For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the
just and the unjust alike.
just and the unjust alike.
Matthew 5:45
“It means parents will be given only enough free water for their children to take one shower and flush the toilet once each day. Everything else will have to be paid for.”
Ireland 2014
Ireland is a wonderful green country that gets that way because it rains here.
A lot.
Despite this abundance of Dihydrogen Monoxide families in Ireland are soon going to be charged, on average, about €500 per year ($700) for the privilege of using our most abundant natural resource. Now I’m (for the most part) a free market advocate but I think this stinks to high heaven. There are (or at least should be) certain things that a government provides for its citizens without making a commodity out of it. This goes back to the earliest days of civilisation, when wandering family units came down from the trees to join together into tribes. In addition to the security that this offered evidence suggests that people joined together to collectively share resources without “ownership” being asserted over the item in question.
In fact most early governments formed to share three main items, food, shelter and water. We’ve pretty much given up on the “Food and Shelter” end of things. There are reminders of the days when those services were shared (think of the joint agricultural use that “Boston Common” once represented, or the Native American “Long House” for shelter) but almost all governments have continued to provide water to their citizens without imposing a system that means if you are wealthier you get to use more of it. The poorest farmer could come in from a day in the fields and relax with a long, hot shower without worrying about whether he was taking food out of his kids' mouth (yes, I know he had to pay for the electricity or gas to heat the water, but the H2O itself was his to use). More to the point – his position as regards water was no different from the millionaire down the road. Sure, the millionaire could also take a long shower, and put an enclosed swimming pool in his house, liberally give water to his pet llamas and irrigate his orchids under a greenhouse roof. The point is – there was no need for the farmer or the millionaire to begrudge the other his use of water. Each came by their right to use water by virtue of being a citizen of the state, not because one could afford it and the other couldn’t.
If this sounds a bit “socialist” – well, let’s be honest - it is. Nonetheless it seems to have worked well for plenty of capitalist western democracies for the last 250 years or so. Water was the one great equaliser, the one shared resource, the thing that God above dropped on the just and unjust alike – and humanity had seemingly agreed to keep it that way. That is – until the recent movement to impose “fairness” by charging people for their water usage. Now – if you are rich, you can buy more water and if you’re poor – let ‘em drink Guinness.
In America this would (and has, where water charges apply) lead to a very visible split between the water haves and have nots. As usual the burden of that split falls most heavily on the middle class and poor. The middle class, who once used to dream of a house with a pool – now have to re-think the dream. The sight of kids running through a sprinkler? Now it would be seen in only the better class’s front garden. Washing your car? Probably more likely to be done regularly for a Beamer than a Ford, no matter how much you love your vehicle. Still, the majority of the United States employ a water tariff system that charges everyone for the use of water equally (and if one were to add in those areas that charge residential users equally as opposed to industrial users the percentage goes up).
In Ireland the split between the (rich) wets and the (poor) dries is not quite as “up front”. You don’t have to water lawns here – it rains enough. Hardly anyone has an outdoor pool, washing your car when it’ll be racing through puddles in an hour or so is somewhat pointless – you get the picture. Water usage is pretty much an indoor sport. So why then, in a country where both the just and unjust are likely to get soaked if they stick their head out the window is water now being commoditised? Why are the poor and middle class being forced to choose between flushing and brushing?
The reason has almost nothing to do with water scarcity and just about everything to do with water management. Ireland has refused to invest in its water carrying infrastructure. Its aquifer is pathetic for a country that experiences the amount of rainfall it sees. The water mains leak like sieves (probably worse than sieves) and a huge percentage of the water is lost before it reaches the user. Of course, in many instances the water that makes it through the system is hardly worth keeping. In recent years Galway, Roscommon and other areas have had to rely on bottled water because the local water is toxic. How the hell does this happen?
Remember what I said about the situation "stinking to high heaven". In many ways that can be taken quite literally. Ireland is dotted throughout with what are called “holy wells”. These are spots associated with saints that seem to miraculously spout water from rocks or the bare ground. You can fill a hollow statue with this water, bless the sick with this water, wash a poor sinner’s feet with this water – you can do a lot of things with it – just – don’t try to drink it. Ireland has a wonderful practice of having the farmers keep their cattle in “slatted sheds” through the winter. The cows produce what cows produce best (hint – it ain’t milk) and the waste is funnelled into “slurry tanks” under the shed. In spring you have to clear the tank, so farmers spray a winter’s worth of shit onto their fields. The farming methods used create so much toxic runoff that some of what should be the most pristine lakes in the world are impossible to swim in, let alone drink. You can’t entirely blame the farmers – this is the only option given them, although some degree of planning could probably convert the methane and waste into energy and fertiliser. But there is no such program available. The rain that falls on an Irish field makes it green and then goes away, without serving any other useful purpose. It seeps, poisoned with e.coli and other vile substances into lakes, rivers, groundwater reserves and holy wells. As a result a water “crisis” has developed – but what it actually represents is a crisis of political will and leadership – and the Irish people are paying for it.
I know a little of which I speak. For four years, while going to college, I worked in the water department of Springfield Massachusetts helping maintain their filter beds. The method used was “slow sand filtration” among the most energy efficient and cheapest means of creating clean water. It is a perfect system for a non-drought susceptible region because it uses the power of constant water supply to create clean water – the pressure of incoming water drives water through the sand and into the mains. The sand is then recycled and cleaned through the use of the system’s own water pressure, making use of such items as water guns, separators, “box cleansers” and sand chutes. It’s actually very ingenious and is used in many third world countries which don’t want to use other energy sources to clean their water. Ireland should set up regional feeder systems on the same principle. The fact that it does not means that one of the wettest countries in the world has trouble getting clean water to its citizen’s on a regular basis. It also means that an already overburdened populace is now being hit with an entirely regressive water tax.
Ireland should be ashamed that it has ever come to this. I have vacationed on Gran Canaria, where huge numbers of tourists compete with residents and a large agricultural industry for the island’s water. Somehow – they manage to sustain everything despite a near desert climate and no appreciable river systems. They do this because they account for every drop of rain that falls on the island and also make use of the sea. By comparison, Ireland, to use as apt an expression as I can possibly think of, simply pisses its water resource away. I’m not so naive as to think that the system of charging for water can simply be repealed at this point – to a certain extent we’re stuck with it. But politicians and the citizenry should vow to make the primary goal of the water charge system the extinction of the water charge system. A certain percentage of each year’s take should be set aside for the creation of a viable infrastructure which will, through the use of regional filtration plants and manmade catch basins result in renewable, potable water for all. If set timelines are not achieved then water rationing, rather than increased charges, should be instituted. The business of making an already overtaxed citizenry pay even more for something that, at a minimum, the government should be able to make equally available, is not an acceptable solution. Water charges should become a temporary catalyst for a long-term solution to the water problems of Ireland, not a perpetual element of Irish life. Then maybe the just and the unjust alike can get back to doing what they do best about the rain.
Complaining about it.
