As global freshwater resources are becoming scarcer, many options are available at our hands to reduce the demands and increase supplies. Conserving, desalinizing and pipeline diverging schemes are popular potential solutions, an upcoming possibility is water export in bulk: shipping water in 80-million-gallon tankers which are typically designed for oil shipping. This solution has been discussed for more than two decades but large-volume exports have never been completed. Logistics, worry over natural resources sovereignty and commodification as well as contemptible local sources have stood in the way of any proposed deals.
But interest in bulk water has seen new life, most importantly from sources in Alaska. Sitka, a very small town along the southeastern coast of Alaska, is apparently well on its way to sending millions of gallons of water to India that will then be mostly distributed in the Middle East. As the city and its stakeholders set to export water from the Blue Lake Reservoir in six to eight months, the global freshwater crisis is being redefined.
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