whether the process actually exists and, if it does, 

 whether the rate of manufacture is fast enough to 

 make large quantities of water available. Such a 

 program should include laboratory research into 

 osmotic membrane phenomena under offshore 

 geologic conditions, collection and analysis of 

 deep sediment cores and interstitial waters, and 

 offshore test drilling in selected localities. 



I. PRESENT LEVELS OF FRESH WATER UTI- 

 LIZATION 



It is estimated that, on the average, 700 billion 

 gallons of water per day (bgd) flows into the 

 oceans from the U.S. land. The current U.S. 

 demand is on the order of 370 bgd, and the 

 estimated use by the year 2000 will approximately 

 double.* Because most water is returned to the 

 system in some way the figure for consumptive use 

 becomes the critical one. It has been estimated 

 that consumptive use will increase from about 80 

 bgd in 1965 to 130 bgd in the year 2000, and 

 around 1 75 bgd by the year 2020. Because of the 

 need to maintain some water in channel flow, the 

 unequal distribution of water in time and space, 

 and the decrease in water quaUty resulting from 

 use, these figures indicate a potential deficiency in 

 available fresh water .^ 



II. DEMAND PROJECTIONS 



About 75 per cent of the present U.S. popula- 

 tion Uves in the 30 States bordering the oceans and 

 the Great Lakes, and this geographic segment of 

 the population is growing much faster than any 

 other. Demographers anticipate that by the year 

 2000 the most densely populated region of the 

 United States will be a megalopolis along the 

 Atlantic coast between Portland, Maine, and Sa- 

 vannah, Georgia. Other areas of great population 

 will extend along parts of the west coast and along 

 the Great Lakes. Thus, water requirements in 

 coastal areas will rise much faster than for the 

 country as a whole. Meeting these demands will 

 probably not be difficult on the east coast and the 

 eastern part of the Gulf coast where a humid 

 climate prevails and an ample supply of fresh 

 water from conventional sources is generally avail- 



Department of the Interior, "Marine Resources 

 Development- A National Opportunity" unpublished re- 

 port, 1968. 



^Arthur M. Piper, "Has the United States Enough 

 Water?" Geological Survey Supply Paper No. 1797, 1965. 



able. However, in the dryer western part of the 

 Gulf and along the southern segment of the west 

 coast the problems of meeting the demand will 

 become increasingly difficult. 



III. ALTERNATIVE SUPPLY PROSPECTS 



It is beyond the scope of this report to analyse 

 intensively the many complex problems relating to 

 water resource allocation and utilization, present 

 or future. The intent here is to show that waters of 

 the marine environment may be important alterna- 

 tive or supplemental sources of fresh water in 

 coastal areas faced with shortages of reasonably 

 priced conventional surface and ground water. 



Potential marine sources include submarine 

 - aquifers some of which may contain "new" fresh 

 water being manufactured by processes as yet 

 unknown or understood; more efficient use of 

 ground water supplies from aquifers that slope 

 beneath the sea; and desalted sea water. Principal 

 emphasis here is on desalted sea water which is 

 becoming increasingly important as advances are 

 made in desalting technology. Any coastal area 

 faced with a fresh water shortage now has the ■ 

 alternative of building a desalting plant; in pre- 

 vious years the only solution would have been to 

 divert water from another, perhaps distant, area of 

 surplus. In choosing between the alternatives of 

 desalted water and diverted water the most impor- 

 tant factor is cost. 



A. Water Diverted from Areas of Surplus 



The fresh water resources of the United States 

 are very unevenly distributed geographically. 

 Transfer of water from areas of surplus to areas of 

 deficit is one alternative method to fill the needs 

 of the deficit areas. However, such transfer raises 

 important economic, social, political, and legal 

 implications that need careful study; not the least 

 of these is whether the interregion transfer is the 

 least cost alternative. 



B. Submarine Aquifers^ 



Two possible sources of fresh water from 

 so-called submarine aquifers are: 



-Certain aquifers beneath the land extend beneath 

 the sea. They include aquifers off the open coast 

 as well as those that lie beneath estuaries and other 

 relatively small coastal ocean-water bodies. They 



Summarized from information supplied by the Geo- 

 logical Survey, 1968. 



VII-224 



