Blog Action Day, 2010 - Water (it isn't always clear)

Today is Blog Action Day 2010, and the focus is on water, a subject dear to my heart on many levels. While much is said about water around the world, its availability, or lack of same, clean, dirty, free or bought, I'm most interested in water, salt or fresh, on and around Culebra...and how its use and abuse affect our lives. I could go on a long time about that; instead, I'll skip the ocean aspects that I often post about here, and to keep it succinct as possible...not really my forte!

This river is part of the California watershed project....an amazing set up, but all I really know is, this river has some pipes that go through a filter and then directly to the farm my son works on...The state actually gave huge water tanks to any farmer asking for them, then hooks them up to the system! Those yummy veggie photos? Yep, this is the watering system!

First, here are some water facts in general...

1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it's no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that's just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.
5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

While these facts may be grim, there is hope for real solutions as more and more people around the world are waking up to the clean water crisis. Earlier this year, the UN declared access to clean water a human right and groups like charity: water and Water.org continue to work tirelessly to bring water access to the developing world. 

I met Tamas Wormser on a flight to Montreal that took 12 hours instead of 3 a few years ago. He was on his way back to Toronto to finish editiing this film Touched by Water (this is the trailer) in time for an upcoming film festival. Fascinating man, fascinating film.

 

Potable water on Culebra comes in two sizes, from the pipe that leads from the big island, through Vieques to us, or from a cistern. I am on the pipe, amazingly enough. Water only came to Culebra this way relatively recently, a little more than a decade ago. It has changed life dramatiaally on this island, from plain old access to the huge rise in home sales and tourism. It is almost taken for granted that you'll turn on your tap and have water in guest houses and businesses that are on the pipe. Guests assume they can use as much water as they like, sometimes not realizing that their hosts are using cisterns with finite measurements That without rain or purchasing water, the taps will run dry. See the last point above; Americans, on the whole, use vast amounts of water and often can't conceive of the fact that it is not an endless resource. 

Again, the above is way too vast a subject for one post. So where am I going with this? One thing that impressed me on my stateside trip was a pretty huge awareness of recycling and water usage. Yet the idea of water collection is a more slowly growing awareness, especially in urban locales, where the collection of rainwater is more problematic.

The web site Build It Solar has an excellent page on water, concerning, as they put it, "catching it, saving it, treating it, using less of it, reusing it". This is, in a wealth of dense treatises on the subject, practical and simple to understand, including many 'how-to' examples. 

This obviously is not an exhaustive thesis on water. But if it gives you pause the next time you turn on the tap; if,  even more, you start considering where your water comes from, how much you use, and what will you do if that tap doesn't produce the water you drink, bathe in, cook with, then mission accomplished!  And by the way...those plastic water bottles that you think give you better water than you might get from the tap? It's time to educate yourself. Really.

If you've come up with some unique water systems and/or water usage solutions, no matter where you live, let me know!  I'd like to share them here. In the meantime, drink local, think glabal!