In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly voted to create World Water Day. We will celebrate World Water Day on March 22. The focus will be on the importance of fresh water and advocating for the sustainable management of fresh water resources.
Only recently did I become aware of this special day, but I have been aware of some global water problems for a while.
In 1987, our middle daughter, Betsy, flew to Kenya as a new Peace Corps recruit. After an orientation period living with a Kenyan family and learning to speak Swahili, she was sent to Munyaka, a village in the higher elevations, to live in a mud hut with no running water. Her assignment was to bring water into the village with a gravity feed line from a spring, and also to renovate one large water storage tank. She also had to build a new water tank so that women would no longer have to walk more than a mile to a spigot and then carry all necessary water back home. I am happy to tell you that she was successful. She had a happy and fruitful two years there.
Now Betsy has a PhD in Biology from Clark University and serves as director of Environmental Quality, Water and Wastewater, for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which provides clean water and oversees wastewater management for the 2.5 million people in the 61 communities using MWRA water.
Recently, she joined a volunteer group and flew to Nicaragua to gather information about the water system, trying to discover the cause of disease in a certain area.
Her trip prompted me to check clean water statistics. According to a 2013 United Nations report, 780 million people globally do not have access to clean water, and 2.4 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation. It is not hard to understand that disease is inevitable in such situations.
But we live in Greenfield and have confidence in the water that comes out of our taps. That makes us very lucky. In Heath, all our water came from a drilled well in back of the house, and wastewater was handled by our septic tank. Things are different in Greenfield. I found a DPW report online that describes where our water comes from and what the threats are.
The water gushing out of our kitchen and bathroom taps comes from several sources: the Leyden Glen reservoir, the Green River and three wells that get water from an aquifer. The land surrounding these sources is our watershed.
According to the Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) Report required by Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and established by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, 4,075 acres of forested and open land in Colrain and Leyden constitute the Green River portion of the watershed, with several hundred more acres protecting the wells and Leyden Glen reservoir.
The report also lists all of the kinds of contamination that can endanger our water supply — the larger ones being fuel oil tanks, septic systems, manure storage on farms, auto repair shops, junk yards and more. In most cases, it is just a question of careful management. We need our cows and cars, septic systems and fuel oil.
I always worry about golf courses, because it is important for golf courses to keep those greens and fairways in perfect condition. Greens keepers have traditionally depended on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. I do not know if some golf courses have looked for and found less toxic ways of achieving their goals.
Once we start looking at lawns, we realize gardeners also have a responsibility. Garden stores are full of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to make it easy for homeowners to have lawns as perfect and green as a golf course. When overused or improperly used, a heavy rain can carry these products into storm drains. With the heavy rains that we sometimes have, our storm drain system overflows into the then overflowing wastewater system, thus carrying contamination into our waterways.
Besides our government, we are fortunate in Massachusetts to have nonprofit organizations like the Connecticut River Watershed, which has its offices in Greenfield, and the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance in Boston. Both organizations work to educate our state legislators on water issues.
I have always been an organic gardener. My new house came surrounded by lawn, and I am eliminating as much of that lawn as possible — planting shrubs, trees and flowers that attract pollinators. That means I use no pesticides. And if I have more bugs flying around — even bugs I don’t like very much — that is fine because they will attract birds to my garden. Birds eat bugs, so I feel I have a net gain.
Water is so precious. I want to keep as much rainwater on my garden as possible. One way I am doing this is with a hugel. Basically this is a large mound of logs covered with soil, essentially, a raised garden bed. The logs act as a sponge, soaking up rain and then making it available to plant roots.
Many of us across our country have clean water because of the Department of Environmental Protection. It is important to keep the EPA strong so that it can continue to protect our air, water and land from contaminates that will affect our health and the health of the land.
Be grateful for our clean water, and celebrate World Water Day!