[blackdog]

Who is taking the water and hiding it? Water does not get used up. It is the ultimate in recycling.

Water can be scarce when people in certain geographical locations want more of something that was not there in the first place. So why are we developing those areas and then complaining about shortages? The shortage was in brains in the first place.

The World Bank and IMF are demanding of nations that participate in their system that they set up a system to charge for water, control the resource, and limit it's use. This is part of a program in order to maximize revenues from natural resources a country may have.

This water crap is just that. Water resources do not diminish globally unless aliens are coming here in space craft and stealing it.

[CJ Wolf]

we can just unfreeze some of that artic ice.

[Delphinium]

Water does not get used up. It is the ultimate in recycling.

Now thats common sense.

[Alberta's Child]

The issue isn't just the amount of water that is available -- it's the amount of clean water that is readily available. There are rivers east of the Appalachian Mountains any one of which could probably satusfy the entire nation's demand. But many of them are too polluted for human consumptions, and even if they were perfecttly clean it's not practical to transport large volumes of water between watersheds like that.

[expatpat]

You're right. The more water is pumped out of the ground, the more there is in the world to use. Of course, some of it is moved to other parts of the planet.

However, water taken from the ground used for drinking, washing, and toilets goes back into nearby rivers via water-treatment plants or into the nearby ground via septic systems. Some of the water used on farms, lawns, an golf courses goes into the air and ends up elsewhere.

The use of ground water at a faster rate than it is replenished (eg. Arizona) is of course a foolish policy.

[_Jim]

Who is taking the water and hiding it?

LOL!