But the great lakes.
Unironically.
I mean, sure, conserve, but until those lakes drain, the US should be solid.
Unironically.
I mean, sure, conserve, but until those lakes drain, the US should be solid.
Plus we pollute the Great Lakes like there's no tomorrow.
I see no way around this except to continue to build large cities in the desert.
The rest of the Great Lakes are unusable for many applications without processing the water first.
There actually isn't a lot of spare water in the Great Lakes, certainly not enough to irrigate the southwest, let alone the rest of the country.
Acquifiers are mostly ancient systems that were at equilibrium before humans started pumping from them. Any use of groundwater is potentially destabilizing the equilibrium.
What you said is true of surface water, however: there where you need to seriously limit its use and others where you don't need to care.
Note, however, that even an island as famously wet as Great Britain in recent years has faced water shortage issues, not because the total precipitation across the whole island is too low, but because it falls in the "wrong places".