The Plan to Move Water from the Desert to Cities

Their plan is to withdraw 16 billion gallons each year for 50 years from the Fenner Valley Aquifer that was formed thousands of years ago by snowmelt and rainwater from surrounding mountains. As The Atlantic reported, some call this “fossil water” as it began accumulating during the last Ice Age when mammoths still roamed. If the aquifer is drained it will never replenish, at least not on a human time scale. 

On the surface it looks like a partial solution to the crisis facing the Southwest from shrinking supplies in the Colorado River Basin. But according to Native Tribes and environmentalists, the plan, called the Mojave Groundwater Bank, is a disaster. The National Parks Conservation Association states that for decades federal government studies have shown that the project would overdraft and deplete the aquifer. Up to this time, state and tribal governments along with the federal government have worked to block the plans.

The project is in the middle of the Mojave Trails National Monument between Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve. It contains much biological diversity, recreational opportunities, and Tribal and cultural value. There are springs in the region used by wildlife like bobcats, bighorn sheep, and migrating birds, as well as native plants, which the National Parks Conservation Association says will be forever altered by the pumping.

Timothy Williams of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe told the Los Angeles Times that the company’s plan to pump 25 times more groundwater each year than the aquifer can recharge would desecrate their traditional territories.

But things have not gotten off to a good start. In February of this year, officials at the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities discovered that one of the subcontractors building the massive data center, Goat Systems LLC, discharged a bacterium into the city’s reclaimed wastewater treatment system. The bacterium called Cupriavidus gilardii is rare and found naturally in soil and water. It’s mostly harmless but could be deadly if ingested by the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.

According to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, which first reported the incident, the contamination happened during “fill-and-flush” operations, where purified water is circulated, then flushed, to eliminate construction debris and residue to prepare large cooling systems before they launch.

Upon discovery of the bacterium, officials suspended Cheyenne’s reclaimed water irrigation program, permanently terminated Meta’s discharge privileges, and adopted a new policy prohibiting wastewater discharges from data centers using closed-loop cooling and fill-and-flush systems. Officials stressed that the bacterium was never found in drinking water, only recycled water used at parks and other locations like golf courses. However, that did not quell public concern that the bacteria could be inhaled from aerosolized droplets from irrigation systems.

The incident comes amidst growing backlash against data centers nationwide. A recent Gallup poll found about 70 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly oppose having data centers in their area, citing environmental concerns, such as high water use. 

Now, scientists at Tufts University have designed wearables—just like your smartwatch—that attach to crops to provide information about a plant’s health. Borrowing from the Japanese art of paper cutting—kirigami—the scientists have made a band that wraps around a plant stem and monitors whether it is growing by sensing changes in electrical resistance as it expands or contracts. Stems shrink when under stress.

They also developed a tiny tattoo-like sensor that adheres to leaf surfaces and measures temperature and humidity. In a release, the lead researcher, Nafize Hossain, said that this sensor shows how the plant is responding in real time, before signs of stress appear.

The researchers say that it is important to have both a stem and a leaf sensor because plants can show stress on different time scales—a leaf being faster than a stem. The sensors could be worn in a network across a field to alert farmers that plants are thirsty, diseased, or not getting enough nutrients. Instead of drones or satellites giving farmers a bird’s-eye view, these wearables could provide a plant’s-eye view. 

The study was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

But there’s a new Houdini on the block. Researchers in Japan say some snails disappear when it rains—and now they know the trick of how they do it. A team from the University of Tokyo say that two snails, the Hypselostyla camelopardalis from the Philippines and Reinia variegata from Japan, escape being eaten by birds by having their shells turn from a light-colored pattern to dark brown when it rains, to seemingly disappear into damp tree bark.

The snails can pull off this feat of camouflage because the outermost layer of their shells is porous like a sponge. When water fills the holes, it changes how light bounces off, making a second darker layer below more visible. It’s an example of hydrochromism—where a material changes color when it reacts with moisture and reverses when it dries—maybe a trick Houdini could have included in his act by just adding water.

The study was published in the journal Zoological Letters.