Shortages Spur Alaska to India Fresh Water Export Plan

To encapsulate the world's water crisis, media are fond of the rhetorical question: "Is water the new oil?" As in: Is fresh, clean water an increasingly limited resource that could fuel the next wave of global conflict?

I don't know the answer, but here's an unsettling development that doesn't bode well. Kicking off World Water Week, both Time and The Guardian have profiled a Texas-based start-up with ambitious plans to export Alaska's fresh water to India—in a converted oil tanker.

The company, S2C Global Systems, Inc., wants to haul "bulk water" supplies in 50-million gallon vessels for both bottled drinking water and industrial and manufacturing uses. Via pipeline, the water would leave Sitka, Alaska's Blue Lake, which is restocked by glacier melt, and then move in cargo ships to an undisclosed "World Water Hub" in India. There, water would be stored in tanks for re-distribution to parched countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Sounds like a pretty awesome business plan.  I mean, why not? Resource-rich countries ship supplies—oil, gold, bananas—to have-not nations all the time. Except water is different from bananas, and there's some good reasons why.

For one, the articles both note that "bulk water export" has been an idea in the mix to solve water shortages for the last 50 years. But, as anyone who has ever tried to haul a bucket of water even 10 feet can imagine, there's a reason why we aren't seeing a new water tanker industry yet. Water is heavy. It's not so easy to move in bulk, especially across a large ocean.

These logistical challenges mean S2C must make major price markups to turn a profit. For example, the Alaska-exported water could cost $18 per cubic meter, whereas local ocean water processed through a desalination plant would only cost $1/cubic meter. I can imagine it now: an Evian bottle that goes for $10 a pop, while Indian children die on the streets by the hundreds from waterborne diarrheal diseases. Water experts such as Peter H. Gleick think the whole plan is a pipe dream.

Regardless of whether or not S2C succeeds, the reality of fresh water as an international commodity is gaining ground. Most freshwater is near the poles, in places such as Greenland, New Zealand, and Iceland; Canada owns more freshwater resources than any other country -- all locations quite far from where most of the world's billions reside. And as world populations grow, and climate change and urbanization takes hold, water scarcity will escalate.

This sets up a potentially scary scenario: Fresh water will be a resource sold to those who can pay at a time when 13 percent of the people on this planet still lack fresh, clean and safe drinking water -- a basic human need, and as the U.N. finally acknowledged, also a basic human right.

That's why I'm unsettled by what Rod Bartlett, a managing partner in the Alaska export venture told The Guardian: "as you continue to look at the potential in India, it's going to be a natural place to sell water soon, no question about it."

It's not that he's wrong that's upsetting. It's that he's probably right. Meanwhile, despite detractors, S2C is betting big on this reality: The company hopes to build two more Water Hubs in the Caribbean and China soon.

Photo credit: nightthree via Flickr

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