I was recently given a flyer at my local health food store about alkaline water, this flyer went on telling me that the water we get from the tap is not very healthy as it is far too acid for good health! This is a worry as most of us get our drinking water from the tap.

Water is a subject that has come up a lot in discussion, the “rights to clean water”, our use or  abuse of water in Western countries and how little the threat of not having plenty of clean water in the very near future is having any impact on the average person.

In Australia,  we have had to learn to deal with severe droughts and water restrictions. Has this taught people that water is not an infinite resource? It doesn’t seem to have a lasting impact unfortunately, as soon as the restrictions are lifted I notice people hosing the lawn, the car and generally behaving as though water is once again in unending supply.

We all need H2O to live, but we need it clean and unpolluted, and this is becoming a scarce commodity .

A permaculture guru told me many years ago: “Future wars will not be fought over oil or even land, wars will be fought over fresh water.” Ominous words indeed, just take a look at some of the desert countries and how many disputes and wars there are over water!

Take as an example Israel, Israel has a permanent water shortage, even though it also has one of the best and most innovative water recycling system, there still is not enough for the more extensive agriculture needed. One of the biggest problem is salinization, by drawing too much water the shallow water table is lowered and allows sea water to flow in.

During negotiations with Syria, Israel allocated 150 million cubic meters of fresh water to the Syrians. Some fear this could turn the Sea of Galilee far too saline.  Syria is still hoping to reclaim  the Golan Heights and for a return to the pre 1967 border, if this were to occur Israel would be deprived of more than a third of it’s fresh water. [Lecture Presented by Professor Emeritus Dan Zaslavsky]

When Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, they captured the headwaters of the Jordan and thereby secured for themselves the greatest part of the flow of the Jordan River. Israel took possession the final portion of the Jordan River in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon when the Hasbani and Wazzani Rivers which arise in Lebanon and flow into the Jordan were included as part of their self-declared "security zone" .

I don’t intend to enter too much into the political quagmire of this region, This is just to illustrate that wars are fought over water already and no doubt will keep on being fought, check out the following links for more info on this very subject.

Theft of Water

http://israelwaterblog.org/

What are we doing to our water?

Water is not an infinite source, and the more we disregard our waterways and use them as garbage dumps the more we will suffer the consequences, once water is polluted it is very difficult to make safe for consumption.

Water is not an infinite source, and the more we disregard our waterways and use them as garbage dumps the more we will suffer the consequences, once water is polluted it is very difficult to make safe for consumption.

There does not seem to be any point in worrying about our tap water being too acid, we need to make sure it does not become too acid in the first place!  It is URGENT that we become aware on how we foul our most important resource, we will not be able to clean it up overnight and just filtering and adding alkaline elements will not make our water pure. Once dirtied and contaminated it will stay that way for a long time!

Check out this Youtube video and see how our oceans are being used as garbage dumps