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by Kate Riley
A day to be thankful of the primary source of life: WATER.
Our bodies, our oceans, our planet—sustained by the reactivity of this chemical wonder.
It's a cause of life, and a cause of death.
We are contaminating the very medium from which we derive health.
Four in 10 people don’t have even a simple pit latrine.
Two in 10 people don’t have safe water to drink.
Two million people die every year from water-borne diseases.
The United Nations has declared an International Decade for Action, 2005–2015, to begin on World Water Day, March 22, 2005. The UN assembly appeals for our focus in water-related issues, and our coordinated response to find solutions. Perhaps this renewed effort comes from the realization that water is the issue underlying all others, including environmental sustainability and poverty. The Millennium Development Goals state: “Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.”
We can start today. By appreciating and attributing value to this finite resource, we begin to look for creative ways to preserve it and use it wisely. This has been done well by the corporations who see fresh water as a commodity and the 800 billion dollar business that it is. Companies are beginning to ship, pipe, and reroute water like oil. The level of the world’s fresh water is constant, mostly coming from rainfall, but by 2025, our demand for it will rise by over 56 percent. But this increasing population does not have equal access to water, or sanitation.
However, it is more complex than the allocation of funds or water. Many have criticized the first water decade, 1980–1990, for implementing technologies that are now obsolete because the local people do not use or maintain them. So this action decade, we are returning to the basics: awareness-raising, and promotion of daily practices in the home like water conservation, water reuse and hygiene. Women are especially crucial in this process.
Creative technologies may also be adapted to our cultural idiosyncrasies. For example, Ernesto Martinez of Akumal Pueblo has designed a closed composting toilet seat that opens upon sitting, to mitigate the discomfort and fear people have by looking into an open hole. Composting and dry toilets are the most viable solution to our water crises, as our flush toilets account for 45 percent of water use, and contamination of much greater volumes of water. By composting our waste, and using it as the fertilizer that it is, we break the waste/water cycle that leads to disease. Composting toilets may be elegant or rustic, as shown in these examples from the Yucatán:
Ernesto's composting toilet
Dinah's original baño
Carol's baño
The value and abundance of water is nowhere more evident than here, in the Yucatán Peninsula, where underground freshwater rivers feed enchanting cenotes and lagoons, and flow out to the sea. Hundreds of thousands of tourists come to experience this unique ecosystem, which is rapidly being destroyed by illegal dumping and the legal injection of wastewater. CEA is exhorting the government and developers to protect their own investment by implementing the highest standards of waste treatment. As tourists, we must also support destinations with responsible practices.
Let us celebrate and preserve this great gift on March 22, and during the decade to come.
To learn more about this, please contact us. We have an informative video available in English and Spanish (funded in part by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation) at the CEA Center about composting toilets and constructed wetlands. You are welcome to stop by and view it.
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