By Lawrence Doe
My wife has a bumper sticker that reads “What happens to the Water happens to the People.” Water’s external impact on people has been increasingly in the news reporting floods and drought. However, I interpret her bumper sticker’s message to be more about water’s internal impact on humans. Our bodies average 60% water, needing replenishing daily. Body parts vary in their water content; lungs 83%, brain and heart 73% and bones 31%. Water moving in and out of the human body is so important that death occurs more quickly from lack of water than absence of food. Only oxygen deprivation is a more immediate death. Refuge camp administrators know lack of water will result in rioting sooner than a lack of food.
Recommended daily consumption of plain water varies by body size and diet. Various sources suggest 4-6 cups, while others list 12 cups per day. Human societies are always connected to water. Hunter/gatherers and herding populations travel from water source to water source, whether moving in arid or lush country. Most major and minor settlements are on the banks of rivers or lakes. Those that aren’t have dug wells into groundwater sources. If the water source disappears, so do the people. The African Humid Period (approx. 15,00 to 5,500 years ago) is a stark example. Archeological evidence and cave paintings of hippos, crocodiles, human swimmers, and aquatic plants prove North Africa was much wetter and more populated than current conditions in the Sahara Desert. When most of the water left, so did most of the people.
When water leaves and people are forced to stay, the human health consequences are extreme. The Aral Sea, once the fourth largest lake in the world, dried to 10% of its former surface area. The lake started shrinking in 1960 when the Soviet Union began diverting all recharging waters to irrigate massive new cotton fields to sell for dollars in world export markets. The large area of exposed shoreline created annual dust storms lasting three months. The salty dust contaminated agricultural fields over a wide area. Other contaminants in the dust caused people to suffer respiratory and intestinal illnesses, anemia, and high infant and maternal death rates. This toxic dust spread over Central Asia, and fine particles in the upper atmosphere traveled to the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, and Japan. This event is in the early stages of replication in the US, as the Salton Sea in California dries up due to agricultural practices and the Great Salt Lake in Utah due to water diversion for irrigation. When the water source is gone, either people go or they stay and suffer.
When water is poisoned, people are poisoned. We know that environmental contaminants are carried in water and can build up in all that drink it, whether fish, fowl, mammal, or human. PFAS , “forever chemicals”, are found in 45% of tested US tap water according to a United States Geological Survey (USGS). Their study indicated that as many as 165 million Americans are exposed to a long list of health impacts. Even bottled water has been found to be contaminated with chemicals, heavy metals, and microbial impurities. Perhaps the most serious contaminants are micro- and nano-particles of plastics. These ultra-small plastic pieces have been found in human organs (brain, heart, liver, reproductive organs) and body fluids (breast milk, blood, urine). The ingested, water-borne plastics originate from water sources and plastic bottles themselves. The health impacts of chemical and microbial contaminants are quite well understood; however, research into plastic contamination is in its infancy. Early results suggest tiny particles of plastic in our bodies could result in cellular damage, endocrine disruptions, inflammation, and brain health.
The original purpose of water is to sustain life. Water, along with our atmosphere, is what sets Earth apart from other known planets as a “living planet”. Pictures from space show Earth as a blue, watery orb. Water provides a livable habitat for Earth’s billions of life forms, whether on land or in oceans, lakes, or streams. Modern humans have invented additional uses for water. Most family homes have drinking water, flush toilets, and showers, outside faucets to water a green, manicured grass lawn, and wash automobiles. Industry’s water uses are innumerable, including chemical and paint production, cleaning, and waste removal. The energy sector uses vast amounts of water in the tar sands in Northern Alberta, fracking for natural gas, and cooling nuclear power plants. Many of these newly invented uses impinge water’s ability to support healthy living organisms. The commodifying of water is disrespectful of its original purpose.
Most water user, whether residential, city, or industrial, believe they have an unlimited source for their needs. Water appears as abundant and a basic resource to use at will. However, that same blue, watery orb seen from space appears as a tiny speck of matter within the infinite universe. A tiny, tiny, limited speck. Thousands of years ago, a much smaller human population viewed the land and water as unlimited. Earth’s current population of 8.1 billion is still expanding, occupying all the land and fighting over water. Policy makers must do something different. But real progress is stymied by the competing interests of capitalism and health. The book “Merchants of Doubt” (2010) by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway covers several health and environmental issues, from tobacco smoke to global warming. They write, “Keeping controversy alive by spreading doubt and confusion after scientific consensus is reached was the basic strategy of those opposing action.” Water knows nothing of doubt or geopolitical boundaries in its natural movement across the land. However, national leaders across those borders might have conflicting interests in water usage. Leadership often makes policy to benefit economic interests within their borders rather than benefiting the health of all people. I wish they all could read my wife’s bumper sticker, “What happens to the Water, happens to the People”.
