Once, when I was reading my son a book about rocks and minerals, we encountered the following passage: "No one really knows what water is, but perhaps the best definition would be- 'liquid rock'."
For some reason this definition pleased both of us immensely. Maybe because of our childish delight in paradox. But maybe it was pleasing at some even deeper level because it implied a basic mystery about water, a mystery that suggested that water was some kind of medium for the interdependence of all things, organic and inorganic. At this level water seems almost sacramental.
Water is indeed a very precious fluid. It has been equated to life itself. Although we don't always think of it that way, water is our most important life-sustaining food. No one wittingly would foul this element, for to poison it is to destroy life.
Yet, each year we witness the human impairment of our water resources.
Recently we learned of the possible sterilization of the Pecos River from poisons leaking out of mine waste. The Eldorado housing development appears to have seriously over-committed its water supplies. No one really knows all the ramifications to the watertable posed by the haphazard disposal of radioactive waste at Los Alamos. And, a few years back, Goldfield's Ortiz Mine, a heapleach operation, poisoned the watertable with cyanide and heavy metals.
These assaults on our water occur despite our vigilance. While usually unintended, water is lost or fouled because of poor planning, ignorance, or economic desperation. Sometimes, too, it is harmed by plain old human greed.
Public officials should listen more intently to the examples of history, and less intently to the reassuring talk of developers. They should take seriously the public trust that is violated every time the life-giving, perhaps even sacramental, purity of water is violated.
ΓÇöHarold E. Storsve
Harold is a resident of Santa Fe. His family has worked in the gold mines of the Mountain West since the turn of the century.
Storsve, Harold. "Water and the Interdependence of All Things." The Santa Fe Sun. May, 1991. V3 N7. Page 5.
