Water Resources

Goose Creek: near the coiled western-most reach of the Roanoke

I’m finding threads all over my computer that if pulled, would lead someplace maybe worth going–digital scraps, memos, and saved pointers to all sorts of things I’m interested in pursuing but mostly never will, or am increasingly feeling I’m the only one who gives a rodent’s rump about such geo-eco-trivia.

This screen shot of the Roanoke River drainage came after my two days spent on Rock Castle Creek, when I was wondering where the water goes and how it gets there and about what it sees along the way.

Turns out, the water from Goose Creek meets the water from Rock Castle Creek since the Roanoke and the Dan rivers find each other at what today is Kerr Reservoir and once was an undammed confluence of two sizable rivers. I wonder if there are any pictures of those two rivers flowing together before the dam was built–in what year? More digging required.

So what? I don’t know how to put this factoid in global perspective except that we start understanding and caring about world water by knowing our own watersheds.

The USGS Name Information Service (GNIS) is a good place to start. Just type in the creek or river closest to you for a map. Follow it to its end. Amazing how many people never think about and don’t know where the water comes from, or where it goes.

Here’s the GNIS map for the Dan River just so you can see what a river map looks like.

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A Well-Watered Winter

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about water lately–thankful for the abundance we have just now, sad for the water poverty of peoples and the planet to come. I’m struggling to find a working stance somewhere between parched by despair and drenched with hope. Is it enough to turn off the tap when we brush our teeth? How much will individual responsibility alter the game if it only means changing habits within our homes or in our day to day choices with regard to consumption of water for private? That’s important for sure, but it is not enough.

Like so many other major issues facing humanity, bottom up can help, but only top-down will turn the tide.

What will it take (I think we’re getting a pretty good idea of that now from inaction in Copenhagen) to shock us into international governmental action to do the difficult, costly thing today for the effects it will have on people who cannot vote today’s leaders and corporate CEOs back in office?

Do you think as a species we have the intelligence, courage or wisdom to exert our collective power on our leaders to save our own kind?

I guess for this answer, I’m trending more towards the parched end of the spectrum after watching the story play out since 1970. I see puddles of reason, vision and hope, but seas of apathy, desperation and self-interest.

They say life began in isolated pools rich in nutrients and an energy source. Maybe that is humanity’s future: small ponds of creatures working with nature, living within their means, doing the right thing, swimming against the currents of their times, resilient, creative, staying afloat.