SOB to try to take whats mine that no one else wanted before I got it….sorry but your personal need to drink doesnt give you rights to my water…and your danged fed fiat paper wont buy me out….its worthless,I am a farmer…my water is priceless,I let folks get water out the one spring with permission but I chafe at people thinking they have rights to my property that override mine,just saying!
You got that right brother! If they don’t like screw’em.
🙂
Watch out. Water, like other commodities, can readily be taken over when the government decides that taking it is in the best interests of “the people”. You do realize that the government people have more guns than you have. That’s democracy in action!
May be true…but I get to die one time might as well be defending my liberty! 🙂
quote
So difficult, in fact, that billions of humans may die as a result.
The good news is that it will only last 72 hours then the rest of humanity will survive until the next shortage.
Doesn’t quite work like that…
Governments would be literally trucking water to the worst areas for as long as they could. Folks would start recycling water any way they could. With enough fuel/firewood and round-the-clock effort, you can make (and keep going) a cheap and easy water distillation rig that uses seawater, sewage, brine, or anything else that contains enough liquid water.
a flat 72-hour countdown clock isn’t feasible in such a case.
If water availability decreases then the herd will be thinned rapidly.
After the Black Death in Europe there was finally enough food for the rest of the people. true story.
How to distinguish the Truth from a fairy tale.
A fairy tale always starts out: Once upon a Time.
The Truth always starts out: Now this ain’t no sh!t
Ah, but in Arkansas, fairy tales always start out with:
“I know y’all ain’t gonna believe this shit, but really…”
All of the elements that make good water or bad water have been “here” all of this time on this planet. Except for them damn astronauts that have released any of those molecules up in outer space! But, if humans were expelling oxygen, Uncle Al and the dim libs would be bitchin’ about that too and want to tax us on that while flying our jets. Water run off tax… Now there’s a plan.
Well, that is one good thing about living in So Flo. If you have a shovel, you can get water. That’s also one of the bad things about living here too.. can’t have a basement… water table is too high to permit it
I drilled a well here about 15 years ago. Cost me almost $10,000 but it produces 700 gallons per hour of the cleanest, purest water you can get. Very soft and very drinkable. There is only one industrial tap into the same aquifer about 3 miles from me: A small town has a couple wells into it to supply about 500 homes. Many private taps into it. Over the years the usage has gone way up but the later level stays the same. It filters in through a bed of rock about 300ft down (in my area), deeper to the southwest, more shallow to the northeast. In fact, the bed of rock comes up out of the ground 15 miles northeast of me. Unless that creek dries up, there will be not problem. Alternatively, I’m setting on the end of a ridge between two large hollows. 30ft down is fresh water in the 5ft of gravel and 8ft of block coal. The whole area has that too.
While some areas of the country may be worried about such things as water shortages, the only thing we worry about here is too much water, usually. It gets sort of dry in the late summer (such as now) but even the shallow wells are doing OK.
Most of this problem, as with all problems, is with the humongous urban areas. When you pack 1000s of people per square mile into skyscraper cities, its hard to purify and pump enough water for them to do the three S’s and still have something to drink. Add to that manufacturing, and, well, it puts a big strain on Mother Earth. Add to that the stupid water laws (like in Colorado where you can’t harvest the rain off your own roof without getting a ticket) that attempt to protect the stranglehold that some waterworks companies have lobbied for, we’re fixing for a fall.
Certainly not a problem in this area but I can see areas less than 200 miles from here where it is a problem.
The fact is that many areas have problems because of the lack of common sense usage. We’ll always have enough water to drink but other wasteful usage will have to be curtailed. In the listing above they talk about how it takes 62,000 gallons to produce a ton of steel. Well, yeah, it does, especially since the people that use it have never had to worry about conservation.
I think this article, while good in that it raises awareness, is a bit on the alarmist side.
To the environmentals, a cistern seems to be a a new, radical idea. How many here grew up using cistern water, and doing “rain harvesting”?
The world may run out of CHEAP water, but there is plenty in the oceans.
Ben, I think thats REALLY what we’re talking about here: cheap, fresh, potable water. Natural clean water sources are drying up because of overuse. One problem most places have is that they use the same water to wash their car and make tea. You can wash the car with untreated lake water. To make tea with it, you have to treat it. Its a problem we should start dealing with now.
Its just like oil. If we’d just stop wasting it, we’d have enough. If you could get all the stupid leadfoot maniacs to hypermile like I do, gas would drop back to $1 a gallon from the lack of demand shock. (…for a while, anyway.)
Great article Mac !
Yep de-salination is the way to go. Water is the least of my problems. We have plenty of it and they know how to purify salt water. Water prices may go up but this article is stretching it a bit.
The real problem is will we have enough water to support the world’s population.
De-Salination requires tremendous energy input. Thinking de-salination can help is part of the Infinite Growth on a planet with finite resources paradigm. It will never happen.
Water is the subject, borders are one of the problems. Plenty of water, but who claims it, is the question. Near the border of Israel and Lebanon is the Litani River. Bad location. Bad consequences. Try drinking from the Ganges in India. A billion future Dunkin Donut owners bath in it.
Simply put, water is life.
As Mark Twain said; “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over”.
That’s a problem that this country is unlikely to face because most likely we’ll have hyperinflation and a total economic collapse sometime in the next few years. That event will eliminate 90% or more of the US population.
Bill:
I don’t agree with your figures (90% or more) but I do agree with the prediction.
Most water has never been “clean”. Rivers and lakes are dirty and always have been, thats why most cultures developed some sort of brewing process, it killed the bad stuff. When the Mayflower landed they did not have access to clean springs until much later and many got sick and died from bad water in a pristine land. Those of us fortunate enough to have access to clean wells and springs are, and have been since time began, the lucky few. Look at the history of the Nile, Euphrates, Tigres, and the Black Sea all dirty polluted waters for as long as records have exsisted. Again, we have allowed the elite to change the truth of history in order to controll the masses!
Cruachan!!