The Elegant Destruction of the Global Water Crisis

Being on the Earth Week water day planning committee at the Monterey Institute of International Studies reminds me to remember the majesty of water. Is there anything we take for granted more than this combination of elements necessary for existence? Globally, around 780 million people live without access to clean drinking water. In his poem simply titled “Water,” Ralph Waldo Emerson artfully expresses the ominous truth:

The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

In the era of ill use, we as humans hasten this elegant destruction every day. Urbanization, population growth, overconsumption, food production and climate change devour the resource in addition to the 7 billion and counting humans and countless other species on this earth.

When I lived in Nicaragua, I saw misuse in action from my front porch. Small, contaminated streams flowed freely along the sides of the streets from people’s homes heading straight for beautiful Lake Nicaragua. Swim at your own risk. In a country with 21 aquifers, a vibrant rainy season, and two of the largest freshwater lakes on the continent, over 900,000 Nicaraguans lack access to potable water. In rural areas, only 68 percent of people can access safe drinking water and only 37 percent experience improved sanitation.

As easily as water flows across borders, its issues ride the current. In my current Spanish class on environmental topics in the Hispanic world, I chose to investigate water in Argentina. Similar to Nicaragua, ample water supplies coexist with unequal access, mismanagement and pollution. Agriculture claims 70 percent of freshwater when arid and semi-arid climates cover 75 percent of the country. Argentina boasts one of the highest levels of per capita water usage in the world, but the statistic is not spread evenly.

For example, the Matanza River is one of the most polluted water bodies in the world, and it flows right by a predominately low-income area of Buenos Aires where 55 percent of the population lacks connection to the sewer systems and 35 percent lack access to potable water. The exorbitant levels of lead, zinc and chrome from industrial and domestic waste exacerbate their vulnerability.

Speaking of vulnerability, I should mention California. Drowning in a drought this year, the current snowpack measurement for the state is 35 percent of normal, a sorrowful statistic for the supposed promise of spring. Perhaps Mother Nature is punishing us locally for mishandling her abroad. Or vice versa. I suppose it flows both ways, until it stops flowing at all.

We can blame the low quality of institutions and high degree of corruption abroad or climate change locally. Or all of those, everywhere. Management challenges like an out-of-date legal and regulatory framework, a deficient monitoring network, or the lack of appropriate incentives for conservation certainly play important roles in this global crisis no matter geography. We can criticize all that we are doing poorly, but only if we are figuring out how to educate people to care. What do those incentives look like?

In my last Spanish presentation, I asked the class what does it take to really motivate people to care about conservation? What about poverty, pollution, poor management and unequal distribution of our most precious resource aren’t enough to translate into appropriate action? Yes, water understands civilization well, but civilization is slapping the face of golden pleasure.

Brittany Lane is a second-semester candidate for a M.A. in International Policy Studies with a concentration on Human Security and Development at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.