Drought Crisis in Tennessee: A Perspective from Nashville
Born and raised in south Texas, I am used to the natural rite of drought scares and mandatory water restrictions. Because of incessant roadside fires, smokers are fined for throwing their butts out car windows. Home owners are restricted from watering lawns before a certain hour of the day or on certain days of the week. Car washing businesses take a hit just like farmers. Outdoor animals die if owners cannot properly protect them from the extreme elements of the Texas summer sun.
Because of my upbringing, the scare initiated by the media and the words of desperation sited by interviewees and broadcasters alike made me guffaw just a bit. If the “crisis” were as bad as all the hype lead us to believe, why were water restrictions in my area voluntary and not mandatory?
Since I do not own the property on which I live, I could not decide how much or when to water the lawn. The owners relied solely on the trickling rain water to feed this patch of nature. My showers and dish and clothing washing habits never changed. For my part, I acted as a mere observer in our state’s water “crisis.”
I could look out my window or drink my tap water to know there was an obvious lack of rain, but because of my childhood experiences, I could not quite take the Tennessee drought seriously until our lawmakers took it seriously by mandating water usage-something they never did.
My tap water, which used to taste just fine, started tasting like it had dirt and moss in it. Even the water from water fountains at my place of employment started tasting funny. I, a person adamantly opposed to the idea of charging for water, would only drink bottled water or purified water. I purchased a filter for home use. At first, no one else seemed to notice. After Nashville went even longer without rain, the news began to report what I already knew. Our water supply was in trouble.
It turned out that the water level was so low that the current could not circulate the supply. Without the natural circulation process, the molds and dirt are more apparent in the drinking water. Even though it goes through a purification process before coming through the pipes and into our homes, the effects of low water levels can still be tasted.
When taking my dog out, I witnessed a steady decline in the health of nature. The only water the lawn has received lately is the trickling rain water. The grass dried and died in patches, the healthiest patches being where she peed. The ground cracked and dust storms swirled in the yard. The leaves on the trees fell as did smaller tree limbs. Larger limbs sagged. With the coming of the first rains, these dying limbs gave way to the weight of the water.
I looked across the alley from my home to the front of the majestic Belmont University on Wedgewood Avenue. Water from the sprinklers trickled down hill into my driveway every morning just as the sun rose. The water pouring from the grandiose fountain in front of the Inman Health Sciences Building like a spring of life mocked drivers-by. The grass was as green as fresh, healthy beans. Healthy mud softened the ground. The squirrels had long since abandoned my thirsty trees. My dog choked herself on the leash, running in place, fighting to cross over from death into life.
I saw the irony as I stood between health and sickness, between the living and the dying, between voluntary and mandatory. I did not know whether to shake my head in disgust at the misuse of natural resources by the rich and powerful or to hang my head in shame at the incompetence of our leading officials in government. Was the drought so bad that our leaders should have taken cues from the experience of us Texans and enforce mandated water restrictions? Or is it a simple matter of individuals and big businesses, regardless of agenda or financial ability, taking personal responsibility for our natural resources? Either way, it was obvious that nature was hurting. Either way, I could not help but laugh in cynic jest at the state of a selfish society.
Regardless of political stance, regardless of whether one thinks Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth is truth or hype, we all have a personal responsibility to protect the land which gives us food and shelter. Even though the government has a responsibility to communicate the truth to the people and to set controls based on our resource’s needs, we should all step up to do our part without the necessity for government mandates.
