On average, one could live up to two months without food (although some of us would last a tad bit longer), but only three days without water. A common perception is lack of safe potable water is only an overseas issue. I've witnessed this presumption played out first-hand. When Andrea and I were in Arusha, a large town in northern Tanzania, we were riding through one remote village. An unexpected summer squall had just passed through the area, creating a mini deluge. The roadway was shedding sheets of water which collected and flowed swiftly in an ad hoc stream by the roadside.
There was a school just off the road, and all the students, all looking to be elementary age kids, were swarming out of the classrooms. With old one gallon water or cooking oil jugs in hand, they lined the street, filling their containers with that roadside drainage. I spun around in my seat as we passed them by, not sure I was seeing what I was seeing. "Surely that's not their drinking water," I hoped.
Even in areas with adequate rainfall, the water quality may still be suspect. I'd once attempted to join, unsuccessfully, a work crew going to the Philippines to build village water filters. The plan was to construct cinder block squares and fill them with successive layers of pebbles, sand, and charcoal. Water from the local source was then filtered as it percolated through the stratified layers.
The reality is, even stateside we're not immune to water insecurity. The entire southwestern region is at the mercy of a low snow fall season sending them into catastrophic drought conditions. Sometimes it's self-inflicted, like the Flint, MI, water authority failing in its primary purpose of properly treating the city's water supply.
It wasn't long after my arrival at Auburn that I discovered the city's own penchant for odiferous water and accompanying "tang". When running the tap in my efficiency caused me to wrinkle my nose, the first thing on my shopping list, even before my textbooks, was a water filtration system. A few years later, after Andrea and I started dating, one of the most intriguing tales of water woes came from my late father-in-law during one of our post-midnight, night owl conversations.
As a professor of microbiology at Auburn University and a highly regarded expert in the field, he was contacted by Lee County authorities to track down an e-coli bloom in the local water supply in the mid-'70s.
An early suspect was a series of out houses overhanging Auburn's water supply, Chewacla Creek (yes, outhouses were still a thing in Alabama in the mid '70s). While a contributor, it wasn't root cause. He and his grad students spread out across the region taking samples from lakes and rivers trying to pinpoint the source. I've read the paper his team generated. It's an impressive example of the scientific method in action with multiple temperature plots across months of the year with correlating factors such as rainfall and O2 concentrations.
The paper's conclusion of the multi-year study stated, "The presence of fecal coliforms and streptococci demonstrates the presence of animal wastes in Chewacla Creek." It turns out the activities of a local dairy farm were a primary cause of the bacterial bloom.
That early morning, in my future father-in-law's living room, the story wasn't over. As smoke swirled in the air from his multi-pack habit, he told me of an episode not in the official report. He had a team on one of the area waterways when one of his grad students called him over. "Hey, Professor, you need to see this." The student showed him the results of a water sample he'd just taken. The culture count of that specimen was off the charts.
At that point, he looked at me over the rim of his glasses. "Wayne, readings that high don't happen naturally."
He had his team double, and triple check their samples, and the repetition bore out the same results. Puzzled, they walked the banks trying to discover the source. Suddenly, a pipe hidden by foliage discharged a slug of murky water, replete with what looked like toilet paper and a distinct fecal odor. On a hunch they sampled this water and realized they'd found a primary source.
Apparently, the local treatment plant would get overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain and either through willful negligence or incompetence, untreated effluence was discharged into the local water supply.
I'm writing this from the heart of Auburn, and my perception is it's gotten better in the intervening years. These days, I detect no odor, and I believe Auburn water tastes OK. Regardless, I've got a fridge stocked with hard cider, and bottles of bourbon just in case.
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