Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.
As a drought prone country, Anguilla has a history of water conservation but I am not sure if we are as knowledgeable as we should be about this globally scarce resource.

In recent times, as many of us return to the buckets without a real understanding of the challenges of distributing potable water, it is a pity that public information coming from the recently established Water Corporation, by radio, seems limited to the reminder of what will happen if we fail to pay our bills. Flashback to an article in The Anguillian of 30 June 2008 - Among the reasons he gave for the establishment of the Water Corporation, as set out in the Government’s policy document, were the reduction of technical and financial losses experienced by the water utility; extension of the public water distribution system to un-served areas; transformation of the Water Department into a commercially-driven enterprise; provision of adequate human, financial and other resources required to carry out its mandate; provision of universally affordable public water supply and universal access. He stated that Unaccounted For Water (UFW) was about 70% of water purchased, while the largest contributing factor to this UFW was theft of water estimated at 50% of the total water purchased.
Having tried unsuccessfully over the last couple of weeks to reach the new CEO of the Water Corporation, I could be wrong but somehow I think he kept ducking me because he thought I wanted to haggle over a bill but I really wanted to interview him. His unavailability made it evident that he is a very busy man but it also made me feel like offering my services to address the need for enhanced customer service. Be that as it may, the privatization of the stuff of life is something I will never be able to understand, neither in this world nor the next, because water is life giving and life sustaining and it is absolutely, critically necessary for hygiene and the maintenance of good health. According to an article written by Giselle Williams in The Daily Herald on March 21, the day before World Water Day, “Water is one of our most critical resources – even more critical than oil…because there are various alternatives for oil, but for many industrial processes, and for human survival itself, there is no substitute for water.”
Water is also one of those resources that requires a gendered analysis and this is a contribution I wanted to make to the discussion leading up to the establishment of the corporation but was unable to. Water, like Energy – in fact water is a source of energy, must become everyone’s priority as it is a shared resource. Women have a different relationship with water to men. Anatomically our needs are different and the social roles ascribed to women require greater use of water. Think about it – washing, cooking, childcare and so on and though stereotypical in that women do other things, this is very real. There is still women’s work. Even women’s reproductive work requires greater quantities of water. Poverty and the situation of poor women should therefore be a primary consideration in water development and as one of Anguilla’s poor I am too distracted by bills to participate and contribute meaningfully to national decision-making.
What we all need to appreciate is the hidden quantities of water that we consume everyday via a range of foods and consumer products. This totality of the resource utilized for us to enjoy life is an environmental and ecological footprint, in the case of water, the water footprint. One day Heartically Yours will focus similarly on the salt footprint but today we will stick with water. The water footprint is “…the total virtual water content of products consumed by an individual, town or country…Virtual water refers to the volume of water required to produce a product. For example it takes 2,900 litres to ‘grow’ a cotton shirt.” One of the arguments used by environmentalists who advocate the liberation of Cannabis sativa for the production of hemp cloth is that it is more sustainable than cotton in water requirements, yield per acre, ability to hold soil and other factors. In other words, hemp has a smaller environmental footprint than cotton. Water resources can be divided into “blue water” which comes from the ground or surface water; “green water”, which is produced by evaporation and rainfall and “grey water” which is polluted with substances such as pesticides. However, I have also heard re-useable wastewater from the kitchen, bath and so on referred to as “grey water” and it is used for gardening, landscaping and so on.
It really rankled one morning when I had no water coming through my pipes, to hear some discussion about the importance of watering the golf course. Of course my thoughts went to the water footprint of the golf course and the impact of the high volume requirements of water itself. Where does it come from? What quality of water is needed by the green? How much does it cost? And is it connected in any way to the fact that I have no water? These were the kinds of questions I wanted to raise with the Water Corporation CEO and I hope that the Corporation has some plans for public awareness that is not dependent on the interests of this non-expert. Measurement of Anguilla’s water footprint would necessarily include drinking water, which for many of us nowadays is bottled water.
The Daily Herald article said that a bottle of mineral water uses five times its volume in the manufacture of the bottle. This is why a case of water with gallon bottles costs less than a case with litre bottles. The price of the latter is mostly influenced by the cost of the bottles. A bottling plant’s water footprint would include the cost of sanitizing the entire operation including the re-use of bottles. The article also talked about the water footprint of a can of coke, indicating that while the coke contained only 0.35 litres of water, “…the water footprint is 200 litres due to its sugar cane content.” Sugar cane needs water to grow. Anguillians would also need to look at the water footprint of their favourite foods, chicken, rice, flour 10and rum (which is not treated like a drug so it must be a food), none of which is produced in Anguilla. I add that last point because the water footprint undoubtedly expands by the fact of importation.
The article referred to above said that the water footprint of a kilogram of chicken is 3,900 litres because a chicken eats over 3 kg of grain and needs 30 litres of water in the 10 weeks before its slaughter. All of this would be included when measuring the water footprint of an egg. Even those of us who do not consume such foods need to be aware of the water footprints of the foods we love and promote as an alternative to an animal flesh diet. According to Williams, the water footprint of one orange is 50 litres due to the high level of irrigation required for citrus fruit in particular. Only bananas and grapes need more water. It means that without exception or any kind of self-righteousness, we must all be concerned enough to change consumption patterns if our awareness of our individual water footprints dictates that.
Water really is everybody’s business and that is not just a catchy slogan but is literally so. Stuart Orr of the WWF UK has the last word: This is not just an issue for food and clothing companies, producers and retailers. Insurers and investors have a vested interest in encouraging efficiency of water use and security of water supply in an ever-thirstier world. Water is irreplaceable and climate change and population growth are only going to exacerbate the problem.

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