Pollution. It takes many forms. I’ve most lately complained about political pollution, but what about our water? We’ve all seen the garbage along our highways, and if you’ve been near a river lately, you never know what will come floating downstream next! I remember long ago, for my high school senior advanced chemistry class, I decided to do a caparison of the chemical make-up of the local city water versus the untreated water of the Kalamazoo River. I wanted my tests to be independent and accurate so I "invited myself" into the laboratories of the local electrical power company, actually a large company with over 10,000 employees, one of the largest in the United States. After running all my tests, I came to the conclusion that there was very little, if any difference in the water! I proudly wrote what I thought was an excellent report with great documentation, only to receive a "D" grade. Immediately, and during the 35 years since then, I’ve maintained that my report was accurate, but the teacher didn’t "approve" of the results, for political reasons, thus my low grade. I wonder what the results would be now if the same tests were run? I wonder what the tests would be like if they were run like this in Carroll County? Experiments like this gave me an early sense of distrust for the "status quo" and the "people" in charge of the information released to the public.

I do drink a limited amount of "local" water, after it has been boiled and made into coffee. Other than that, maybe we should trust our water to that bottled or canned in France, Milwaukee, or maybe St. Louis??

Or possibly, Heaven forbid, we should take the words of 1^st Timothy 5:23 literally (the fundamentalists shuddering….) "Stop drinking only water, but have a little wine…" Goodness, next thing you know, they’ll tell us that the scripture really meant grape juice? Or maybe we’re out of "context"… check it out. Have I muddied the water here?

Whatever! It is time we considered our water supply very carefully! The earth’s surface may be three quarters water, but most of it is frozen, or undrinkable. Ben Franklin said, (wasn’t it him?) "waste not, want not." Think of that the next time you ride by, probably in the ritzy section of town, someone’s sprinklers drowning the grass…and running off into the street. Or consider some local politician inviting a new company to town that uses millions of gallons of fresh water, creating just a few minimum wage jobs for our residents! Lettuce alone!

Where is your next glass of fresh water coming from? See ya bye! tomiswho@mindspring.com