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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 2, 2009

By year-end or so, Congress will give the nod to a major rewriting of the nation's financial regulatory system. This week’s Kiplinger Letter explores whether the package will do more harm than good and what lawmakers are likely to include.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: The Economy, Business Costs, Taxes, Supreme Court, Energy, Workplace Regulations, Climate Change, Health Care Legislation and Foreign Policy

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

-- fender

Water Scarcity Will Change How We Live and Work

A broad-reaching conservation ethic will take hold -- and not just in the water-starved West.

By Richard Sammon, Senior Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

June 27, 2007

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Get used to living with less water -- at home and at work. And it's not just about being better stewards of the environment. It has more to do with limited supply of the vital resource from a combination of climate change, population growth and development. Strained capacity in vital water supply systems and rising costs will be factors in how businesses operate and where they locate. These aspects will spur aggressive conservation campaigns, including stricter local mandates on how water is used, stored and recycled.

Severe droughts are here to stay in several large swaths of the country, what many climatologists are calling a new norm for parts of the U.S.

Worst off are the South and the West, which are struggling with persistent, year-in year-out drought, leaving large lake beds exposed and vital reservoirs receding to the lowest levels they have been in 40 years. But many other areas, too, will feel the strain brought on, if not by drought, by abnormally dry seasons, unchecked suburban sprawl, population growth and the business development that follows in its wake.

The shortage is not yet a crisis, and with planning and careful management, it's not likely to ever become one. Even so, it still means a lot of changes in the near term as states brace for population increases over the next few decades.

Conservation will be the new ethic. It's the only way, really, given that freshwater is a limited resource and costly to transport for any distance, unlike other natural resources. Higher prices will be a motivating factor. Consumers, both business and residential, will pay more. In some places, they'll pay a lot more with rates that escalate as use increases.

There will be limits on use, some of them by government mandates, as is the case in several California counties already. But most communities with less severe water issues will rely on pleading, cajoling or tax incentives to cut water usage.

Look for lots of innovative ways to save. Some businesses and homeowners will add new roofs that catch rainwater. Others will get rid of aesthetic fountains or replace lawns with less-demanding plants and ivy or artificial turf. Plus, faucets that shut off automatically will be more commonplace, as will more-efficient washing machines, central air conditioners, toilets and showerheads.

Water recycling will be center stage, much more than it is now. Las Vegas leans heavily on a capture, collect, treat and redistribute system, offering generous incentives to consumers and firms to comply. Companies can earn rebates, up to a lifetime limit of $150,000, and that may rise higher.

Las Vegas is a success story that other cities will learn from: In the past five years, annual water use declined by 18 billion gallons, even as the population surged by 330,000. Recycled wash water, also known as gray water, is used on golf courses, for hotel cleaning, in car washes, manmade waterfalls, water amusement parks, etc. Homeowners receive cash rebates if they agree to rip out their lawns and replace them with desert plants.

Learning to save water for a nonrainy day will be crucial. To help smooth out dips in supply, Florida communities plan to skim millions of gallons from rivers, such as the abundant St. Johns. The water will be pumped, cleaned and stored. Other communities are adding reservoir capacity and putting up new water towers to be used during future droughts, as well as planning to deal with possible saltwater intrusion of inland aquifers during hurricane storm surges.

Desalination can help, but it has many drawbacks. Florida, Georgia and South Carolina will add more plants, and San Diego is pinning its water hopes on a large desalination facility. One drawback about desalination, though, is the expense involved in the process. Conservation is far cheaper, and Congress will get in the game with several bills pending to provide grants and incentives to communities to adopt stricter conservation and recycling projects, more so than desalination.

Water technology companies will thrive. Sales of equipment for filtration, ultraviolet oxidation and vapor compression, for instance, will rise 15% annually for five years and probably beyond, up from about $1.8 billion today. Leading manufacturers of the equipment, as well as manufacturers of water-efficient appliances, include CH2M Hill, Separation Dynamics, Siemens, EZ Environmental Solutions and SETS Systems.

Watch Australia. When it comes to water, Australia's present may be our future. Climate changes that occurred there about a dozen years ago that dropped the country's average annual rainfall in half forced the nation to adopt among the most innovative conservation projects, substantially reducing per capita water use. Several Australian firms that flourished with their country's programs are also well positioned to benefit from an expanding U.S. market. Among them are Perpetual Water, which makes on-site and in-home water recycling systems, and Caroma, which specializes in highly water-efficient bathroom fittings and accessories.

Elizabeth Banks, Michael Doan, Laura Kennedy and Ed Maixner contributed to this report.

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POSTED BY: rjp0952 (June 27, 2007 09:56 AM)
why not take all septic systems and have two tanks, one black & one gray with a filter to maintain yards and gardens. even homes on county sewer could have gray tanks. require all homes to have water conditioning systems same as air conditioning or water heaters.

POSTED BY: patsfan (June 27, 2007 12:43 PM)
A major football stadium in MA uses gray water for the urinals to recycle/conserve water... Not a bad idea.

POSTED BY: Richard (June 27, 2007 01:54 PM)
Hi folks. An interesting and unchanging statistic about water supply is that only 1% of the Earth's water is freshwater, another 2% is in polar ice caps and glaciers. The remaining 97% is salt water. These numbers barely change. Richard Sammon, Kiplinger.

POSTED BY: charles (June 27, 2007 02:55 PM)
I live in Florida where developers own the politicians and wetlands are being destroyed at a rapid pace. Tapping St. Johns river for more sprawl a bad idea but approvals go on and on.

POSTED BY: Tom (June 27, 2007 03:41 PM)
The numbers we use are 97.20% Salt Water, 2.15% Fresh water locked in ice caps, .31% ground water too deep to pump out which leaves .34% fresh water available to us in all of the lakes, streams, rivers, and wells in the world.

POSTED BY: LadyOfTheLake (June 27, 2007 05:14 PM)
Charles I live on the other side of the country and the same goes on here. As much as we each need to start conserving and doing what we can as individuals, we also need to ride our local governments and city councils and pressure them to do the right thing and stop allowing development willy nilly on every inch of land. Unfortunately most Americans spend half their time bi***ing to each other about how their city council is allowing all this development yet none of them actually send the message to their councilpersons. If you are gonna complain, complain where it will make an impact. Partake in the govt. process. If unwilling to do that then quit yer' bi***ing, as the saying goes. A couple of facts to illustrate ways in which we each can make a difference without a lot of effort: ~ Turning off the water while brushing your teeth can save as much as 2,000 gallons per year. Multiply that by 300 million - the approximate U.S. population - and you find that over 6 BILLION gallons of water could be conserved - JUST by turning off the water while brushing your teeth! ~ If every home in the U.S. replaced their old toilet with a new high efficiency toilet, more than 900 billion gallons of water would be saved per year. ~ Keeping swimming pools covered when not in use could save 1000 gallons PER DAY that are lost through evaporation from uncovered swimming pools. Multiply that by just 120 days, for a four month summer season, and you get 120,000 gallons saved per year, per pool. Multiply that by 100,000 (this number is simply a guess.. there were over 119 million housing units in the US in 2001 but I couldn't find swimming pool data) and you have a very conservative estimate of savings of 120 million gallons per year. There... those three items alone equal 906,120,000,000 gallons of water saved per year in the U.S. Wow! Each of us can make a difference! Lady Of The Lake

POSTED BY: charles (June 27, 2007 08:00 PM)
I agree. Lady of Lake AND I have made my views known to county council as have many others to no avail Conservation begins in your own yard - but politicos seem to ignore voters. Too, too bad!

POSTED BY: Nikolay Voutchkov (June 27, 2007 11:26 PM)
Conservation has a limited capacity to deal with prolonged drought. You can only conserve water you have. There are no examples worldwide where a water crisis of such magnitude has been resolved by conservation only. A well balanced water portfolio that combines traditional water sources, conservation, reuse and desalination is the only reasonable way to achieve sustainable water supply under the conditions of global warming and unpredictably long cycles of drought. Similar to well balanced financial portfolio well balanced water portfolio has to contain low cost/low return options (i.e. options that are easy to implement but have limited ability to fight drought and produce significant new sources of water over a long period of time - such as water reuse, and conservation) and higher cost/higher return options (such as desalination - the only new source of water which availability is not constrained by unpredictable global warming changes and is truly drought proof).

POSTED BY: Lou (June 28, 2007 08:17 AM)
Dear Lady of the Lake: Where do you get your statistical information and would you send me a copy. Thank you, Lou

POSTED BY: Al Mellow (June 28, 2007 08:27 AM)
Regarding WATER TECHNOLOGY, the articles mentions only the following: Water technology companies will thrive. Sales of equipment for filtration, ultraviolet oxidation and vapor compression, for instance, will rise 15% annually for five years and probably beyond, up from about $1.8 billion today. Leading manufacturers of the equipment, as well as manufacturers of water-efficient appliances, include CH2M Hill, Separation Dynamics, Siemens, EZ Environmental Solutions and SETS Systems. WHAT HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN IS THE ABSOLUT WORLDWIDE LEADING WATER TECHNOLOGY COMPANY named WORLDWATER & SOLAR TECHNOLOGIES. For more info look at all the drinking Water providing and Water purifying Projects that you find at www.worldwater.com under Projects, especially International Projects. Thanks.

POSTED BY: vistapoint (June 28, 2007 11:41 AM)
Well Put, I completely agree with Ladyofthelake. Just using small measures we can conserve water. If I may add a few more - using sensors on the automated sprinkler systems, so that the sprinklers don't water when rain is pouring! - people cleaning sidewalks/driveways that are already clean! - use of efficient laundry washers.. Basically use common sense (but then, common sense is not common!) and be responsible.

POSTED BY: LadyOfTheLake (June 29, 2007 03:24 PM)
Lou - I tried to post some great web site links but this site wouldn't allow it and just deleted my whole post :( Listed were the water section of the EPA's web site and some CA Dept. of Water Resources site links, the Water Use It Wisely website, and various water district web sites, especially in the southwest desert and other arid areas. Also any state water dept web site is likely to have lots of useful info and links. Vistapoint - more great tips! And Nikolay is also correct - conservation isn't the only answer but rather just one important component in addressing our water issues, the one that EACH of us can do that will add up to great water savings. Water managers are looking to conservation to provide an additional 40% of water needs, as we are so wasteful that that percentage is what is projected to be gained via conservation methods. Water managers are also having to rethink the way they are managing water... spending millions in infrastructure built to carry stormwater to the ocean. Ways of instead collecting and using that water for uses such as landscape irrigation are being looked at, and green, sustainable building practices in the homebuilding industry are also a key component in urban water use planning. There is no way "make" more water - the water that is, is. We must learn to manage it better, and frankly the population has grown to a point where the resources of the earth cannot sustain it as currently used and at the current population growth rate. Water issues are connected to population and general sustainable living issues. Everything is connected. The good news is that we are having this dialogue about it, and that conservation and sustainability issues are gaining widespread attention... finally!

POSTED BY: Kent Webb (July 02, 2007 02:34 PM)
All water use is not equal from a conservation point of view. If you draw water from a river for potable/sanitary use, most of it returns and is not lost. Although the water intakes are generally upstream of the treatment plant discharge, the water does go downwstream to other potential users. In such a situation, does eliminating high flow toilets and urinals really matter that much? Only if the issue is treatment capacity rather than actual source water supply. When water is drawn for irrigation or evaporative cooling towers, much is lost. One might reasonably argue that it is better to mandate air cooled towers rather than evaporative cooling towers where water supply is critical or limiting agricultural or lawn use rather than trying to reduce all water consumption by simply raising its price. Where water is abundant and treatment capacity is adequate, such as the Great Lakes, conservation is a waste of money unless the water that is saved is somehow sent to somewhere it has value. If other regions would care to subsidize conservation measures in the Great Lakes basin in exchange for equal volumes transferred out of the basin, I do not see how anyone could reasonably object. (Of course, one could also move the heavy water users to the Great Lakes Basin where the abundant supply should keep its price reasonable.)

POSTED BY: Pepe (July 05, 2007 03:34 PM)
The greatest incentive for conservation in Southern California has to be the price of the water. Current rates are very low. Most Californian pay more for cable, internet, gas, etc., than for water. Why not use that incentive?

POSTED BY: Ted Burr (July 05, 2007 10:39 PM)
When will politicians and engineers get together on best ways to desalt sea water? We could divert funds from space and all sorts of projects to work seriously on distributing fresh water from the seas. Let's quit talking conservation and gloom and doom, and get busy on desalination and distribution.

POSTED BY: Chris (January 24, 2008 11:22 PM)
Using high cost as a conservation initiative denies water to poor people. You can live without cable and you can certainly live with less gas and electric, but not water. Other methods need to be found. Everyone deserves water.

POSTED BY: Jess (January 30, 2008 06:47 PM)
The real problem with Southern California water policy is that farms get first crack at the water at *far* lower rates than residential or commercial users. It should not be economical for a farmer to flood rice paddies in a drought. You should not be able to grow lettuce for a profit in the desert. As for desalinization, it is about the most expensive (in terms of money and energy) option there is for increasing water supply.

POSTED BY: Enormo (February 17, 2008 11:51 PM)
Why isn't there ever any comment about the ecological impact of desalinization? Taking the H2o out of sea water leaves you with a concentrated brine. Dumping tons of this stuff back into the local oceans daily can't be good.

POSTED BY: chelsea (February 22, 2008 12:32 PM)
Although farmers get the "first crack at the water at "far" lower rates than residential or commercial users", it is the farmers that bring our country the food. If farmers didn't have water, they could make no food, and a lot of people would starve or die from malnutrition. It just isn't a feasible option to cut off the farmers' water supply.

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