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Watered Down
Americans haven’t figured out that pollution control is an expensive investment that prevents far greater expense. And with the fish, wildlife, recreational and health benefits that come with pollution control, it provides a huge return to society. We all want clean water but apparently not enough to pay for it.
Audubon Mar./Apr. 2009
In addition to providing clean water, these kinds of commonsense reforms invigorate the economy. Audubon and 16 other environmental organizations have sent the Obama team a list of 80 projects and proposals for investing in water and other resources that could create 3.6 million jobs. Floods, for example, cause about $5 billion of damage each year. But they can be controlled and water simultaneously cleansed by protecting and restoring floodplains and wetlands that filter and store water. New York City has saved $6 billion by preserving land around its reservoirs. By shunting stormwater into wetlands and woods, Indianapolis is saving about $300 million. And by returning the Napa River to its natural, wetland-bound channel, the city of Napa, California, annually prevents $26 million in flood damage. The Alliance for Water Efficiency estimates that investing $10 billion in such water conservation methods as replacing leaking pipes, using runoff for irrigation, and installing efficient toilets, showers, and washing machines would boost U.S. gross domestic product by as much as $15 billion.
After I’d raided Donna Williams’s files, she showed me Massachusetts Audubon’s new rain garden, which collects roof runoff. Proliferating in the lowest parts were such water-tolerant species as highbush blueberry, sweet pepperbush, winterberry holly, turtlehead, swamp milkweed, and joe-pye weed. Higher, drier sections grew purple coneflower, bee balm, lowbush blueberry, fall-blooming aster, black-eyed Susan, deutzia, yarrow, sea oats, and redstem dogwood.
Here was a treatment plant anyone can build in a day, one that prevents pollution even as it produces beautiful, native flowers and berries relished by birds. Suddenly I felt the return of the appetite I’d lost as I stood in the ammonia-scented breeze, staring down at the bilious, undulating mat of macrophytes. And I took my wife to lunch.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Urge your lawmakers to support the Clean Water Restoration Act. For information on how to join the fight for clean water, visit Audubon’s clean water campaign (Audubon’s clean water campaign. To learn how you can reduce stormwater flowing into drains, download A Homeowner’s Guide to Protecting Water Quality in the Blackstone River Watershed.
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