World Water Day – The Power of Thirst is Everyone’s Marker for Earth Day

Going for a Guinness World Record for the longest line of people waiting to get to a toilet is one way to highlight major water issues the world faces. March 22 was World Water Day, and the old record of 868 people queued up to get to a toilet was easily broken – more than 6,290 people collectively went for the record. While the judging is being processed, it’s clear that those 4,000 children dying daily worldwide because of the lack of clean drinking water and safe sanitation methods of disposal transform World Water Day into a moment of reflection and action in this now decades’ old movement to bring clean, safe water to people around the world. Some of the water facts are pretty disheartening: 4,000 children under the age of five dying every day from preventable water-related illnesses such as diarrhea, typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Over half of hospital beds in developing countries are taken by those suffering with diarrheal illnesses, heavily overburdening fragile health systems. The UN estimates that half of girls who stop attending primary school in Africa do so because of the lack of safe and private toilets. World Water Day grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, but seeds of the so-called “water movement” grew from the work of the International Water and Sanitation Center (IRC), an organization set up in 1968 to tackle the emerging crisis of clean water for drinking, food growing and safe, efficient sanitation to dispose of grey and black water. In Portland, Ore., on March 21, hundreds of people participated in a 3.1-mile walk around the Willamette River as a way to raise money to build wells in coffee-growing regions in Tanzania, Africa. The actual length of the solidarity walk approximates the challenge millions of people worldwide face as they must trek to obtain water for basic needs. Billings, Mont., participated in a Sunday Walk for Life event, tied to Hope 2 One Life, a non-profit working with Montana State University to raise awareness about the health problems Northern Uganda faces partly because of the continual LRA war. This MSU event garnered donations to help build latrines and drill wells in communities that need water. The technology is simple, and cheap, by American standards: building and maintaining water-cleaning sand filters, rain-water harvesting and drip irrigation for agriculture. The World Water Day was filled with activities, awareness campaigns, and actual hands on hard work to bring safe drinking water and sanitation to more than 1.1 billion people without that universal human right to clean and safe water. On a lighter note, Chicago’s campaign – Save Water: Drink Beer – was tied to a specific town in Mexico. Tamaula, Guanajuato, is facing a major water crisis tied to climate change and the drawing down of underground water supplies for more than a decade. All the funds raised will be used to build 5,000-liter cisterns to catch rain water for drinking, a system used in Mesoamerica for several thousand years. The residents of Tamaula don’t have a potable water source, and without running water, they’ve been faced with water rationing and water containment challenges, especially during the ever-lengthening dry season. All of this should give pause to our water using habits in the USA, in Washington State, and Spokane specifically. Those Tamaulans live on less than half a gallon of water per person per day, while on average, the typical citizen in Spokane County uses more than 80,000 gallons of water each year. That’s an average of 215 gallons of water per day per person. New water footprint formulae show that the average eater in the US uses about 1.5 million gallons of water to get the food from farm to the table each year. All the tens of millions of dollars spent to upgrade Spokane’s 100-year-old water mains and the several hundred millions needed to upgrade our city’s storm water collection and discharge system are fantasies for more than two-third’s of the world’s population. Consider this – a 5,000-liter cistern stores enough drinking and cooking rainwater for a family of five up to eight months of the year. Save Water – Drink Beer hopes to build 35 cisterns, each costing a measly $300 for materials and labor. Unfortunately, no events are to this international water consciousness raising and day of action were planned for Spokane, which is a bummer, because water experts, biologists, agronomists, and dozens of others in myriad of professions in our region see water as a major issue for Spokane County, the City of Spokane and the State of Washington. From food security to economic growth limits, water availability and the changing weather and climate affect everything we do. Water scarcity is something the Westside faces, and their lawns go brown while Spokane’s stay green during rain-rare summer months. However, things are about to change, according to state and local experts working this angle of climate change and growth management. Maybe next year Spokane can have an event tied to International Water Day, like the one a school in Seattle organized. On March 22, Summit K-8 School planned their Water Rally around the burden of carrying water, which more than half a billion people – mostly children, girls, and women — have to face every day. Middle and high school students and faculty gathered at the soccer field to hoist five 40-pound buckets to lug around the pitch. It’s one way to connect to the experience millions of women and children around the world face daily to collect and carry water.