Water, Water Everywhere, but...
Eight of us are scattered in the creek or on the bank. We’re moving stones and clumps of sod or pushing large sticks into the shallow water. Breeches in the small dam continue to pop up, but we’re slowing the flow. Our pre-teen mob of siblings and cousins can accomplish plenty if we call it play and not work. The younger ones aren’t much help, but they’re into the buzz of it all. They see the water rise, hear us brag about making a swimming hole, and maybe believe us when we talk of constructing a dam like the beavers did a mile or so downstream in the woods.
For
a while we ignore the blowflies, and we’re too wet to feel the sun searing into
our shoulders. A couple of us dog paddle and scrape our knees in the dam’s backwater.
Terry, the oldest of the cousins, names it the Grand Coutie Dam.
About
the time a bigger rip in the dam opens up, the youngest cousin gets tangled in
nettles, and a few of us start a mud fight. Eventually a cloudbank casts a long
shadow, and the light breeze shifts to the northwest. We dog paddlers shiver a
bit and pull on our t-shirts.
“Hey,
Mom’s baking chocolate chip cookies this afternoon,” my brother says. On the
walk home we avoid the Canadian thistles by following the cattle path in the
pasture. The younger ones lag behind, but we turn often enough to make sure
they’re coming. Mom makes us step out of our wet Keds, but she knows the
kitchen will soon be marked with mud, cockleburs, and loud boasts about
conquering the creek. By the time we’re halfway through our cookies and milk,
clear flowing water has opened several large holes in Grand Coutie. By
tomorrow, the bend in the creek will look about the way it did earlier this
morning when the sun rose over the farm.
Some of us were lucky enough to grow
up not worrying about fresh drinking water. My family members thought the bored
well on our central Iowa farm in the 1960s made the best coffee and tea in the
pre-Starbuck’s era. The creeks that flowed through our pastures were not just
pastoral backdrops for the grazing cattle; they were playgrounds where
youngsters went swimming, fishing, and ice skating. If agricultural run-off or
poorly engineered feedlots pumped toxins into the streams, it didn’t register
with us. We may have noticed if cattle crossed the creek just above where we
were wading for minnows, but the poison ivy on the bank and bumble bees in the
clover concerned us more.
Now we realize that the little capillary
streams on our farm are part of the arteries that form the lifeblood of our
state. Water that flows under the bridge on our lane eventually joins the
Mississippi River and flows on to the Gulf of Mexico. We’re all part of the
world’s circulatory system.
In the classic science fiction novel
Dune, water is so scarce that the
inhabitants of the planet Arrakis have adopted techniques to save every
possible drop. They recycle bodily fluids, and shedding a tear for someone is
considered an ultimate gift. On today’s Earth, some are shedding a tear for the
condition of water sources in many parts of the world. Access to clean water is not only a topic for
symposiums and research papers, it is a matter of life and death for those in
critically affected areas.
Many organizations are working to
make clean water available to all. It would be great if youngsters around the
world could wade into rural streams on hot summer days to build sod dams and
race homemade stick boats. First, we need to get them a safe glass of water. by dan gogerty (photo acquired from Shutterstock)
Links: ** CAST publication: Water and Land Issues Associated with Animal Agriculture: A U.S. Perspective ** CAST publication: Assessing the Health of Streams in Agricultural Landscapes: The Impacts of Land Management Change on Water Quality ** Water for Life Program from
the United Nations ** Guinea Worm EradicationProgram--for water safety--includes work from the Carter Foundation, Gates Foundation, and
others.
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