Water is big! Water is life!

Since I’ve been home in Vermont, I have been surrounded every day by water and water issues. It has been remarkable and enervating to me to have awareness and support for the cause for which we ran so hard all summer long continue to crescendo to great heights. My home state and home town covered us all along the route and, unbeknownst to me, the media kept the public regularly informed. The Montpelier Bridge published "postcards from Dot" throughout the summer, snippets from my personal blogs including reports on how BPR was doing. Recently I’ve had numerous requests for speaking and PowerPoint engagements including from the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), schools, assisted living and retirement homes, many rotaries and even a law school. On October 28 there is a kids cultural event being hosted for the purpose of raising support for BPR and getting our local kids involved in a global cause. The kickoff is this Saturday at our Montpelier Farmer’s Market. The planning goes on. I am so very excited and grateful to be part of a community that cares and takes action.

Meanwhile, Vermont like the rest of the country is wrestling with water issues here at home. In neighboring Williamstown there is a boil water order. In a number of communities, including Montpelier, we are confronted with proposed commercial bottling of aquifer waters. In many communities the groundwater problems are not only closing bodies of water to swimming but presenting well contamination concerns. In Kansas I had a long conversation with a farmer over the contaminated well problems there. In Michigan we were informed about the cleanup programs for the Great Lakes and noted the problems in Lake Huron which so mirror what has happened to our Lake Champlain here in Vermont.

The water issues, varied as they are, all seem to come to a meeting place around global warming. The VNRC is concerned about water QUANTITY issues, such as the tapping of our aquifers for the bottled water industry. When I visited Tanzania last year the villagers in Mbahe were confronting a water QUALITY issue because the QUANTITY of their water has diminished due to global warming. Because of reduced snowfalls and shrinking glaciers, the amount of melt has reduced significantly over the years. Smaller volumes of water are more easily contaminated. This is exacerbated by hiker and climber traffic up Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the waste created by their activity.

Of course those who lack safe drinking water, over 1.2 billion people around the world, and those of us who want to drink safely from our taps are concerned about the QUALITY of water, as well as the availability. The QUALITY of water all over the world has been jeopardized by poor sanitation, limited water supplies, agricultural and manufacturing run off, acid rain, and many other factors associated with over-population, lack of education around water and sanitation, and now by global warming.

Although global warming and energy require long term solutions and a lot of compromise and agreement as to what actions are required, the water quality problem remains solvable. The fact that we CAN provide safe drinking water to those who need it for as little as $30 per person for life was a major driving force behind my commitment to BPR.

Since we finished the run on September 4 I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions. My readjustment has been easy and hard just as our run was easy and hard. I have many things I want to share in a blog, many after thoughts, forethoughts and experiences in the after glow of it all. I will get to that in time. Amidst all the re-entry activities, I’ve taken time to appreciate my world in New England, the gorgeous sunny Indian summer days with crisp nights, the emerging colors of fall foliage, a climb up Camel’s Hump, a gorgeous half marathon around Schroon Lake, runs along the shores of Lake Champlain, the Dog River, the North Branch of the Winooski River (known to us locals as the "Onion River") and the Mad River, and great runs and hikes with friends and my dog in the Vermont countryside. It is wonderful to be back but it is also wonderful to be back and have the spirit of water, the importance of water, pervade my being and consciousness, and to know that I’ve made a difference and can continue to make a difference.

Thank you again for all your support! Please stay connected at www.blueplanetrun.org and in your communities. If you are in the Montpelier area, come to an evening with VNRC discussing global and Vermont water issues, including a BPR presentation by yours truly, on Tuesday, October 23, 7 pm at the Unitarian Church on Main Street, Montpelier.

Water is life! Pass it on.