Dégât Des Eaux

[Domi]

J'entend souvent le mode de production capitaliste dans lequel nous vivons être accusé des problêmes liés à l'accés à l'eau potable. La preuve: un milliard et demi d'êtres humains vivent sans eau potable. Avec la pollution, nous serions en train de détruire nos réserves d'eau et celle-ci sera le pétrôle du XXIème siècle.

Pourtant, quand on regarde les choses dans le détail, dans quels pays l'accès à l'eau potable est-il un problême? Dans les pays les moins indutrialisés. En effet, il faut des infrastructures pour rendre l'eau potable, celle-ci ne l'étant pas toujours naturellement. C'est pourquoi j'ai tendance à penser que le nombre des personnes n'ayant pas accés à l'eau potable va trés fortement diminuer dans les prochaines décennies.

Cela ne veut pas dire que la pollution dans les pays riches ne soit pas un danger mais la présentation des arguments dans les journaux qui mélange des situations différentes n'est pas convaincante.

Toutefois, il ne serait pas honnête de ma part de me contenter d'une présentation éronnée des faits par les grands médias pour juger de ceux qui soulévent ces questions.

Par conséquent, si quelqu'un a une opinion et des arguments sur le sujet, je le remercie.

[ronan]

CHAPTER TEN

WATER, WOOD, WETLANDS--AND WHAT NEXT? CHAPTER TEN: TABLE OF

CONTENTS

(…)

Nature of the Problem

Water does not change into something else, as do fossil fuels that are burned. Rain and seawater come back to us in the same form in which we originally used them, unlike (say) raw copper. And water never languishes in a dump, as scrap iron does. Furthermore, the quantity of water in the oceans is huge by any comparison. The only possible water problems, then, are that (a) there is not enough water in a place that it is wanted at a given moment, and hence the price is too high; and (b ) the available water is dirty. Usable water is like other resources, however, in being a product of human labor and ingenuity. People "create" usable water, and there are large opportunities to discover and utilize new sources. Some additional sources are well-known and already in partial use: transport by ship from one country to another, deeper wells, cleaning dirty water, towing icebergs to places where water is needed, and desalination. But there also are entirely new possibilities, about some of which there already are hints, and about others which - inevitably - nothing is known. An important example of a newly-discovered source is the aquifers in areas where the underlying rock has large faults. In the past, geologists had assumed that the water in these large watersheds does not flow easily from place to place, and especially, does not flow vertically. But scuba divers have been able to map the movement of the water in these aquifers, and to demonstrate that it does move vertically. In this fashion, huge new supplies of groundwater have been found in the Red Sea Province of eastern Sudan, Florida, and elsewhere. This new method has also revealed that massive watersheds are in greater danger of being polluted by ground water than had previously been known. The direction is thereby pointed to pollution prevention.

Consumer Water Issues

For perspective on modern consumer water issues, consider that in a typical poor area in South Africa in the 1990s - which is how it also used to be only a century or so ago in what is now the rich world - the average household spends about three full hours of labor each day hauling water from the source to the house in order to supply its water needs. In comparison, typical households in middle class areas can pay for a day's worth of water with the pay from perhaps one or two minutes of work. And the price of water brought to the house by a water carrier in poor areas of South Africa is perhaps 25 or 30 times the price of water in a modern middle class area in South Africa. So the long-run trend, as with all other natural resources, has been toward a much greater abundance of water, rather than toward greater scarcity. This illustrates the basic theory of this book, the process by which new problems eventually leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. The opposite view - that we are exploiting the future and that retribution will inevitably destroy civilization - is discussed in chapter 38.

We can immediately simplify our subject by noting that water for residential use will never be a long-run problem in itself because even at the cost of the most expensive means of production - desalination - the cost of water used by households is small relative to household budgets in rich countries. Let's say that an acre-foot of desalinated water - that is, 325,851 gallons - costs $700 or $1,900 in 1992 dollars (depending on how you figure), as in Santa Barbara, California. The average household in that affluent area uses perhaps 7,500 gallons per month (about the same as in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.), or 90,000 gallons ($500 worth) a year. Even if the price of water in Washington, D.C., rises at the source from zero to $1,900 per acre foot, the increase per household would only be about $500 yearly. This is not an insignificant amount, to be sure, but it represents the greatest possible increase; desalinated water will be available forever at a maximum of this price, so population can grow indefinitely without pushing the price of water beyond the desalinated cost. The desalinated price probably will be much less as technology improves and the price of energy falls; for example, a desalination plant that uses waste heat from an existing power plant produces water for only about half of the cost cited above. (The present price of water at the source is not zero, either; in Southern California the wholesale price of water is about $500 per acre-foot. Furthermore, homes reduce their use of water as the price goes up. In areas where water is metered even though not expensive, water use is only about half what it is per home as in areas where water is purchased at a flat monthly rate. Figures 10-1a and 10-1b show how the amount of water used is responsive to the price. Figures 10-1a and 10-1b

The most important fact for consumer water supply is that most water is used in agriculture. For example, irrigation takes 80 percent of the water used in Utah and 90 percent in New Mexico. And the amount of water used in agriculture is very sensitive to the price. The reason that there are cases of absolute shortage and rationing is that price is not allowed to respond to market conditions, but rather is fixed at a low subsidized price in many agricultural areas. For example, farmers near Fresno, California pay $17 for an acre-foot of water, while according to the U.S. General Accounting Office the "full cost" is $42 a foot. In some areas in California farmers pay $5 per acre-foot whereas the Los Angeles water authorities pay $500 per acre-foot. Such subsidies encourage farmers to plant crops that use water heavily, which diverts water from urban areas. Another difficulty is that agricultural and municipal rights to use water from rivers are complex legal structures that often do not fit modern needs. Water economists are agreed that if governments stop subsidizing water to farmers, and allow water rights to be bought and sold freely, water shortages would no longer appear. But bureaucratic government restrictions often prevent those who have rights to more water than they need from selling their water rights to those who are willing to pay for the water; the bureaucrats fight a free market tooth and nail to protect their own powers, and the results are amazing stories of governmentally caused inefficiency and true scarcity leading to rationing. The typical endpoint of this irrational structure of overcontrol, miscontrol, and price-fixing by government is "drought police" or "water cops" in California cities who ticket people for activities such as illegal lawn watering. For more information, see Terry Anderson's forthcoming book. As to the cleanliness and purity of the water that we drink, see chapter 17.

Source : http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultima…rce/TCHAR10.txt

Note : les Graphiques ne sont pas reproduits.

[Calembredaine]

J'entend souvent le mode de production capitaliste dans lequel nous vivons être accusé des problêmes liés à l'accés à l'eau potable. La preuve: un milliard et demi d'êtres humains vivent sans eau potable. Avec la pollution, nous serions en train de détruire nos réserves d'eau et celle-ci sera le pétrôle du XXIème siècle.

Les réserves en eau potable dans le monde entier sont des propriétés d'Etat. Comment peut-on donc accuser le capitalisme et à fortiori le libéralisme d'être la cause des éventuels problèmes d'accès ou de pénuries?

Je constate en outre, qu'en France, 30% de l'eau distribuée est perdue (fuites), que l'eau de pluie part directement à la mer, etc.

[Domi]

Au vu du texte posté par Ronan, que je remercie, je fais cette petite synthèse ( qui n'est pas un résumé du texte).

L'eau en tant que ressource naturelle est en quantité infiniment supérieure aux besoins humains. Toutefois entre l'existence de la ressource et la satisfaction de nos besoins, il y a un certain travail à accomplir qui consiste à:

- acheminer l'eau au consommateur,

- la rendre potable le cas échéant.

A ce titre, l'inconvénient de la pollution n'est pas la disparition de l'eau mais de nécessiter un travail supplémentaire pour la rendre potable. Quoi qu'il en soit, même si le déssalement de l'eau de mer était la seule possibilité d'accés à l'eau, cela serait parfaitement pratiquable.

Une autre question: en quoi consiste la privatisation de la distribution d'eau dans les pays pauvres? Est-ce que cela signifie qu'il y a une vraie concurrence?

[ronan]

Je constate en outre, qu'en France, 30% de l'eau distribuée est perdue (fuites), que l'eau de pluie part directement à la mer, etc.

Hors cas particulier, peut-être anecdotiques certes : par exemple, il me semble que sur l'île de Sein dans le Finistère, les citernes communales récupèrent l'eau de pluie (à vérifier avec des Sénans à l'occasion;) )

[Calembredaine]

Hors cas particulier, peut-être anecdotiques certes : par exemple, il me semble que sur l'île de Sein dans le Finistère, les citernes communales récupèrent l'eau de pluie (à vérifier avec des Sénans à l'occasion;) )

C'est très possible, c'est la règle dans les îles qui n'ont pas de ressources en eau. Cela dit, vous constaterez que ce n'est pas là bas que l'on se plaint de pénurie d'eau…