Announcement - New pages
Water and Waterwise Resources
I’m obsessed with water. Maybe it’s because my (and your) body is ~70% water. Maybe it’s because we die after a very few days without fresh water. Maybe it’s because most plants, the source of all the oxygen we breath, die quickly without water. And maybe it’s that I know that Lummi Island’s fresh and marine waters are very fragile parts of living the good life.
When we are fortunate enough to have a string of really nice rains as we have the past couple of weeks, I am immensely grateful. Spring rains are a blessing.
In honor of this year’s spring rains, I’ve added a new page, Water, with one ‘daughter’ page Waterwise Resources. I’ve had these on the back burner for months. It seems only right to add them now, in light of the lush multi-hued greens outside my window this morning.
How well I remember, with a shudder, those warm, dessicated springs a few years ago. How grateful I am now for this year’s well-paced spring rains. How fortunate we are, here on Lummi Island, to be gifted with such a blessing.
Filed under: Building, Wildlife, water | Tagged: island living, Lummi Island, water of life, water resources, waterwise
Water Facts:
lack access to safe water, that’s two and a half times the entire U.S. population.
884 million people worldwide, (roughly 1 in
4,000 young children are killed every day due to diarrheal diseases throughout the world, amounting to 1.5 million children each year. That’s the equivalent of every professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey player dying in one day, but repeated everyday.
90 percent of waste water in developing countries is discharged into rivers and streams without any treatment. This is water used to bathing, cleaning and drinking.
The average distance that women in developing countries walk to collect water per day is 4 miles and the average weight that women carry on their heads is approximately 40 pounds.
2.5 billion people don’t have adequate sanitation facilities.
One more thing on “Water”. Thank you for all the hours of work Islanders, Whatcom County Council and many others spent working on our Lummi Island Sub Area Plan that was just approved on May 12th. This plan attempts to protect Lummi Island’s water resources. It calls for creating a Watershed Management Plan. I hope we will all get involved in making this a good plan that will indeed protect our valuable, fragile and limited capacity watershed.
Thank you for appreciating our water resources. I thought I’d share parts of a letter I received from Senator Patty Murray.
Write your Senators today to support the Clean Water Restoration Act!!
“Thank you for your letter regarding the Clean Water Restoration Act. The Clean Water Act is the principal law governing pollution of our nation’s surface waters. While the legislation was originally enacted in 1948, it was revised in 1972 to spell out ambitious programs for water quality improvement. These programs and regulations are currently carried out by industries and municipalities to control water pollution.
This legislation has faced significant challenges on a number of fronts. Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 limited the scope of the Clean Water Act and left a large portion of our nation’s waters and wetlands unprotected from pollution. Recently, the Clean Water Restoration Act was introduced during the 110th Congress to restore the scope of the Clean Water Act to include those waters protected before these court decisions.
Throughout my Senate tenure I have consistently supported efforts to protect the quality and integrity of our nation’s waters and wetlands. Should the Clean Water Restoration Act or similar legislation come before the Senate during the 111th Congress, I will certainly support it. ” Senator@murray.senate.gov