Earth & Us: Celebrating Clean Water
A river is the report card for its watershed.
Alan Levere, Connecticut Department for Environmental Protection
Water has a voice. It carries a message that tells those downstream who you are and how you care for the land.
Bernie McGurl, Lackawnna River Association
Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.
Luna Leopold, Hydrologist
You can see the consciousness of a people in how they treat their water. Indigenous saying
Pure, cool, sweet water! In the month that I visited the US, I had the great good fortune to swim in four different lakes, float in an inner tube, feel a cold waterfall splash on my head and spray me with mist! What a rare gift to immerse oneself in uncontaminated, swimmable water…knowing how human activities, from farming to industry to sewage, have contaminated so much of the water in this world.
Cleaning up
What will it take to clean up the mess we humans have made? Of course, the first step must be to stop putting pollutants into the water. Because water flows, it has always been a convenient place for people to dump our wastes, and let those who live downstream deal with the consequences. Is it not time for us to take responsibility for what we put into the water?
Behavior change is difficult. It’s hard to imagine densely populated cities or towns using composting toilets! And a cost-benefit analysis usually does not look at long-term effects or the effects upon larger systems. It helps if there is a tangible, fairly short-term gain. That is why biogas digester technology gives me hope: when sewage becomes a source of valuable methane that can be used for cooking, heating, generating electricity, even running vehicles, there’s an incentive for treating it. (Please see https://medium.com/@cathyholt/earth-us-world-water-day-2024-the-power-of-poop-2261c552c624.) And when the resulting effluent is a valuable source of nutrients for tree crops, that’s another incentive.
How can such a change begin in a small pueblo like Barichara? Currently, the sewage is dumped without treatment into the Quebrada Barichara (Barichara stream), already polluted with waste from Villanueva. The stream then flows via Salto de Mico falls, into the river below. “The ‘most beautiful city in all of Colombia’ has an open sewer,” says Ingrid Rodriguez, a civil engineer friend who’s interested in biogas technology.
A “white elephant” (empty building put up to fool the public) was constructed some years ago under a corrupt mayor, who pocketed money from state and national governments designated for sewage treatment. The recently elected, more progressive mayor, Milton Chaparro, has pledged to improve the water situation. He has even visited a small but successful project where earthworms are used to digest sewage and the resulting effluent is growing healthy banana and plantain trees.
Allies
Sebastian Torres, a member of the town’s Council, suggested in May to Rosa Ysela and me, that we form an alliance of citizen volunteers and town staff to work on improved sewage treatment. So forming a team of volunteers will be an essential step.
A group called “La Barichara que Sueños” (“The Barichara We Dream of”), is organizing a gathering to discuss water issues in September. The first priority will be to assure good quality and adequate supplies of drinking water, since the current supply is threatened with developments around it including a gasoline tank; this has been the focus of the Veeduria, or oversight group on water. Treatment of wastewater is further down on the list.
Alejandra Medina is starting a movement to give the Quebrada Barichara the “Rights of Nature.” If a stream or river has any rights, those would have to include the right to protection from contamination.
Ingrid Rodriguez is a civil engineer who knows a lot about wastewater treatment.
Juan Pablo works for the mayor’s office and is in charge of infrastructure; I’ve sent him information about biogas and he’s interested.
Brainstorm
Would greening the town’s sewage treatment make Barichara a “model pueblo” that would add to its allure and its positive reputation? Might the tourist industry support such an initiative?
Could a small prototype biodigester be constructed, even before any significant funds are made available, perhaps on a neighborhood scale? “The neighborhood would have to want it,” advised my friend Maritza.
Would the mayor’s office issue an invitation to the pueblo’s neighborhoods, asking for a group of families to agree to its construction and participate in its operation?
Would free methane for cooking be enough of an incentive?
Could the effluent be sufficiently treated with Effective Microorganisms to be odor-free, low in pathogens, and still useful as a fertilizer for trees?
Would university students want to get involved for course credit?
Who are the key players, the people who would need to be involved, in order to move such a project forward?
Would there be a foundation to help fund it?
Any permaculturists who would like to get involved?
These are the questions buzzing around in my head!
So, dear readers, I am inviting YOU to write to me, at cathyfholt@gmail.com, with any ideas about these questions!