Clean Water: Our Most Valuable Resource

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Oceans, rivers, streams, and lakes cover about three fourths of the earth's surface. Looking at a world map there seems to be water everywhere, but only about 2.5 % of all the water on the earth's surface is fresh water—water that can be used for drinking, cooking, farming and manufacturing. Luckily for the living things that depend on fresh water, there is also water found beneath the surface of the earth. In fact, 90 % of the water that is used by plants, animals and humans comes from below the ground.

Every living thing needs water. Humans can live without food longer than they can live without water. Nevertheless, all over the world, we have made the water in our oceans, rivers, streams, and lakes polluted and dirty. Although water is the most valuable resource we have, we are not doing a very good job of keeping it clean and usable.

According to the Earth Works Group, publisher of such books as 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth, 14 billion pounds of garbage and poisonous chemicals are dumped into the world's oceans every year. The plastic bags, garbage, and chemicals that are dumped or spilled into the ocean kill as many as one million sea creatures every year. Like the ocean, our rivers and lakes are also used as places to dump both garbage and chemicals. Thirty years ago, there was a river in Ohio that was so polluted with chemicals that it caught fire. Today in parts of Eastern Europe there are still rivers that can catch fire due to the large amount of chemicals in them. Even the water that runs below the ground is not safe from pollution. These underground sources of clean water are polluted by chemicals that are dumped on the surface of the earth and then seep down into the water beneath the ground. According to the Earth Works Group, a gallon of gasoline spilled on the ground can seep into the water below and pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.

Fortunately, many bodies of water are able to cleanse themselves over time. Oceans that are turbulent and rivers that flow quickly can rid themselves of some of the pollution. But the oceans that are quiet, such as the Baltic Sea, and rivers that flow slowly may take as many as 80 years to cleanse themselves of the pollution that has been poured into them by unthinking humans. And the underground pools of water that don't move at all may never be able to rid themselves of the pollution that seeps down from the surface above.

We have to stop thinking that what we dump into the ocean or in a river or on the ground will just flow away and not cause a problem for anyone else. The trash you throw into the ocean today will wash up on someone's (maybe even your own!) shore tomorrow. The chemicals that you pour into the river flowing by your home will flow by someone else's home, too. The chemicals you let spill on the ground may end up in the water you drink. Someone once said, "We all live downstream." We are all affected by the pollution that is ruining our precious sources of water.

Some of us are fortunate to have access to clean water in our homes, and may not even be aware of the lack of clean, fresh water in other parts of the world. Because of the polluting of our fresh water sources, many people must buy the water they use for drinking and cooking, or they may have to travel far from their homes to find a source of clean water. In some parts of the world, people have no access to clean water, the water they are forced to use actually makes them sick. By one estimate, there are over 25,000 deaths each day from dirty water. However, even if we have access to clean water today, this doesn't guarantee that we will always have access to clean water.

In the past few years, some countries such as England, the United States, and Japan have realized the importance of clean water and have made greater efforts to take better care of their water supplies. Yet even though most bodies of water in the United States are cleaner today than they were several decades ago, there is still a problem with polluted water in the U.S. According to a survey done by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, almost half of all rivers, lakes, and streams in the U.S. are damaged or threatened by pollution. Obviously, there is still much more work to be done.

Clean water should be a worldwide human right for everyone, not just a privilege for a select group of people. To make clean water available for more people, there are some important steps we can all take. You may think that there is nothing that you can do as one person to control what your government or the local factory does to your source of water, but remember that every little bit helps. One person can make a difference. Some things that you can do personally are the following:

1) Don't throw any kind of litter on a beach or in any water. Next time you visit your favorite beach, river, or lake, take along a bag and pick up the litter you find. Take the bottles or aluminum cans you find to a recycling center if possible. If you fish, don't ever leave plastic fishing line behind; birds and sea creatures can get tangled in it and die.

2) Don't pour chemicals such as paint, gasoline, or motor oil on the ground, in any water, or even in the garbage where it may be dumped onto the ground later. Even the chemicals you spray on plants and trees eventually are washed into the ground and can seep down to the groundwater. Use these chemicals sparingly.

3) Don't leave any kind of waste near a stream. Human and animal waste pollute water.

4) Report any kind of chemical or other polluting leaks to a local authority.

Some of us have been lucky to have lived most of our lives in a place where we can drink and cook with clean water. But there are those of us who have also lived where clean water was scarce, and every drop was valuable. Anyone who has had to go without clean water for even a day can appreciate how valuable clean water is to human life. If you want to help, organize with other people who also care about clean water and the future of our planet. Write to the local newspapers, and meet with the local authorities about cleaning up the water where you live. In the words of Al Gore, Vice President of the United States, "The lakes and rivers sustain us; they flow through the veins of the earth and into our own. But we must take care to let them flow back out as pure as they came, not poison and waste them without thought for the future."

From Read to Write, Jeri Wyn Gillie, etc. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1997.