Troubled water

The 1970 song by Simon and Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” conveys our need for support and comfort during difficult times, using the metaphor of a bridge to symbolize help and solace. The lines “like a bridge over troubled water” and “I will lay me down” mean doing everything we can to help out a friend in need. That’s a great message.

Today, though, those words about troubled water have a more literal meaning. 

I have a good friend who studied and worked in city management, and he said he was taught years ago that the single greatest risk for us humans is the contamination of our water supply. That threat continues today, possibly more so from ourselves than from any terrorist activity. 

Most all of us know that about two-thirds of the human body is water, and that 71% of the Earth’s surface is water, too. Sure, civil rights, the economy, health care, immigration, guns and abortion are all important issues, but none compares to our need for clean water. Yet, we seemingly ignore it and continue to take what we have for granted. 

Look at any world map or globe, and it would appear that we have an abundance of water. So, why the concern? According to seametrics.com, only .014 % of the water on Earth is both fresh and easily accessible in surface and near-surface sources that people can use directly.

Meanwhile, we are told that to be healthy, we need to drink more water. But, we should not drink too much water, as that can be fatal. So, we buy 50 billion single-use plastic water bottles in the United States each year. That translates to 136 million bottles daily. That’s a lot of water — and a lot of plastic.

We Americans also use an incredible amount of water beyond what we drink. In just one year, the average U.S. residence uses more than 100,000 gallons of water indoors and outside. And, we Americans, as a whole, use 5.7 billion gallons per day to simply flush our toilets.

But AI — the answer to seemingly everything today — will fix all this, right? Wrong. All these data centers that keep popping up are using unprecedented amounts of water to cool their servers and prevent their equipment from overheating. A typical data facility uses about 300,000 gallons per day, while larger data centers use up to 5 million gallons daily, equivalent to the water needs of an entire community. 

Jim Duncan has been writing about food and water and sustainability issues for decades. I asked him to pen a piece on the subject of water this month, and he happily obliged. Be sure to read it from beginning to end to better understand the history of water and our ever-changing needs for it today. 

Thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman 
Editor and Publisher
CITYVIEW
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305
www.dmcityview.com