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WATER – How precious a resource is it? 

By Gerry Roberts, PDG, Foundation Chair Rotary eClub One

When was the last time you thought about water?  Yesterday, last week, last month – or have you not thought about water anytime recently?

If you live in many areas of the Middle East, Africa, or Asia, you probably think about water – clean drinkable water – all the time. What’s the difference between where you live and these water challenged regions?

In a recent white paper written jointly by Sandia National Laboratories (in the US) and the Washington, DC think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), these two agencies said “The lack of clean water can create conditions that lead to destabilization in regions of the world that are already poor and having problems.”  They further say “Lack of potable (drinkable) water can result in famine, conflict over resources, and poor governance.  Failed and failing states threaten (our) security because of their potential to harbor terrorist groups.”

This theme is expanded on as they say “global trends of increasing population, increasing resource consumption, and decreasing natural resource availability – including fresh water – have pushed human social, economic, and political systems to an important tipping point.  We face large-scale future dislocations and crises unless significant action is taken now by leaders in both developed and developing countries.” (1)

Some of the other findings bring their points to a head:

            *Water is the foundation for human prosperity. 

            * Adequate, high-quality water supplies provide a basis for the growth and development of human social, economic, cultural, and political systems.

            * Conversely, economic stagnation and political instability will persist or worsen in those regions where the quality and reliability of water supplies remain uncertain.

            * Water scarcity and poor water have the potential to destabilize isolated regions within countries or regions sharing limited sources of water.

            *There is an increasing likelihood of social strife and armed conflict resulting from pressures of water scarcity and mismanagement.

Do I have your attention yet?

What each one of us does with water now affects everyone else – wouldn’t you agree?

What we do with water today will effect our children, grand-children and perhaps great-grand-children.

Having traveled extensively throughout North American, Asia and Europe, I have seen practices which appall me and practices which take into account how scarce a supply of clean water we really have.

For instance, on the Monterey Peninsula of California, which is the salad belt of the US for much of the year, over pumping of the ground water aquifers allowed for sea water intrusion and thus ruined the water supply being used to water these crops.  Instead of just drilling deeper, the water agencies got together and developed a tertiary water treatment plant for sewerage.  This treated water is both drinkable – I have tasted and drank it – and plentiful.  It is used to water crops in the northern section of Monterey County and this has now been done for several years.

Drip irrigation is now the norm for row crops including vineyards, green crops and orchards throughout much of the western US.  It saves water but also increases the yield of these crops – which not only benefits the farmers but also saves water for all of us.

However, the use of riser sprinklers persists – you have seen them – they spray water in circles off of a long aluminum tube and nobody seems to care that the wind is blowing the water away from the crops or that it is hot which increases the evaporation dramatically.

What can each of us do – to improve water usage and to increase awareness that water is a global as well as a local problem?

First, we can educate ourselves.  Try using Google or any search engine on the Internet.  I found the articles quoted above and below doing just this – World Water Quality.

Second, we can educate our Rotary Clubs.  Make water a subject of a weekly presentation, and then follow it up with more information on your Club’s website – we are here at Rotary eClub One.

Third, we can begin to educate our children – at home, at school, at church, and in our conversations around the dinner table.

Fourth, we can ask that our City Fathers to take an interest in water.  How many parks in your town use water effectively?  How many ball fields, football fields, and school grounds use water effectively?  It has been my experience that if I make it a point with an elected official and follow it up, the point becomes something they tend to care about too.

 What if you were to invite your Mayor or City Council Chair to your Rotary Club to talk about what your city or town is doing to save water?  I would bet they will find a way to find out and then maybe do something about it.

Finally, we can create projects - using the combined resources of Rotary, City, County, State and Federal governments, other NGO’s and the citizens of the town we target for a water project – to produce clean water, to save clean water, and to educate the citizens about how to keep themselves healthy with water.

Quoting Microbe Magazine “Less than 100 years ago, typhoid fever and amebiasis (em-e-by-asis) were the main causes of waterborne illnesses and deaths in the United States.  Thanks to contemporary water treatment measures, we have defeated (these other) old foes like typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery.” (2)

However, ours is a global economy.  Crops grown in South America, Mexico, and other parts of the world appear on our US store shelves each and every day.  If we can expand the water treatment measures that are used in the developed countries (such as the US, UK, Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and many, many others) to these producing countries we can insure that we are protected from water borne diseases such those listed above.

But even that does not always protect us – witness the Hepatitis A outbreak in Michigan, USA in 1997 which sickened about 150 students – they had eaten imported strawberries.

Or the deadly case of contamination in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, in 1993 where the municipal water supply was contaminated with Cryptosporidium, an intestinal protozoan, which killed 50 people, hospitalized 4,000 and made an estimated 400,000 others ill.

Our world’s potable water supplies have a limit – there is not enough to go around today, let alone tomorrow.

BE WATER SAFE –

               BE WATER CONSCIOUS –

                                EDUCATE OTHERS IN WATER AWARENESS & USAGE

(1) Sandia National Laboratories, News Releases “Address water scarcity, water quality issues around the world now” May 31, 2006

(2) Microbe Magazine, Water Quality, Waterborne Pathogens and the Diseases They Cause, 2006 American Society for Microbiology