Joe Wilde

The Earth is running out of water but sadly and surprisingly most people didnt
know it, until December of 2014 when the state of California announced that it did
not have enough water to sustain the state for the year 2015. Until then most of
the United States was un aware that the water shortage was not due to a drought
but rather the water being polluted to the point of being unusable. The U.S. is one
of the last countries to deal with national water shortages and we have now began
selling the water rights of our cities rivers and lakes to international corporations
instead of the actual cities themselves. In countries like Mexico the group with the
largest water right is the Coca Cola Corporation its the same in many African
countries.
The Earth is covered in 79% percent water 97% of the water on the planet is salt
water and therefore has to go through a strenuous desalination process in order to

be drinkable and the water desalination process is very polluting to the rest of the
environment. So how else do we get fresh water that can be filtered cleanly, we pull
ground water through the earth. The system in which water is pulled from
underground in most countries is very rudimentary and they dont know how much
the well can support and this leads to round destabilization. Which inevitably leads
to ground destabilization and then sinkholes these are some of the ways in which
we have made the water situation worse in an effort to repair the damage already
done. The deforestation and the paving and modernization of the country have led
to soil erosion. Which is caused by a lack of water in the soil which means that it
dries out and wears away. This means that grass and plant life cannot grow stable
roots and that perpetuates the soil erosion.
Agricultural use of water rights accounts for 80% of total water used in the United
States and as high as 90% in the western dry states. The dry states are unable to
collect enough water yearly to support the amount of water needed and this
requires the use of irrigation canals and water being piped all across the country.
Many farms use automatic water flushing systems to clean out the animal spaces
and these flushing systems use up to 150 gallons of water per cow per day.
Unfortunately the state of the modern farm leads to water pollution because the
large factory farms have so many animals that they have to create massive storage
areas in which they put all the manure and urine from the animals. The storage
tanks have often leaked or overflown which leads to significant pollution and danger
from the antibiotic residue from the animals. The purpose of the animal waste
storage tanks is to be used as fertilizer for the crops but the animals produce far
more waste then they could ever use. These containment leaks are usually more
dangerous to the animals that live in or around the water that is directly
contaminated rather than humans because they are able to drink the water after
filtering. A spill in New York caused the deaths of an estimated 250,000 fish, these

leaks are especially deadly to the families in rural areas who use wells to pull from
groundwater. 99% of rural area homes use groundwater wells and they unlike the
filtered water are not required to meet the EPAs standards.
While the water pollution in the United States has been increasing steadily over the
last few decades the nations water supply is much cleaner than most other
countries. Mexico city has been ranked the lowest of any of the major cities.
The situation is dire and the amount of clean usable fresh water is shrinking each
year it is estimated that in developing countries the amount of industrial waste that
is unfiltered before dumped into the water supply is as high as 80%. And all this
pollution in the fresh water systems eventually makes its way into the oceans and
certain parts of the ocean have become devoid of life because the chemicals exist
where oxygen cannot. In the United States an EPA survey found that 55% of our
homes drinking water comes from lakes, reservoirs, and rivers the same study
found that nearly 50% of the rivers and reservoirs in the US are polluted. 40% of
the rivers and lakes in the U.S. are too polluted for aquatic life to survive. The
majority of the polluted water comes from runoff or from airborne sources one of
the most dangerous pollutants are pesticides that wash into the ground water and
streams from farming complexes. 73 different types of pesticides have been found
in ground water which requires extensive filtering to make the water suitable for
drinking.
Outside of the U.S. the situation is worse with over 50% of the worlds ground water
undrinkable and only 0.07% of the total water is considered accessible. In
Bangladesh almost 85% of the ground water is contaminated. The most dangerous
contaminate in the water supply is Arsenic. Thus, the 1.2 million people in this
nation are exposed to the deadly effects of arsenic-contaminated water. The most
contaminated water sources in the world are in the Asian continent, the rivers in

Asia contain 3 times more human waste than anywhere else on the planet. The
U.N. estimates that by 2025, 48 countries with a combined population of 2.8 billion
will face freshwater scarcity. Leading to an increase in the number of sickness and
deaths from waterborne illnesses will increase dramatically.
We have all seen the commercials asking for donations to third world countries they
usually make dramatic claims saying that every 20 seconds a child dies from a
waterborne disease. The question I ask is there an ethical right to water. Can
anyone one the right to water and can anyone ethically own water and not allow
those in need to use it. Out of all the philosophers we have studied this year I cant
think of any of them that would agree with the idea of owning water rights. But yet
there are water rights being sold to the highest bidder and in the United States the
largest investors are the same customers as always namely the wall street bankers
and the billionaire families as of 2012 the largest single water rights owner was T.
Boone Pickens. According to a global research online study Pickens owned more
water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the
Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of
water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff
on 170 acres of his private land. How can we sit idle and allow something so
backwards to exist in our nation especially something that is necessary for human
life. With clean water becoming a scarcity, how can we morally allow someone to
one the rights to something that we all need in order to live I dont want to see the
world become a dystopian reality. Which from what I can tell is what were moving
towards all I can hope is that somewhere someone is coming up with a better plan
then leaving earth.
Aldo Leopold author of the land ethic theory, believed that humans were to be one
with nature rather than the conqueror of it he believed that we were part of a larger
biotic community that contained all of nature rather than just Homo sapiens.

Conversely Rene Descartes theorized that man had the right to use nature to his
advantage he believed that all parts of nature were ours to control. My personal
philosophy on the issue of water pollution and water rights is split, I recognize both
sides of the argument the first side is that of Aldo Leopold. Looking at is through the
idea of the land ethic I think it is sickening to think of the most important resource
on the planet being owned and controlled and polluted by corporations. Looking at
the issue through the view point of Descartes is where things start to get muddled
and the issue enters a grey area. Water is vital to human life but unlike oxygen, salt
or other vital substances fresh water is not found in abundance. Many inhabited
parts of the world do not have enough naturally occurring fresh water to support life
in large quantities and will manipulate the natural state to get the water needed.
The Earths population is now over 7 billion and it shows no sign of slowing down
which leads into another philosophical debate. If you dont allow someone to control
the water and delegate it to people that can use it you have to come up with some
way to control the distribution of water and much of the world would have to
relocate to be near the water sources. If we do limit or eliminate the private and
state ownership of water who is responsible for water filtration does it fall to each
individual person. How would we prevent and control pollution, would it get better
or worse. I feel that as a global society we have to recognize that there is a rapidly
growing problem with our water and if we dont act now it will be too late.
Unfortunately it would appear that most of mankind has agreed with Descartess
theory of mankind using its right to control and manipulate nature and we are now
starting to experience the consequences of our actions.