Left: Thermometer that volunteers will use to measure water temperature. Right: Public television camera crew records video of a volunteer water quality monitor.
In case you missed it (I did), Saturday, March 22 was noted by the United Nations as World Water Day. This year’s theme is glacier preservation.
So, who cares? Water is boring, especially these days with all issues and distractions – politics and social media craziness. It’s so boring that World Water Day merits no current mention on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website.
It is ironic that the EPA was created in 1970 by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. Today it is imperative that all concerned citizens unite to reverse the political misfortunes now facing environmental protection efforts, including glaciers, climate change, and water quality.
To find a mention of World Water Day, we must return to a statement from former EPA administrator Michael S. Regan, who in 2023 stated: “… I encourage everyone to take a moment to consider how truly fundamental clean water is to the health of our communities and our environment. Clean water is vital for all life on earth. It supports healthy people, thriving communities and productive agriculture.”
In nature water can be a comforting distraction, floods, hail, and rain on your picnic notwithstanding: Water bubbling in a meandering stream, a roaring waterfall, waves lapping a lakeshore, gentle rain on your garden, slaking thirst or spraying hot from a shower head. Water comprises about 60 percent of the human body.
Only about 2.5 percent of the earth’s water is fresh water, and much of that is underground. About 70 percent of the world’s fresh water is in snow or ice. In 2023, glaciers lost more than 600 gigatons of water, the largest mass loss registered in 50 years.
Glaciers – massive “rivers of ice” creeping from mountains, provide water for more than two billion people. I have seen distant glaciers in Alaska and close up touring the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta, Canada. They are retreating, melting too quickly as the average global temperatures rise.
Closer to home, for the past 16 years I have served as a volunteer water quality monitor in the watershed where I live. About every two weeks during spring, summer, and fall, hundreds of volunteers around the state sample for water clarity in lakes or streams, a simple but important measure. Minnesota boasts more than 11,000 lakes and 92,000 miles of rivers and streams, including Hawk Creek, where I sample several segments.
Despite some efforts to limit pollution from stormwater runoff, surface water quality remains vulnerable. Climate change is evident in rainfall increases in some areas. Increased precipitation means increased runoff, and the pollutants that it carries.
The state’s namesake river, the Minnesota River, carries tons of sediment washed in from gouged streambanks and cultivated fields underlain with thousands of miles of subsurface tile. All this and hope for the future is told in stories of its advocates in a very good book, For Love of a River: The Minnesota, by Darby Nelson.
A new task for water quality monitors this season will be recording water temperature as well as transparency. According to the U.S. EPA (and still found on its website), “Minnesota’s lakes today have an average summer surface water temperature over 2°F higher than they did 50 years ago. Precipitation has also increased, with two to three times as many heavy rain events per year since 2000 and more runoff into lakes and streams.”
Over the past decades we have seen vast improvements in some areas of water quality, primarily in better management of municipal and industrial wastewater, so-called point sources. At the same time, there has been little overall improvement in the management of non-point sources of water pollution.
It takes time, money, and commitment among landowners and government entities to make a difference. Unfortunately, at the current federal level, funds for grants and loans are being ‘paused’ or cut. The denial of climate change by the current administration is a travesty.
Recently I talked with a farmer who had participated in a program using conservation practices useful in combatting climate change. He spent $16,000 on cover crops following corn harvest, and pasture management. His reimbursement has been paused and now weighs on the wrong side of his balance sheet.
While addressing climate change is complex and overarching, becoming better stewards of surface water is more feasible, and can help with climate change. That effort is also facing a setback as the federal Environmental Protection (Pillage?) Agency is attempting to roll back the definition of navigable waters and other regulations.
“The EPA’s intent to reconsider cornerstone environmental and climate protection is concerning,” said the commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “Rolling back these rules will have direct impact on the people of Minnesota with more extreme storms, more heavy precipitation events and more damages from floods, hailstorms and windstorms.”
Public education and progressive politics are key to addressing climate change and related environmental issues. “We Are Water” is the title of an exhibit that includes displays from the Smithsonian Institutes “Water/Ways” exhibit. It has been making the rounds in Minnesota since 2016, reaching more than 100,000 people in more than 40 communities. It is currently in Ortonville in western Minnesota on the shores of Big Stone Lake through April 21. Future venues include Ely, Minneapolis, Henderson, and Bloomington. Pay a visit if you can.
