Water Rights

While scientists and laypeople debate the decline of fresh water stored in ice, including such places as Greenland, North America, the Himalayas, and the Arctic, those of us who depend on freshwater sources not tied to melting ice face real concerns for how long enough fresh water will remain available to everyone at reasonable prices.

Almost anywhere you travel on this planet, you will find local populations arguing over water rights. Some argue for the right to pleasurably use fresh water, including motorboating, water skiing and swimming. A few stand firm for the right to use waterways to transport goods, control flooding and provide hydroelectric power. Many argue for the right to water non-food sources such as suburban lawns and golf courses. Others argue for the right to irrigate farms planted with water-hungry crops. All of us agree that we need fresh water to drink, prepare meals and cleanse our bodies.

Do those who live in a freshwater basin with currently adequate or excess capacity have the right to prevent access by those whose freshwater basin cannot support its human population? Simplistically speaking, the answer is no – as generalists, humans have migrated to sources of better water and food supplies and can continue to do so. Realistically, we often compromise on the issue in order to have water available to our specialized human society.

With enough fuel and refining supplies, we can turn polluted and/or salt water into potable water for human consumption. We can even divert gray water to keep lawns, landscaping and golf courses looking green.

Fuel and refining supplies. That’s the issue, isn’t it? The cost of fresh water. The price we’re willing to pay for water rights.

Necessity is the mother of invention – Plato.

Just as relatively inexpensive fuel has not forced a major change in the way humans power most machines, the low cost of fresh water has not forced a major change in the way we use water. Of course, on a local scale, humans have always found innovative ways to transport and use water, including irrigation, the artesian well, and canal rotating boatlift.

Futurists have warned that the human population will reach an unsupportable number. Apocalyptic writers and speakers have predicted doom for millennia. More recently, the popular press has brought up a new arbitrary date for human destruction – the so-called Mayan End Date – that will occur in December of 2012. When that date passes, we will find some other calendar-based countdown to prove that humanity as we know it will change dramatically (Anyone wanna pull out a copy of Nostradamus’ writing and reinterpret his stuff…again? How about another go at Revelations? Maybe Confucius left us some undiscovered pearls of wisdom about the specific future deterioration of society?).

When I was a kid, I would go with my parents to visit friends of theirs. While they chatted about adult topics I was just beginning to understand, I would wander around the house and look at the photos, paintings and knick knacks hung on walls, or skim through titles of books on hard-to-reach shelves. Curiosity drove me to seek that which I did not know or did not yet understand. One of the most common items I saw was a ceramic plate with some pastoral scene and the following poem:

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

When we let our eyes and ears rest on general news – such as those broadcast at 5, 6, 9, 10, or 11 p.m. on local television stations, hourly on local radio stations, or every minute on 24-hour national/international news stations/websites; newspapers; weekly/monthly magazines; or even personality-based talk shows on television, radio and the Internet – as we’re wont to do at times from habit or boredom, let us remember that the news we see is rarely the news we need. If we see a talking head enunciate, “The End of the World as we know it? Details at 11,” let’s remember that that teaser line was written to entice the viewer to sit through commercial advertisements while waiting for the detailed, emotionally-tinged news report.

In practice, let’s not fall for the emotional trap. As a work colleague pointed out to me several years ago, rumors are meant to get your goat and are useless – stick to the facts. Ignore propaganda, even when it’s forwarded to you as a must-read email from friends and family.

In other words, almost everything that goes on around you is something you cannot change. Accept it. Sure, feel free to question why something cannot be changed at this moment. You may trigger an idea that you can pass on to someone who can make change. But don’t waste your time getting emotionally charged up on an issue upon which you have no influence.

If you have to get emotional, thrive in the realm of change. Get thrills out of facilitating those in your circle of influence.

As the human population grows, we’ll continue to get bombarded with theories and predictions of pending disasters. Don’t listen to these naysayers. Instead, think about what you, your family, your friends, your work colleagues need to think positively, to move forward, to give us and the generations to come a world we can live in.

You need fresh water. Therefore, figure out where your water comes from. Determine which water basin supplies your municipality’s drinking water treatment plant (you may discover that desalination is involved). Ask where your wastewater sewage treatment plant discharges its effluent – is it upstream of the intake for fresh water? See if you can put your gray water to useful purposes. Find out for yourself if your freshwater basin has sufficient capacity to meet the growing population in your area. See if other regions have made claims on your freshwater supplies or vice versa. If any of your discoveries make you uncomfortable about the future of fresh water in your area, get proactively involved. If nothing else, tell someone active in your community to act on your behalf to protect your water.

You don’t have to carry the burden of negative stereotypes such as “tree hugger” to care about your water. As a living being on this planet, you have the personal right to seek fresh water. Don’t give up that right.