Can water get a marketing budget?

Could you live on six gallons of water a day? The residents of Cape Town South Africa will be limited to just 125 litters (or 6.6 gallons) of water per person per day when it hits Day Zero (Van Damn, 2018). Day Zero is the day when the reservoir runs dry. It’s the day when the taps of lush Cape Town turn off, and its residents will have to walk to pick up their daily rations of water.

And while the prospect of Day Zero has many individuals rethinking their water usage, access to clean water isn’t just a problem restricted to in South Africa. My small community in western Pennsylvania is considering risking its water supply in exchange for more jobs. The Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing a permit from Shell to run a pipeline is close to the Ambridge Reservoir, the primary water supply for 30,000 residents. The Shell Falcon pipeline won’t cross the Ambridge Reservoir, but it will cross three streams that feed into the Reseviour (Stonesifer, 2018).

The Shell Falcon pipeline will bring 20,000 temporary and 600 permanent jobs to the area. Beaver County has the lowest unemployment rate it has had in eight years, but many are still concerned about the communities long-term economic viability. And because people are focused on the short-term economic benefit of jobs, they aren’t thinking about the long-term risk we are making with our water supply.

If the Ambridge Reservoir water supply was contaminated with harmful gases, the 30,000 residents of Ambridge would need to find a new source of water. Would we look to state and federal agencies to supply bottled water like was required for Flint, Michigan? State and Federal agencies spent $22,000 a day supplying bottled water to the more than 8,000 children impacted by the lead that contaminated the Flint water supply (Poetry, 2018). It would be less expensive to hire 20,000 people to do nothing than to supply 30,000 with bottled water for any period of time.

Our natural resources don’t have marketing budgets. The natural resource “water” gets to spend 1b a year reminding people of its importance and asking people to preserve it for future generations. Individuals won’t necessarily see the connection between Day Zero, a proposed pipeline, and lead pipes in Flint Michigan, but there is one. The message is that we need to protect, preserve, and conserve our water supply. And because water doesn’t have a budget, it is up to us to create meaningful stories we can share. Helping others understand the importance of water can only be done one conversation, one social media post, one editorial, and one blog post at a time!

References

Poetry (Apr 2, 2018). A poem for Flint, four years after the water crisis began. PBS News Hour. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/a-poem-for-flint-four-years-after-the-water-crisis-began

Stonesifer, J. (Jan 31, 2018). Ambridge Water Authority opposes planned Shell pipeline route. Retrieved from http://www.timesonline.com/news/20180131/ambridge-water-authority-opposes-planned-shell-pipeline-route

Van Dam, D. (February 22, 2018). Living 24 hours with ‘Day Zero’ water rations. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/world/weather-cape-town-day-zero-25-liters/index.html

Joseph, R. (Apr 5, 2018). Giant effort to save water pushes back Day Zero in Cape Town, South Africa. ABC 15.
Retrieved from https://www.abc15.com/news/giant-effort-to-save-water-pushes-back-day-zero-in-cape-town-south-africa