Water from a Spigot

Not having enough terrors and titillations, some Americans are enjoying and cringing at recent reports saying that trace amounts of various pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water of municipalities all over the country, including in D.C. These traces got there from the drinking water having been recycled from waste water.

I am unperturbed. That's because it's been pointed out to me in literature that every molecule of water that we drink is recycled anyway, not only from our wastewater but also from all the water all over the world for millions of years. That's because all the water we have, including all those vastnesses of poisonous stuff in which the jellyfish team, is all the water that we, and the dinosaurs, have ever had. It never comes in from outer space, if we discount the bare traces left with us by comets and other occasional visitors, nor does it leave the planet in any appreciable amounts.

So it is said that, on the molecular level at least, some of the water that each of us drinks every day is the same water in which Christ washed his hands, or, if you prefer, the same water that was used to wash the blood, guts, and feces out of the Colosseum, during the "Games."

When I attended Howard University in D.C., and actually always before that, close to the campus right there in the middle of the city there was, and most likely still is, a strange body of water that everyone noticed, yet it was never a topic of conversation. It covered from 10 to 20 acres, and adjoining it were some fields dotted, at regular intervals by equally strange small square brick structures. It was called the McMillan Reservoir, which meant that it obviously was there to furnish drinking water for the residents.

It was fenced off well enough to prevent interlopers, such as mischievous boys, from entering, and actually you never saw anyone on those well-mown, grassy stretches. Yet my recollection is that it was so close even to houses directly across the street that it wouldn't have taken much for someone to throw a phial of poison or whatever over the fence and into those waters. But no one ever did. You just drove or walked by and admired the sight, and that was all the interest that was ever taken.

But having imagined such an event from an early date, worrying about trace amounts of Aleve in my drinking water to the tune of parts per trillion doesn't strike me as being anything to worry about.

Still, when the "War on Terror" started, I thought it was exactly the water supplies that were most in danger, much more than are nuclear power plants, because there must be thousands of such reservoirs all over the country, open to a strong arm. Does this mean that the terrorists are not as terrible as was originally thought, since nothing of the kind has happened yet? Or that reservoirs are not as easy to contaminate as one might think? Or that we're not supposed to mention such possibilities, for fear of giving people ideas? The information is that gooping a reservoir is much easier said than done.

Maybe the McMillan Reservoir was one of the things on my mind when I moved here to the countryside in Virginia, where I could become my own water company. I haven't yet become my own electric company, as I very much wanted also to do, but it did work out in the case of the water, as I was able to drill my own well, and install the pump, the pressure tank, and the other apparatus myself, and pipe it up to the house myself. All our water arrives from underground, though I am sure the various wild life has had things to say about what's in it, and instead of pharmaceuticals we daily imbibe a good share of bacteria. But by now, hopefully, and evolution being what it is and a fast worker when it wants to be, those microscopic beings have become good friends of our systems.