My Relationship with Running Water

Like many others --or so I believe--, I rarely consider where my water comes from. I know it comes from the ground, and that comes from rain at some point, but this is an incredibly vague and not very useful understanding. I have no doubt that this lack of understanding and consideration effects how I use water in my every day life in significant ways. If this is the case for me, I can only imagine the kinds of impacts we could make in water conservation as a community if we really knew more about where our water comes from.

My honest guess is that none of my family members or friends know where their running water comes from. At best, perhaps one of my friends knows about his water source because his parents, whom he lives with, had their own home built, although I do doubt this. It makes me wonder about how many people on average are familiar with this question, how many people do think about this? Given my sample, I have to imagine not many.

So I'd like to use this opportunity to consider where my water comes from using the power of the internet. From the city of Madison's website, I learned that my water comes mostly from well 7 in Madison. As for the main source of the water from this well, it comes from the Yahara River watershed. Water from this area drains into the Yahara River and directly into lake Menona, however, I'm unsure if they mean that it is used water or if it is rain water/flood water that drains into these bodies.

Image Source: https://www.cityofmadison.com/engineering/projects/east-isthmus-and-yahara-river-watershed-study

Although my concern about other areas of conservation are more pronounced, water conservation is probably the most important to my life whether I think it is or not. Prairie conservation is more interesting to me to think about, but water conservation is absolutely essential not only to me, but to everyone. Every ecosystem and area of conservation are equally important actors in the broader scheme, but problems with water are perhaps the most noticeable because we all rely on it every single day. We need to hydrate, shower, wash dishes, our clothes, and our hands. We have a flowing relationship with water, it's constantly coming and going through our days. We are usually forced to notice changes in quality and quantity through this sensitivity brought by frequency, and the importance it is to our survival; remember, we can only survive about 3 days with no water!

This is also why it is so important to us. Disease outbreaks, heavy amounts of contaminants or pollution, and availability have great consequences if not handled promptly. It threatens not only our daily lives, but our immediate and long term health and safety. Our lives would be very different from day one without a clean and constant supply of water. For me, it would mean I cannot wash my dishes after I cook and eat (and I cook my own 3 daily meals every day). I couldn't wash my hands after being outside of my home, which makes my chances of contracting a virus or bacterial disease increase. If I had no water to drink at all, survival becomes the most important concern. This is why I although I am not particularly interested in the conservation of water, it is something that I must be concerned about, interested or not!

Sources:

https://www.cityofmadison.com/water/waterQuality/myWells.cfm

https://www.cityofmadison.com/water/documents/water-quality/WaterQualityEnglish.pdf

https://www.cityofmadison.com/engineering/projects/east-isthmus-and-yahara-river-watershed-study