Down the drain

Speaking microscopically, about two-thirds of the human body is water.

How about this one: Seventy percent of human skin is water. But how many people actually stop to think about that? Not many. And to those who do, you've got to ask: Why bother?

There's really not much reason to think about water. Water just … is.

The American Water Works Association reports that the average person uses about 100 gallons of water a day at home, and the country runs through about 40 billion gallons of fresh water every day. But who even knows if those numbers are worrisome? Water gets, like, replenished through that whole evaporation-rain thing. Right?

That same deep reasoning applies to the environment as a whole. It barely rated a passing mention in the recent presidential elections.

Politicians respond to the voice of the American public, and that voice, with the obvious exceptions, rarely speaks loudly about the environment. We want national security, a healthy economy, affordable health care, a reliable Social Security system. Somewhere down the list, we'd like some assurances that the ozone layer, or lack thereof, won't turn the world into a frying pan.

We care about the environment, but, really, what's a saved tree compared to a thwarted terrorist? The fact is there's only so much money available for so many different causes. It's reality, and there's no shame or immorality associated with prioritizing values based on the most pressing needs.

But the environment won't stay in the shadows forever. Our natural resources, including water, are finite. Sooner or later, they're going to demand attention.

And when that time comes, everything else takes the bench. It's already starting to happen in Waukesha and other communities that are close, but not close enough, to one of the Great Lakes.

The water sources aren't exactly drying up, but the math that compares water usage to availability isn't running quite so smoothly. The alarm bells are starting to whisper, and it's not too hard to see how the dominoes will fall if the problem reaches critical status. Follow that line of thought far enough, and those subdivision plans take a nosedive.

We're not there yet. There's still plenty of time to spot the desert on the horizon and do something about it. But, still, you've got to wonder.

The AWWA reports that if every household in America had a faucet that dripped once each second, 928 million gallons of water a day would slip away. Do you even know if your faucet leaks? Do you care?

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