If eggs and meat are made in the supermarket, where does your tap water come from?

My drinking water source. Eat your heart out.

We’ve probably all heard stories about city kids who think eggs are made in the supermarket, or can’t identify where their meat comes from.  Eventually they learn – at least in a book-learnin’ kind of way – that eggs come from chickens and meat from dead animals.

But apparently most don’t ever learn where their water comes from. A Nature Conservancy survey released last month shows 77 percent of Americans who use municipal water can not identify the source of their tap water.

By itself, that lack of knowledge  probably isn’t a big deal. We pay taxes and pass laws to have other people make sure that safe water comes out when we open the spigots. 

But in a more global sense, our lack of connection with the natural world is symptomatic of larger problems. As the Nature Conservancy asks: “If we are less aware of our dependence on nature for our most essential needs, are we less inclined to get personally involved in protecting it?”

For the record, my tap water comes from the Detroit River, a majestic natural wonder which carries most of  the greatest freshwater system on planet earth on its journey to the Atlantic Ocean. Your water should be half as awesome!

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Detroit's Campus Martius earns national recognition as a successful urban park

Vibrant public spaces are critical for the health of cities and those who live, work and visit them.

In recent years Detroit has made significant strides. The banks of the Detroit River were walled off for years by a foreboding phalanx of buildings and concrete. It is now an accessible and thriving walkway showcasing the beauty of the river and urban fabric of the city: http://bit.ly/9FpkIC

And now the Detroit Free Press reports that Campus Martius Park was named a top urban park by a national organization: http://bit.ly/c8WrzR Campus Martius beat out competing parks from cities including Boston, New York and Seattle.

Public parks, walkways, rails and greenspaces often are considered luxuries when it comes time to slash tight budgets. But there’s strong case to be made that these lands are integral parts of a well functioning city and the sense of community and well-being that attracts residents and businesses.
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Celebrating success: The stirring comeback story of the Detroit River

Environmentalists are notoriously leery of celebrating good news. The moment you acknowledge how much cleaner a river is or how much less smog is in the air above a city, it will be seized on by some people as a good reason to gut the laws and other protections that made the improvement possible in the first place.

So with the caveat that we have a long way to go, let’s revel in the comeback of the Detroit River, as chronicled in today’s Detroit News: http://bit.ly/9jQM66

It was only a generation back that the Rouge River, which flows into the Detroit River, caught fire due to the industrial chemicals and flammable debris floating on its surface. The Detroit River still suffers from its image an industrial cesspool. Visitors are often shocked to learn that it is a world-class walleye fishery. And I’ll never forget the story of the biologist who – using a crude egg trap hastily cobbled together from duct tape and Home Depot scraps -- confirmed in 2001 the first spawning sturgeon in the river in 30 years.

John Hartig http://bit.ly/cMwgnn, featured in the News’ story, is a true hero in the battle to protect what’s left of the natural systems that nurture the river. But he’s just one of thousands of Michiganders who fought tooth-and-nail during the past 40 years to bring the river back. Those fights occurred in the halls of Washington where Congressman John Dingell helped pass the Clean Water Act, to the very shores of the Humbug Marsh where grassroots citizens fought for more than a decade to keep condos from destroying the last remaining coastal wetland along the U.S. side of the river.

The river is cleaner because of laws requiring treatment of human sewage and regulations limiting toxic chemical releases among many other measures. It’s a stirring example of how a committed citizenry, demanding strong stewardship of our natural resources from elected officials, can make a huge difference.

There are powerful lobbies trying to weaken the very laws that created this success: http://bit.ly/am4NY7. An apathetic electorate is a sure-fire way to ensure that they succeed. That’s worth considering when you you’re your votes this August and November

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