Natural Perspectives:

October has arrived. Our winter rainy season should start soon, maybe in a few more weeks. We watch the weather channel in hopeful anticipation, waiting for rain to end our long dry spell. Maybe we should all do a rain dance. It can’t hurt and it might even be fun!

Talbert Lake in Central Park is dry, along with Blackbird Pond at Shipley Nature Center. They’re tied together hydrologically and when one is dry, so is the other. All those years that Blackbird Pond had water and Talbert Lake didn’t were because of artificial watering of Blackbird Pond. First Ranger Dave Winkler and then volunteers from Friends of Shipley Nature Center kept the pond filled using hoses with untreated water pumped directly from the ground water tables below.

Huntington Lake lies at a lower elevation than Talbert Lake, so it still has water in it. To save money, the city is using ground water below the lakes to water landscaping in Central Park. This has dropped the level of Huntington Lake even more.

After El Niño-level annual rainfalls of 20 and 30 inches, all the lakes fill, not just from rain that falls here, but from rain that falls inland and percolates down toward the coast through the water table. The last two years have been dry, so the lakes are drying up.

When water levels drop as low as they are now, the water warms and holds less oxygen. This isn’t good for the bass, crappie, bluegill, trout and catfish that live in Huntington Lake. That, in turn, isn’t good for the fishermen who enjoy catching those fish.

We’re now facing our third year of drought. What this means is a run on the bank. Not a financial bank, but California’s water bank. In times of drought, willing sellers, usually farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, can sell their water rights temporarily to thirsty southern California cities.

The Metropolitan Water District, from which we get about 40% of our water, will most likely tap into this emergency water source to keep our faucets full this winter. The water bank hasn’t had to be used since the six-year drought that ended in 1992. We’re lucky that this emergency source is available. However, that water is more expensive than our local groundwater. MWD expects to raise its prices by 14.2% starting in January.

But since Talbert Lake, Blackbird Pond and Huntington Lake are filled by non-potable ground water, not tap water, this emergency dipping into the water bank offers no help for the fish and turtles. A long-term partial solution lies in the diversion of urban runoff from the Wintersburg Flood Control Channel.

The city plans to construct a freshwater wetland treatment system that would utilize this water source to keep the ground water levels in Central Park at a higher level. These treatment wetlands would provide good habitat for migratory and resident birds, and should help keep water in Huntington Lake as well.

The Huntington Beach Library has a terrific book on the water crisis from a world perspective. Created by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, this 2007 series of essays, graphics and photos is called “Blue Planet Run: The race to provide safe drinking water to the world.” The book is packed with powerful, thought-provoking statistics.

There are 1.1 billion people throughout the world who lack access to clean, safe water. That’s one out of every six people. Half the people in the world don’t have access to water that is as good as what was available to Roman citizens 2,000 years ago. One child dies every 15 seconds of a water-borne illness.

Blue Planet Run is filled with haunting images — Africans scooping brackish drinking water out of deep holes in the sand less than 300 feet from the ocean; bright orange waste flowing from a factory into the Huai River in China; the sweat-glistened face of a fever-wracked boy with malaria in Sierra Leone. The list goes on and on.

The book also contains food for thought for people like us who live in a near desert with limited rainfall. In fact, Southern California’s water crisis is mentioned. While much of the world struggles just to find a gallon of water to drink, the average American uses 100 to 175 gallons of water every day at home, mostly for watering landscaping.

An additional 1,300 gallons are used every day by agriculture and industry to feed and clothe each one of us. Cotton takes an incredible amount of water to grow, so every time you avoid buying yet another shirt or blouse that you probably don’t need anyway, you’re saving water.

Beef takes far more water to produce than pork. It takes 2,900 gallons of water to raise a quarter-pound of hamburger, but only 530 gallons to raise a pork chop. Chicken can be produced with even less water. It takes 650 gallons of water to raise one pound of rice, but only 130 gallons of water to raise one pound of wheat. So the type of food that you choose to eat affects how much water is used on your behalf.

Recreation can also gulp water. Swimming pools, on average, take 18,000 gallons to fill. It requires another 7,700 gallons every month to replace water that is lost by evaporation.

Golf is another water-thirsty activity. Golf courses, on average, use 3,350 gallons of water a day to irrigate the grass.

We’re nearing a water crisis in Southern California. We all need to think about how we can best conserve water.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.