As more people reach for the tap, these become pressing questions. A growing population requires more food, more houses, more shopping centers, more roads, more cars-all of which increase demands for clean, fresh water.
The 20th century has seen great changes in the way Americans use water. As the century opened, the United States government launched a massive dam-building program aimed at bringing irrigation - and people - to the West. In the decades that followed, dams were raised across rivers around the country, providing not just water for agriculture, recreation, and navigation but also protection against floods and electricity to power the industrial development of entire regions.
Large-scale exploitation of groundwater resources began in the 1930s, when new pumps and cheap power allowed a growing number of farmers to economically lift water from as deep as, a thousand feet below the surface. From the Great Plains to California's Central Valley, vast regions with little rainfall assumed new prominence as agricultural land.
In recent decades Americans have begun to feel the limits of their water supply. Pollution of lakes and streams and over pumping and contamination of groundwater sources have, in some areas, sharply reduced the available amount of fresh water. People are being forced into choices: Should we water fields or supply cities? Generate electricity or support fish habitat? Build an airport or preserve a wetland?
Source: Natonal Geographics, Special Edition - "Water" November 1993
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