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Victoria Salinas
September 19, 2016
Rhetorical Analysis
Desalination is the only solution to our current water crisis
Are we still living in the land of plenty? According to author Hala Alskaf in the article
published in the Journal of Environmental Law in 2016 we are not. Our current state of water
consumption, allocation, and trading agreements with Mexico will leave our rivers dry and land
thirsting for water in the near future. The article titled, Desalination: An Additional Water
Source for Southern Californias Water Crisis and an Unsustainable 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water
Treaty proposes some solutions that could be implemented here in the United States to take the
demand off of our rivers to rely more on desalination plants to provide California with more
drinking water. The goal of this paper is to support desalinization and to persuade the audience to
believe that it is the best solution for the current water shortage in Mexico and California. Alskaf
begins her article by citing statistical evidence of climate change and uses every appeal to urge
the reader to believe that the best solution to our water crisis is building desalination plants. The
author then weakens her argument by briefly mentioning at the end that we do not know the
environmental impacts or have a tested disposal method for the discharge created from the
desalination process. Alskaf is able to convince the readers that desalination is a good solution
for the water shortage but fails to provide enough supporting evidence that this is completely
safe practice for our coastal cities.
In this article Alskaf begins by stating that if extreme measures are not taken to preserve
our remaining water supply, cities like LA and San Diego will be uninhabitable in the near
future. Her beginning statements persuade the reader to believe that the only option for making

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sure that we do not run out of water in the near future is to invest in desalination plants. This is
concluded by the last statement of her introduction, Proper implementation of desalination
could enhance international relations between the United States and Mexico, and provide the
water that Californians and Mexicans need.
She goes on to persuade the audience to understand her argument by giving a brief
history of the the sources from which California is getting most of its water. This is the first place
in the article that she appeals to logos? by throwing in bits of historical information to
show how careless California has been, using up their water for agriculture purposes.
Despite worsening drought conditions, Southern California farmers used more than 100
billion gallons of Colorado River water in 2013 to grow alfalfa to help boost the dairy
Industry.
The facts stated by Alskaf is meant to make the reader feel irritated about the carelessness of our
government allowing these things to take place without more regulation and concern for our
growing population. Her writing style clearly calls on the readers emotions to care more about
the subject enough to no longer turn a blind eye to the current water crisis.
Alskaf continues to support her argument for the benefits of the United States and
Mexico building more desalination plants. She gives more examples on the other slightly
ineffective solutions that California has come up with to help with the water crisis. Californians
were making conservation goals and initiatives towards using less water on things like car
washing and residential outdoor water use and some cities like Tracy were able to reduce their
water consumption by 41%. Following this information she provides stats about the rapid
population growth expected in California alone and the prediction that water consumption will
rise per capita. The logos appeal is evident in this area of her report so that it will convince

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readers that something has to be done in order for California to be able to sustain their water
needs. Unless there is a drastic increase in water conservation efforts and water resource
substitutes, water prices will likely sky rocket to reflect extreme scarcity.
Throughout the article she argues that investing in desalination plants will reduce
negative effects of climate change on the water supply. Alskaf begins to explain other ways to
implement better conservation movements and provides some examples on how this could be
more efficient but the argument always reverts back to investing in desalination plants. The paper
continues to support this by bringing in an appeal for how the United States and Mexico have a
moral obligation to amend the 1944 Water Treaty to better protect the remaining water resources.
She gives some short examples on the complications that both the United States and Mexico face
from not having enough water for the current trade agreements.
Drought conditions have been so damaging that water deliveries to Mexico have been
reduced by thirty-one percent between 1939 and 2013. In 2012, the United States only
delivered thirty-nine percent of Mexicos allotment. By 2013, the United States only
delivered a mere six percent.
Investing in desalination plants is explained in further detail but in the legal background portion
of this proposal she dives into more detail about how laws could be used to force farmers to
make more efforts to conserve water. I thought this was an important piece because most of the
paper focused only on desalination plants although farmers were using such a huge percent of the
water in California.
In the closing arguments of this article Alskaf briefly mentions some of the main
concerns with desalination plants. Her argument that desalination is the only solution is
weakened when she talks about the uncertainties about the environmental impact they could

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cause on local ecosystems. The emotional appeals she gave to the reader in the beginning
highlighted some of the major mistakes made in the past that brought on this water crisis in the
first place. She wanted the reader to know about the careless decisions our government has
already made that has allowed our water resources to dry up. The article needed more
information about the possible environmental impacts a desalination plant might have on the
marine life and coastal cities to truly support her entire argument. I thought that the lack of
information weakened her argument that this was the only solution seeing as many of the water
conservation issues stemmed from poor planning. Although her article did a good job influencing
the readers to believe that desalination would have some benefits it could have been supported
by more factual evidence on how we would be able to safely discard the leftover minerals from
the whole process.