Responsibility

There is a quote I love from John F. Kennedy.  "To whom much is given, much is expected."  I thought about that a lot today.  Today was one of those days.  "Let's just call it total lack of responsibility day."  I did not talk to one person today who wanted to take responsibility for their role in protecting and preserving our water resources.  I was astonished by conversation after conversation that treated water like it was just some commodity to be bargained down or someone else's responsibility to pay for it.  Days like today make me tired and sad.  They make me think we haven' t gotten very far down the road of helping people understand that water, especially the privileged access we have to it, is a penultimate responsibility.  We have been given much in the infrastructure, water treatment process, delivery and conveyance and reclamation processing.  It is the greatest public health discovery of the 20th century. Or as was explained to me today grossly overpriced and not worth it.

Today I actually had to explain why you could not let a toilet leak for thee years, unabated, and then ask to have all your bills for the last 3 years set back to what they would have been if you fixed the toilet.  I had engaging conversations on Linked In about pricing water, many of which ended with a final pronouncement that pricing water to account for efficiency and environmental services was an unwanted and unneeded tax.  Don't get me wrong I realize that not everyone thinks about water like me.  I am famous for saying to fellow water professionals "remember we are not real people.  Normal people don't have 3 hour dinner conversations about how per capita is a bogus metric for determining an efficient use of water for a community or the impact of micro constituents in our water sources."  Even if we aren't normal, isn't there a happy medium somewhere?  In all the noise in the world, not about water, is there some room to talk about our responsibility to protect the resource?  Is there a space to talk about preserving it for the next generation and exactly who is responsible for that?  Does it start with one person telling me they understand that they have to pay for the privilege we have been given.  That would be nice.