Is the United States Selling Water to China?

"I heard that the United States is selling water to China.  Is that correct?"  The staff of the Newton Falls Public Library was unfamiliar with this, but always enjoys discovering answers and learning something new.

Putting the terms "US selling water to China" into a popular search engine brought up a variety of website links. One took us to the article Sell China water from Great Lakes?  by Kathleen Story of Green Living Examiner.  According to the article, "a loophole in the 2006 Great Lakes Compact allows the water to be called a product and sold off outside the [Great Lakes] basin."  It seems that while the water is from the Great Lakes, it is not actually being sold by the United States but rather by private companies accessing the resource.

The article, There Will Be Water by Susan Berfield on June 11, 2008 in the online Bloomberg Business Week Magazine, refers to water as blue gold and as the new oil.  In reading the article, it does not appear that the United States government is selling water to China.  However, foreign companies such as Canadian River Municipal Water Authority,  Royal Dutch Shell, and multi-national water bottlers like Nestlé are purchasing land, water or ground water rights in the water rich areas of the United States and are selling the water.

If our patron wished more information, he could borrow the documentary Blue Gold: World Water Wars and the book, Blue Gold: The Battle against Corporate Theft of the World's Water by Maude Barlow.  Both of these are available through the shared Clevnet catalog.

How Much Water Does the Town's Water Tower Hold?

 “How much water does the town’s water tower hold? How is it filled and how heavy is the water in it?” Like the residents of Newton Falls, the Public Library staff sees the tower every day, but had not thought about what is in it.

We began our search for information at the city’s website, http://ci.newtonfalls.oh.us. Using the directory, we first looked at the Water Distribution Division and learned that “Approximately 45.8 miles of pipes which are from 2″ to 12″ in diameter in the City of Newton Falls, Newton Township and Braceville Township . . . [and] approximately 375 fire hydrants” are maintained by this division.

The Water Plant Division’s section states that “raw water is taken from the East Branch of the Mahoning River at the corner of Starr Street and Riverside Drive, where it is pumped directly to the plant for treatment . . . After treatment, the water is pumped to the distribution system and the 500,000 gallon elevated storage tank on Broad Street adjacent to the West Branch of the Mahoning River. The elevation of this water tower is what provides the working pressure for the system.”

That answered the first question but not the others, so the library staff contacted the Water Plant. Their staff was very informative. There is an additional tank near the park which holds 250,000 gallons of water. Each morning between 7:30-8 a.m., water is pumped to the towers until they are filled. Depending on the season; in winter it is usually filled by 2 p.m., in summer a little later depending on the demand. The plant is then shut down for awhile, and later refilling will start again so to be completed by 11 p.m. When Rockwell International was purchasing water from the city, they used over one million gallons a day. The tank was seldom completely filled, and the plant often ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Water Plant staff also assisted us with the final question about the weight. We were told that water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. Using that figure, the water in the larger tower weighs 4,170,000 pounds. The water in the smaller one weighs 2,085,000.