Cloudy water has a silver lining
Despite the inconvenience to most and some real problems for some (the elderly, for instance, and the many restaurants and shops that rely on clean fresh water to stay, um, afloat), this isn't a completely bad thing.
No, really.
Most of the time, it's almost too easy to get safe drinking water in Vancouver: turn on a tap, and it appears. I never really have to think about there it comes from, how it gets here, and what happens to it after we use it.
Today, we're all graduates in a crash course: Water 101, attendance mandatory. Suddenly we're all thinking and talking about reservoirs, watersheds and land management. (I took a shower a few hours ago; it smelled like the ground in the forest... heavy on the compost.)
For a few days or weeks, we're going to be more aware of our connection to (and reliance on) our local ecosystem than many of us have ever been. We're going to see the direct link between investing in public infrastructure and enjoying a healthy quality of life.
And while that awareness will fade once the water turns clear and bottled water becomes a frill again, I hope it's going to leave some permanent indentation on the Greater Vancouver psyche – a collective memory, even if just a vague one, that we can't take all of this for granted.
One other thing: does anyone else wince to think that we're lining up for bottled water while so much clean, pure rain falls uncollected all around us?
Comments
I don't mind a bit -- thanks
I don't mind a bit -- thanks for doing it!
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I read a smug comment on
I read a smug comment on globeandmail.com yesterday about how all those "extreme greens" in Vancouver against the bottled water industry were essentially "getting theirs" in this crisis. My response was that in crises, bottled water makes perfect sense, but most of the time - as Rob has noted - we are fortunate enough to have some of the cleanest and tastiest drinking water - and it is absurd in the extreme for us to be drinking bottled water all the time (most of which comes straight from some other tap somewhere else in Canada).
I have friends and colleaugues who have opted to buy bottles and bottles of water, rather than boiling it and giving it the "Brita treatment" to 'get the twigs out'. That's fine for a few days, but opts to get mighty expensive if this goes on. I hope they're recycling!
The current murky water crisis just proves how good we've got it.
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Excellent, excellent post
Excellent, excellent post Rob.
I liked it so much I reprinted on my blog hope you don't mind.
I think this is all a very strong lesson in a commodity that we all take for granted. Bear these statistics in mind: The WHO estimates that 1.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean water. This lack of clean water leads to the deaths of 1.8 million people each year. SOURCE
Sobering statistics that make me feel very small for complaining about having to boil some water.
Scott Robarts