WATER is a commodity and its supply chain should be treated as such.
Water is also food, and as such, it should be treated as part of our food security. Not only do we drink water as part of our food, we also need water to grow our food and to cook our food.
The saying that water is life is therefore very true, because without water, it is impossible to sustain not only our life, but the life of our planet.
Since that is the case, we should really be gravely concerned that there could possibly be a shortage of water in the years to come. That is not an understatement, because there are predictions already that in the future, wars among nations will be fought because of water, or access to water.
Meanwhile, many rural and urban areas in our country still do not have access to clean drinking water, and to them, the shortage is already real, but thank goodness, they are not yet declaring war to gain access to water.
To be more precise, water may be available in these areas, but are not suitable to drink. This is actually poverty issue on two counts. Firstly, the poor people are actually paying more for clean water compared to the richer people, because the transport costs of clean water brings up the prices far beyond the commercial rates. Secondly, the poor people could not sustain the costs of buying filtered water.
Someone said on the air that flood water could be put to good use by turning it into drinking water. That is a bright idea, even brighter than the guy who said that it flooded because it rained. Seriously, we could really turn flood water into drinking water if we could clean and bottle it faster than it floods.
Seriously too, it need not flood just because it rained, provided that we could drain the water faster than it floods. Many people have said many things about water in general and floods in particular, but most of these would really hover around the supply chain of water as a subject of discussion.
Preventing floods is one thing and ensuring the supply of clean water is another thing, but a Filipino inventor and engineer has come up with an idea that will do both in a two in one solution. His idea is to build a dam from Laguna to Bataan across Manila Bay, a dam that will also serve as a bridge between the two provinces, in effect serving as a new superhighway.
On one hand, the dam will prevent flooding that is caused by the rising of sea levels, a problem that is in turn caused by the melting of the polar caps, yet another problem that is caused by climate change.
On the other hand, it will prevent flooding that is caused by heavy rains, because the dam will create a massive catchment of fresh water on its inside.
To be able to appreciate the idea of Engineer Robert Marin, we need to understand that on one hand, flooding could be caused by rising sea water, and on the other hand, it could also be caused by excessive rain water. As proof of this, we have seen that the flooding in Roxas Boulevard (and the American Embassy) in recent times was already aggravated by sea water, on top of the volume of rain water. That is apparently also the cause of the recent flooding in Thailand, the combination of sea water and rain water.
It is understandable that the problem of flooding is not on top of our national agenda, because the damage that it caused is just recent and it is has now caught our attention. To put it in management terms, we now consider the problem of flooding both as important and as urgent, and that is rightfully so. However, the problem of fresh water supply is also important, even if we do not consider it yet as urgent as of now.
As a parallel to this perspective, we also consider as important the need to produce alternative fuels, but apparently we do not yet consider it as urgent as of now, perhaps because it is not yet staring at us in the face.
Even if we still do not feel threatened by the shortage of clean drinking water as of now, we should really start working on a long term solution right now, because the threat is real, and our days of having a good supply are now counted. It behoves good reason to start thinking that if we could also prevent floods as we ensure the supply of drinking water, it would be the greatest thing since slice bread./PN
