Atlanta may soon be battling Alabama and Florida over water, a trend that could become the norm for city and state water agencies, according to Bloomberg View columnist Peter R. Orszag, vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup Inc. Orszag notes in a current column, “As Deane Dray and other colleagues of mine at Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) have written, ‘There is an alarming global supply-demand imbalance, worsened by pollution and draining of underground aquifers reducing the available fresh water supply.’”
He notes the massive Ogallala aquifer under the Great Plains could run dry in two to three decades given recent withdrawal rates and that the groundwater resources in Great Lakes communities, including Chicago and Milwaukee, have dropped by 1,000 feet in the past two decades.