By Don Wiltshire
Well, I have only sixty-five gallon jugs painted red: one for every year that I’ve been crawling around on this blue planet that we call Earth. It seems that the best use of them would be to festoon the deck of the library around the San Augustin Water Coalition booth. Carol Pittman will be at the booth on Saturday, July 10, from noon till late afternoon for the Magdalena Old Timer’s Celebration. If you’re not familiar with these insane “water grab” situations and the efforts of the SAWC to put a halt to them, stop by and find out. Condolences and support will be greatly appreciated.
The sixty-five red water jugs will represent the water that would be ripped from our aquifer in 1/10th of one second. At this rate, my dream of having enough red water jugs to line up, side-by-side from Datil to the State Engineer’s Litigation Unit in Santa Fe will be realized in the year 4571. That would represent the amount of water that the San Augustin Ranch LLC wants to drain from our aquifer in just one hour.
Just looking at all of this “throw away” plastic is beginning to make me a bit queasy. There has been so much disposable plastic making its way into the Pacific Ocean, that a swirling eddy of discarded plastic, twice the size of Texas, has accumulated in its center: plastic water bottles, Styrofoam cups, shopping bags, food wraps, diaper linings, fast food containers, plastic spoons and forks, soda containers, garbage bags, plastic chopsticks, broken coolers and on and on. The effect of the decomposition of all of this plastic (even before it is so cavalierly tossed aside) is of great concern to some.
This decomposition, which is happening inside of your plastic water bottles, even as we speak, releases potentially toxic bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomer. These substances have been shown to disrupt the functioning of hormones in animals and can seriously affect reproductive systems.
Many think that only alternative to this disposable society is one with peasants (complete with faded flannel jackets and babushkas) waiting in long lines to refill their glass or ceramic containers from large tank cars. It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m old enough to remember returnable glass jugs for milk and chicken feed that came in cloth bags with printed patterns for making clothing or stuffed toys.
We finally have another attempt at recycling here in Magdalena. A recycling bin for aluminum cans has been placed at the corner of 8th Street and Spruce (that’s the one that’s paved all the way to its end, just east of Main Street). This is being sponsored by the Grizz Project. All proceeds will be used for their good works to relieve the suffering of and to find good homes for dogs, cats and horses in the Magdalena area.
Last week, at our biweekly “water” meeting, Ian Jenness gave us much to think about, and much to do to collect our precious rain water. For those of us who really, really enjoy our “plant friends,” rainwater collection is a good way to provide all of the water that they need without “breaking the bank.” Plants also seem to enjoy the slight acidity of rainwater which prevents calcium build-up around their roots (much like what happens in our water heaters and our toilets).
The next Water Meeting will be on July 14 at 7:00 p.m. at the Magdalena Public Library. Cheryl Hastings will present a series of recorded interviews and lectures by Vandana Shiva. I’ve seen some of these sound-bite clips and they are indeed, “food for thought.”
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Vandana Shiva, she is a water activist from India who was outraged at the attempted privatization of her Sacred River, the Ganges.
She firmly believes that water, like air, is a common resource to be shared by all to maintain life. She has given this situation much thought and meditation. Her comments are insightful, “to the point” and inclusive of a much broader world-view: she certainly doesn’t pull her punches. She is to be listened to with the heart as much as with the mind.
Cheryl will also offer us a look at her interpretations of water in photographs at her gallery (right next to our Marshal’s office) throughout the month of July. So much to do in our little Village!
If you have any comments, problems, solutions, upcoming events or Empty Milk Jugs, contact me at mtn_don@yahoo.com.
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