Appreciating Water - Blog Action Day 2010

Rio Grande near Tamaya Resort

I grew up on the rain-soaked side of a Caribbean island that was lush and green year round. Farmers planted and reaped their crops based on the cycle of two rainy seasons. There was never ever reason for artificial or mechanical irrigation. During those seasons, like clockwork, it rained every day –sometimes intermittent drizzle and sunshine and sometimes torrential as if the keeper of the heavens decided to dump bucketfuls at a time on us below. Every few years devastating hurricanes ravaged the area toppling and uprooting mature trees and dumping even more water than usual. Reliably, year after year, Mother Nature replenished all so that the area within a year or two of the devastation would seem almost completely restored. I learned to to appreciate water as a life-giving source.



Tamaya Resort, Bernalillo, NM

 With time I learned that not all of the rest of island was as blessed with life-giving, almost daily rainfall, springs, brooks, streams; lush, evergreen, ever-growing vegetation. Neither was the rest of the entire world. In high school on the southern side of the island, classmates teased that I was from a place where it rained every day. It certainly was true for several weeks at a time.

Consequently, all the lessons of elementary and high school about climactic regions of the earth were for me not more than academic exercises. I could not develop an appreciation for distant regions of the earth without life-sustaining water in abundance. If you grow up surrounded by water, it is difficult to conceive of a way of life with limited water supply. I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in a desert. The need for water is always urgent and more vital than food.

But communication has improved. Technology allows us to virtually experience daily life and customs of people in opposite corners of the world from ours. With improved communication comes improved awareness and knowledge. Better yet, physically moving to the area and f experiencing it firsthand brings even deeper understanding. Moving from a tropical island and the temperate climactic zones of the Eastern United States to the sunny Southwest introduced me to a way of life with much less water than I was accustomed to and helped me develop a keener awareness of the already high and increasing premium of water in our world.



Where Streams of Living Waters Flow

 Here, in this very beautiful and comfortable southwestern city where we enjoy 320 days of sunshine every year, I became acquainted with a new term - water rights – the Western States Water Laws- that govern water use and have great relevance for protection and conservation in an area that recognized early in its development that drinking water was a scarce commodity available from one meandering river and deep underground aquifers.  Laws governing water rights along with those of the Federal Environmental Agency (EPA) regulate and monitor water use for all purposes (from drinking to recreation) and at all levels (from state-owned and distributed to private wells. Water rights feature prominently in the transfer of real estate.

The EPA’s monitoring role extends to pollution control, education and training and conservation and sustainability through the efficient water use. In the high desert region of Albuquerque, New Mexico, conservation translates into the government’s taking steps to preserve the aquifer that was the lifeblood of the water source since the foundation of the city. Among other initiatives, the government is also encouraging the construction of xeriscape, low-water-use gardens instead of landscapes with grass and non-native plants. Cities and counties are educating homeowners and offering incentives to adapt wide ranging water conservation practices that include low-flow toilets, the use of rain barrels, incorporation of grey water for irrigation..

NM Bird Sanctuary-Bosque del Apache

In the long run, whether we live on a rain-drenched island or at 6000 feet in a high desert region, our lives are inextricably linked as dwellers on planet earth. We also know that events in one area of the planet can have consequences for areas that once upon a time seemed far apart. It is in our best interest to continue or begin to be the responsible stewards of one of earth’s most precious commodities- water by adapting conservation practices. Clean water is not to be taken for granted. Not having clean water is tantamount to having no water, and too many examples exist already of the horrible toll that lack of clean drinking takes on communities around the world.

The writing is on the wall for those of us in the most developed nation on earth who instead of turning on the faucet for a glass of drinking water, unscrew a bottle cap. We should take this as an indication that we need to increase our efforts to preserve and conserve water. Because, we have in place laws, and systems, inadequate though some may consider them, to filter, treat and supply clean water, we can information, resources, and best practices that we can share with the less fortunate. In being our brothers’ keepers we are also helping ourselves and seeing to the future of our planet as a life-sustaining home. It is appropriate to devote a day to these thoughts as blogaction day set out to - http://www.blogactionday.change.org. 
Eloise Gift
Albuquerque New Mexico Real Estate
New Mexico Real Estate