Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America [Hardcover]

Susan J. Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2009

An objective look at America's rapidly shrinking water supply

Once believed to be a problem limited to America's southwest, water shortages are now an issue coast to coast, from New England to California. In Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America, author Susan J. Marks provides a comprehensive analysis of the current conflicts being waged over dwindling water supplies. She presents the findings of university studies, think tanks, and research groups, as well as the opinions of water experts, including Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. The book

• Explains where our water comes from and who controls it, as well as the cost of water on cash, commodities, and capitalism
• Describes the risks of running out of water
• Details how we can preserve and protect our most precious, yet most undervalued natural resource

Right now, battles over water supplies rage across the country. Aqua Shock is an objective look at how we arrived at this crisis point and what we can do-and should be doing-to solve the water crisis in America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"We must shift from  business as usual—what we at Earth Policy Institute call Plan A—to a plan of  action to save our environment—Plan B. That plan includes restoration  of aquifers. We can arrest the fall in water tables by increasing water  productivity—getting the most use from every drop of water that we do have.  That means, as Aqua Shock details, recycling, re-use, conservation, and  re-thinking how and where we use water today. We can do it, but time  is not on our side. We must act now before it's too  late." 
—Lester R. Brown
President  of Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

"Susan J. Marks's book, Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America, brings to our attention the dire straits that America faces in the future because of water shortages and pollution of existing sources.  It is time that the American public awakens to these conditions and takes steps, however costly, to change them.  Aqua Shock will help achieve this desired goal."
—Joel A. Tarr
Richard S. Caliguiri University Professor of History and Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

"Thankfully, Marks not only spells out in rich detail how and why we as a country find ourselves in the present predicament, but also how we can emerge from it and satisfy our thirst for water in a safe and sane manner.  It is within our power to solve this problem, and we must."
—Ronald F. Poltak
Executive Director, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission

From the Inside Flap

The Future of Fresh Water

Aqua Shock

"Aqua Shock confronts an unfortunately little-known fact—the U.S. is in the midst of a water crisis. This is not an issue that can be ignored. Americans need to resd this book"
—Kristine Stratton, Executive Director, Waterkeeper Alliance

Once believed to be a problem only in the western United States, water shortages are now an issue coast to coast, from New England to California. Susan J. Marks bases her comprehensive analysis on the current water conflicts being fought over land, in local government agencies, and in the courtroom. She presents the findings of university studies, think tanks, and research groups and the opinions of water experts including Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institure for Studies in Development, Enviroment, and Security. There can be no doubt, she concludes, that fresh water in the United States is a fragile and diminishing resouce and its future depends on smart, careful panning now.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; 1 edition (October 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576603326
• ISBN-13: 978-1576603321
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #985,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Susan J. Marks is an award-winning journalist and author. She spent more than a dozen years at the Denver Post, primarily as Sunday business editor and special projects editor/business. She has also written for BusinessWeek, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and others. Her work has received awards and recognition from local, regional, and national organizations, including Gannett, the Colorado Press Association, and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. She lives in Denver.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Hodgepodge, October 14, 2009

By 

B. Case "InquiringMind" (Redondo Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America (Hardcover)

"Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America," by Susan J. Marks, is a boring hodgepodge of facts and figures. It reads like some of the mind-numbing textbooks that I had to endure during my high school years. This book breathes no life or depth into the topic...and that is very sad because the worldwide water crisis is an immensely fascinating topic. How could the author get so lost in the trees that she misses the forest?

I love this topic. I've spent many months of my retirement years taking college-level seminar courses on the water crisis. I've read a number of major books and countless academic papers and government documents on the topic. I've heard enlightened seminar students deliver stimulating presentations on a wide variety of in-depth worldwide water crisis research studies. I prepared my own report on the water crisis currently facing Australia. So, it was with great interest and enthusiasm that I agreed to read and review "Aqua Shock" for the Early Reviewer program at LibraryThing. What a disappointment!

The water crisis is about as complex as most topics can get. It needs authors that can cut through the minutiae and help readers understand the underlying issues. Instead, Susan Marks writes like a cheerleader-type teacher trying to wake up an early morning class of disinterested ninth-graders. For example, the book begins: "America is running out of water! Sooner rather than later, your tap could run dry." This same introductory chapter closes with these words: "Water is a broad issue and -- through the lens of 'Aqua Shock' -- anything but dry, so let's get started." She peppers the book with information about potentially fun, interactive Internet sites that readers can visit to play with water facts. For example, in one paragraph that seemingly comes out of nowhere between two unrelated paragraphs, she says: "The amount of water that falls from the sky in an ordinary rainstorm might surprise you. Learn more about it with the U.S. Geological Survey's interactive calculator..." and here she provides the Internet address. I audible groaned when I read on page 143 that the United States needs "a big kahuna of water" implying that we needed a Cabinet-level national water officer.

The book has glaring factual errors. On page 23 (and repeated again on page 28), she attributes Joseph Dellapenna, internationally known water law expert and professor at Villanova University School of Law as saying this: "While the population of the United States doubled between 1950 and 1980, per capita water consumption increased sixfold during the same period." Now, I don't go around keeping obscure data in my head, but I suspect that most informed readers would immediately know that the population of the United States did not double between 1950 and 1980. It doubled between 1950 and the present day. I doubt the error was Dellapenna's, and it is certainly the type of error that an author or editor should have spotted and corrected. It makes me fear for other glaring errors that may dot this text that I did not spot.

As a retired academic research librarian, I've read countless term papers by college students who have amassed a dozen or so related academic papers on a topic and are attempting to bring them together into a cogent term paper. This book reads exactly like the type of student who misses the point...the type of student who does excellent research, but just can't put it all together into a cogent whole.

Don't read or buy this book; save your time and money. There are far better books on the topic. As a starter, read chapter two, "Emerging Water Shortages," in Lester Brown's book "Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble." The Earth Policy Institute makes this book available free on the Internet, each chapter being a separate, easy-to-read PDF document. Other interesting and insightful overviews are "Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource," by Marq DeVilliers, and "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition" by Marc Reisner. But above all, do inform yourself about the current worldwide water crisis. It is real and alarming.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars one star is an overstatement, November 3, 2009

By 

Andrew M (Delray Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America (Hardcover)

This book appears to be little more than a compilation of excerpts and internet searches, and an unedited version at that. Mind numbing, painful, repetitive, poorly executed and unscientific are the best words to describe this piece of junk. As a financial professional with an engineering background, I was hoodwinked into buying this through Bloomberg, and didn't bother reading any reviews, and am now scarred by the experience.

I fired down a few cocktails and tried to read while intoxicated, but it still hurts. Do yourself a favor and don't attempt to read this drivel. I'm very interested in this topic, and was unhappy to be delivered what amounts to a rough draft of a high school science paper. The publisher and author should be publicly humiliated. I've never seen anything written so poorly and devoid of a central thesis or supporting structure.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful for facts, not so exciting to read ... Cadillac Desert is better., December 3, 2009

By 

Michael H. Wofsey (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America (Hardcover)

This book is up-to-date, I like that. And it has useful facts for my own research and business in desalination. But the other reviewers have a good point ... it's darn near unreadable.

I DO read it, and I'm gradually getting through it, but I only read a page here and there, because it's so dry that it's easy to put down. In a sense, that could be taken as a strength ... if you have a lot of work to do and don't want to get wound up in a book, this is perfect because as far as I can tell it's impossible to lose yourself in this book. Each moment is like sitting in a dentist's office waiting room.

The biggest complaint I have about this book is that a $25 shelf price for a book this quickly-put-together is a crime. It should be a $9 softcover. That would have been sufficient, because the glossy jacket, hardcover and fine paper are like putting racing rims on a golf cart.

For me, the gold-standard in water books is Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner. Reisner present the story of water in such an engaging and intoxicating way that you probably shouldn't crack the book if you have a lot of work ahead of you, because you won't be able to put it down.

However, if after reading Cadillac Desert, you want updates on water issues in general, and you can find a cutout copy of Aqua Shock for a few bucks, it's worth the buy.