The view from my dining room table, which has served as my office for more than a year now, stretches out across 519 acres of water. The lake is clear, officially 38 feet at its deepest, but the water is so high right now I’d bet it’s deeper. A crude calculation of acre-feet puts it close to 10,000.
There’s another lake across the road but just out of view. It holds another 4,600 acre-feet. Lakes bigger and smaller dominate the local landscape. A few miles to the west, the upper stretch of the Wisconsin River flows into the 3,153-acre Rainbow Reservoir. On its own, that’s another 44,000 acre-feet of water by my rough math.
If I jumped in my truck to head over to the Rainbow, I’d pass a handful of other lakes, including a five-lake chain spanning 1,751 acres, and with a maximum of 32 feet deep, roughly 28,000 acre-feet.
Water scarcity isn’t a thing here. Water levels wane in drought years but supply doesn’t change. Quality isn’t impacted.
Growing up here, it’s hard to even imagine what it would be like to live somewhere without an abundance of water. That’s why a local elementary school teacher reached halfway around the world to help her young students understand that the picture is much bigger than what they see here at home. And to do something good.
As reported in a local newspaper, the Star Journal, it started when second grade teacher Jenny Prom read the book, Water Princess, to her students. It’s the story of a young African girl who walks miles every day to get water for her family, and the lengths the family goes to make the water safe to drink.
Her students’ empathy for the girl in the story led Prom to a local leadership group that was able to connect the class with people from Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya. It was a way to teach the students that they are not just citizens of their school, city or country, but part of the human race. Students held fundraisers to buy water filters for communities in these African countries, and because of the direct connections they’d established with people there, all the money they raised went directly to the purchase of water filters.
Their local contact brought suitcases filled with water filters to these communities, and when members of those communities came here, they would bring suitcases full of filters back home. This year, the initiative expanded to involve all the district’s elementary schools.
Whether you’re on a Pacific island or planted in the Midwest’s amber waves of grain, Africa or Wisconsin, water connects us all. Water scarcity might not be a present concern here, but harsh freeze-thaw cycles are very real. So is aging infrastructure. And small budgets. All utilities are saddled with one issue or another, and each can learn from and help the other.
Just like Prom’s students were inspired by the story, maybe their efforts can spark outreach and education efforts in your own communities. At the very least, it’s a reminder of the tremendous value of clean, safe water, and all the work you do for your communities.
Enjoy this month’s issue.
Comments on this column or about any article in this publication may be directed to editor Luke Laggis, 800-257-7222; editor@mswmag.com.
