Which city has the best drinking water in America?
According to a 2007 study by Forbes magazine, it’s Des Moines, Iowa. According to a 2007 study by Men’s Health magazine, it’s Denver—followed by Baton Rouge at No. 2.
It doesn’t matter who wears the crown when a city’s potable water supply is as pure and wholesome as ours, a fact more people might take for granted if they were aware of it.
But enjoy it while it lasts.
Gene Owen, chairman of the Baton Rouge Water Company, suspects many residents are clueless as to just how good they have it in terms of groundwater, thanks to the massive Southern Hills Aquifer directly under their feet—despite the informational flyers the company includes with its water bills.
“The Baton Rouge Water Company serves more than 155,000 customers,” Owen says. “I would bet that a sizeable number think we’re taking it out of the river now.”
We’re not. But that doesn’t mean BRWC won’t have to resort to using treated Mississippi River water to augment Baton Rouge’s pristine groundwater in the not-too-distant future if we continue to pull water out of the ground at the current rate of about 320 million gallons per day.
Not taking steps to conserve the aquifer—a priceless, irreplaceable resource—would be criminal and tragic, Owen says. Baton Rouge’s aquifer is already showing signs of saltwater intrusion, which happens when too much freshwater is pumped out too fast—an effect that is irreversible.
But Owen supports a plan to build a pipeline carrying “clarified” water from the Mississippi River to the Georgia-Pacific operations facility at Port Hudson and industrial plants downstream. It’s something that was cooked up by West Feliciana Parish officials deciding what to do with the industrial clarifier the parish acquired as part of the deal to find a new buyer for the Tembec paper mill, which closed in 2007 but is now slated for reopening under new management.
The idea is to give industrial plants an alternative to groundwater. That alternative would be surface water, of which there’s plenty in the Mississippi River. Of the 320 million gallons sucked out of the Southern Hills aquifer on a daily basis, 38% goes for industry for cooling and processing and 45% for public use. The theory behind the search for an alternative is that the aquifer is a finite resource that shouldn’t be squandered, and public consumption is the highest priority. Industry also needs affordable water, however, and shouldn’t be penalized, pipeline proponents say.
Clarifying facilities are extremely expensive to build, but West Feliciana Parish has one. The challenge is getting the clarified water to industry, which is where the pipeline comes in, and then making it a feasible alternative for industry from a financial perspective. Industry doesn’t want to pay more for water—especially at the rate it uses it—and Owen, an engineer by training, doesn’t think it should have to.
“I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask industry to take a hit,” he says. “The easiest way is to make it cost neutral.”
West Feliciana Parish Manager Ambrose Sims says officials are trying to find money for a feasibility study. Since a pipeline would traverse more of East Feliciana and East Baton Rouge parishes than West Feliciana, nothing will happen unless all affected parties are onboard. Sims says he plans to meet with Mayor Kip Holden on the proposal.
Joey Hebert, an environmental engineer with Georgia-Pacific and a member of the Capital Area Groundwater Conservation Commission, says the Port Hudson operations plant pumps or “produces” between 36 million and 38 million gallons of groundwater a day for washing pulp and slurrying. The plant now gets one-third of its groundwater from shallower zones within the aquifer to minimize the impact on the deeper zones that supply public drinking water.
Hebert says the plant is a “good neighbor” that wouldn’t place its own water needs over that of residential areas if it came down to it. He thinks the mill’s consumption rate is sustainable, and he sees no immediate threat of aquifer depletion on the horizon. Also, the mill recycles its water assiduously. That said, Georgia-Pacific is receptive to the idea of switching to clarified river water by way of a pipeline, he says.
For the mill to build its own surface water treatment facility, it would require a great deal of expense and red tape, and thus is not likely to happen anytime soon. But clarified water delivered to their door is something else.
“It’s just an idea, but it’s an idea that we’re certainly interested in if it ever comes to fruition,” Hebert says. “There are a lot of technical hurdles that have to be gotten over.”
Not to mention the financial hurdle. How to pay for a pipeline is one among many details to be worked out. Sims sees it as more of a public project, or possibly a combination of public and private.
“You’re going to have to have at least a probably $20 million capital outlay for that pipeline and the right-of-way agreements and everything else,” Sims says. “When you look at the payout from a private-sector vantage point, it’s probably not that good. But from a governmental vantage point, you can offset a lot of the capital outlay with grants that will make it much more attractive economically. It might have to be a partnership that combines multiple governmental entities with the private sector.”
Within 20 years, Baton Rouge could see its pure drinking water augmented by treated river water, Owen says. Baton Rouge Water Company already has acquired a site on the river for that contingency. Treatment technology has come a long way. Still, it would be much smarter to simply conserve what we’ve got, he says.
“Treatment is so expensive, and it is simply not the same as what we’ve got today,” Owen says. “We’ve just got to preserve it.”
WATER WORLD
Does Des Moines, Iowa, have the best drinking water in America? Or does Denver? It depends on results from 2007 reports.
Forbes
1. Des Moines, Iowa
2. Austin, Texas
3. Sioux Falls, S.D.
4. Miami
5. Birmingham, Ala.
6. Boise, Idaho
7. Las Vegas
8. Tampa, Fla.
9. Pittsburgh
10. Tulsa, Okla.
Men’s Health
1. Denver
2. Baton Rouge
3. Kansas City, Mo.
4. Norfolk, Va.
5. Memphis, Tenn.
6. Baltimore
7. Oakland, Calif.
8. St. Petersburg, Fla.
9. Montgomery, Ala.
10. Honolulu
