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| By: Jo Baeza, The Independent | 06/06/2006 |
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It is more apt than ever today.
Imagine drinking only sewage water that has been treated and recycled, or only desalinated seawater, or bottled glacial water that costs as much as a gallon of gasoline.
Like oil, fresh water is a non-renewable resource in much of the world. In the United States, the great aquifers, such as the Ogalalla, deposited when glaciers receded following the last ice age, are slowly but surely dwindling. We use more fresh water than nature replenishes.
In Arizona most of our surface water and ground water is dependent on winter snowpack in the mountains that has been lacking in recent years due to drought.
Unfortunately, people continue to waste water like spendthrifts wasting the family fortune.
Good clean water is something most people in the White Mountains and Mogollon Rim take for granted as a birthright. Like all birthrights, it must be protected or it will disappear.
The importance of water to all life along the Mogollon Rim was stressed in displays at an open house at the Arizona Game and Fish Department May 20.
The event was co-sponsored by the Show Low Creek Watershed Enhancement Partnership, the Pinetop-Lakeside Chamber of Commerce, and the 20/20 Vision Committee.
Examples of how water plays a vital role in our lives were given through displays that included birds, native fish and amphibians, maps of the watershed, an exhibit of how pollutants affect the water table, satellite maps - even a demonstration of fishing techniques.
The purpose of the open house was to further public awareness, especially to public officials, of the critical nature of water and how it may be conserved through better management.
The U. of A.'s Water Resources Research Center is addressing the topic of growth and water at its annual conference scheduled June 20 and 21 in Phoenix. The title will be "Providing Water to Arizona's Growing Population: How Will We Meet the Obligation?"
The U. of A. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has been working to integrate energy and water conservation into the planning process. In a recent article, Joe Gelt writes: "Just as producing energy consumes water, treating and distributing water requires energy. In other words, water is an energy issue; energy is a water issue."
The College of Agriculture is committed to educating teachers, students, municipal officials and the general public about water conservation and the effects of pollution that occur because of growth and development.
The consequences of land use activities that contribute to water quality degradation are the focus of an organization called "NEMO," Non-point Education for Municipal Officials. NEMO offers science-based information to communities throughout the state. Their goal - to educate county and city officials, local watershed partnerships and citizens about how their decisions will affect the water quality in their area.
Rather than each community attempting to make its own land use decisions, NEMO believes those crucial decisions should be made on a watershed basis. A watershed is the area that catches precipitation and drains into a wash, stream, river, lake, or groundwater. The open house focused on the watershed of Show Low Creek.
A recent NEMO bulletin states: "Nonpoint source water pollution - pollution that originates from a broad or diffuse area - results from a variety of human land uses such as increased urbanization, agricultural practices, abandoned mines, forestry activities, home septic system failure, and construction site activities."
As one visitor to the open house remarked, "We should have started planning 30 years ago."
True, but an open house to create awareness of water issues is a start.
Participants included: USDA Forest Service; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; Arizona Game & Fish Department; Arizona Water Resources Department; Department of Environmental Quality; The Audubon Society; NEMO; White Mountain Bass Fishing Club; Pinetop-Lakeside Sanitary District; Blue Ridge School Big Spring Project; Show Low Water Department; Arizona Water Company; Show Low Creek Watershed Partnership; the Nature Conservancy; the Master Watershed Stewardship Program; and the Tres Rios Project.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars did their part by serving short-order food.
Runaway development is the concern of every citizen. Fortunately, Arizona towns and cities have a vast amount of information available to help them make decisions that will affect generations to come.