Thank you for this insightful and thought-provoking article. While it is true we Americans waste a lot of water, we also (historically) were blessed with a lot of it...the vast majority of which goes not for direct human consumption and household use, but rather to industrial scale agricultural, dairy, poultry and energy extraction operations. A good portion of the farm productivity is shipped overseas as "virtual water", which of course eventually comes back to us in the form of Pacific/Atlantic storms. Our major urban centers are becoming water stressed due largely to historically poor water management (with some isolated exceptions) and water delivery infrastructure that is deteriorating. The pressing issue in many rural areas of the US, particularly the mid-West and Southwest is overdrafting (i.e., "mining") of our groundwater basins, which has accelerated in recent decades. At current usage rates (mostly by large agribusiness interests), some Western basins will be functionally depleted by 2030. I fully agree with the authors that in general there is a lack of political will to change our wasteful water habits. But when a country's GDP is inextricably tied to ever expanding population growth and goods manufacturing and exportation, there is tremendous local, state and federal political pressure to not disrupt "business as usual", and to continue as long as possible with poor water resources management practices. A real question is: How long can that go on before a point of irreversible damage has been reached?

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Thank you for this insightful and thought-provoking article. While it is true we Americans waste a lot of water, we also (historically) were blessed with a lot of it...the vast majority of which goes not for direct human consumption and household use, but rather to industrial scale agricultural, dairy, poultry and energy extraction operations. A good portion of the farm productivity is shipped overseas as "virtual water", which of course eventually comes back to us in the form of Pacific/Atlantic storms. Our major urban centers are becoming water stressed due largely to historically poor water management (with some isolated exceptions) and water delivery infrastructure that is deteriorating. The pressing issue in many rural areas of the US, particularly the mid-West and Southwest is overdrafting (i.e., "mining") of our groundwater basins, which has accelerated in recent decades. At current usage rates (mostly by large agribusiness interests), some Western basins will be functionally depleted by 2030. I fully agree with the authors that in general there is a lack of political will to change our wasteful water habits. But when a country's GDP is inextricably tied to ever expanding population growth and goods manufacturing and exportation, there is tremendous local, state and federal political pressure to not disrupt "business as usual", and to continue as long as possible with poor water resources management practices. A real question is: How long can that go on before a point of irreversible damage has been reached?