Education

There is nothing quite like an existential work crisis that is precipitated by a 9 year old. This was my experience yesterday.  FYI - if you ever want to feel validated in your career do NOT turn to children for that reassurance.  We kicked off our Fall Planting Tour at a local elementary school yesterday afternoon.  This is a fun annual program we do to teach kids three primary things:

 1) Correctly selected and planted native plants require less inputs and are more suited to the environment and wildlife.  We planted Asters in their pollinator garden.
2) Water saving tips for planting and maintenance.  The kids and their parents are now armed with rain gauges and soil moisture probes.
3) The benefits of these choices and practices when we are in a drought to make plants resiliant.  Here is where the wheels came off, or I seriously questioned the career path I have been on for the last 12 + years.

I started to talk about drought and a nine year old boy immediately said, "we don't have any droughts here.  It rains."  I was a little taken aback and was getting ready to launch into my explanation of our varying climate when a classmate piped in. "We can't have droughts we had a flood a few years ago."

Okay so now you can clearly see the snowball gaining momentum down this hills.  Luckily it only crushed my self-esteem, since in those 12 years of my water career we have spent 8 in drought.    At least 4 of them in severe drought and experienced an actual water shortage.  Go me! that our citizens are so plugged in to all this!! 

It goes directly to my word: education.  These kids were 4th and 5th graders; they learned the water cycle, they studied weather, and still drought and flood can't coexist in the same region.  It is stark reminder for those of us in the industry who feel that education is some kind of feel good line item on a budget or regulatory check box to fill.  In fact education may be the only true way forward to change anything.  We have to keep engaging the public in water.  Until it is a part of their conscience we will likely struggle with funding infrastructure, nutrient loading, supply challenges, ecosystem protection, and the provision of clean water to the developing world.

Once my pride I healed, I can only thank those kids for giving me a very succinct reminder, to get out of the office, stop just crunching numbers and working on policy and get back to regularly engaging the public in the essential dialogue of water.  Maybe I will start with the guy who called to tell me he learned today that water was a limited natural resource and almost as important as oil!