Rust in the Water

Rust in the Water

In general we take the supply of water for granted in the northeast corner of North America.  There’s usually enough precipitation in rain and snow coming through this region to refill the aquifers, rivers and reservoirs that supply our drinking water.  This month we’re running a bit dry, according to the meteorologists.  After the spring we had I’m okay with a bit dry.

Our ecosystem is designed to be resilient to a point.  But as the population grows we continue to test the limits of that resiliency.  Watering lawns, filling pools and a hundred other things we humans do increase demands on the water supply.  Desalinization is still too expensive a process, and frankly we aren’t desperate enough as other regions are, to be a viable option here yet.  Conservation is the key here.

There was rust in the water this morning.  That usually means they’re doing maintenance on the pipes somewhere, or flushing the fire hydrants, or some other thing that turns our normally clear water into a lovely orange sheen.  It’s a good reminder that we’re all reliant on the system working.  Water, electricity, gasoline, food…  we have so much delivered to us that sometimes we forget that the supply chain could break down at any time.  Building more resiliency into our individual lives is one answer.  Just as we have a national reserve of oil to protect us from a sudden shutoff of the global supply, so we should have a reserve of food, water, batteries and fuel to ensure that we can survive for some period of time should the system break down.

Such are my thoughts when there’s rust in the water.  Thanks for the reminder.  It’s good to have those once in a while.