Personally, while I'm still mulling this one over, I'm not sure it eliminates the concerns about watershed contamination at all —
though reducing the water use itself is certainly a good thing.
Though calculations of the environmental impact of Dr Post's lab - grown meat have yet to be published, early indications suggest that cultured meat could
reduce the need for land and
water by as much as 90 % and overall energy
use by up to 70 %.
I was too harsh on the good people of Adelaide
though, they are the most
water-wise in the country, they only
use 5 % of the Murray River's
water, are implementing sensible and forward thinking strategies to
reduce water use and to
use it more efficiently, and the state of South Australia apparently agreed to stop over-allocating their share way earlier than other states (see here).