Okay so technically the “Water of Life” is whiskey and not bourbon but I am affording myself a little license here.  Fact is many believe that bourbon would simply not be bourbon without the mineral rich limestone filtered water found in the great state of Kentucky.  So then water is an incredibly valuable resource not only as a critical element of our human survival but also for an important local industry.  We need to work to preserve its purity and locally unique qualities.  For that effort to be effective we need to take an approach that addresses water quality on a local, regional, and global scale. 

Coca-Cola gets it and has launched a campaign to protect the world’s water.  And really what good is Coca-Cola without Makers Mark?  Or even, dare I say, Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. So unless we are all prepared to start drinking our libations neat, we need to sit down, take a look at our impact, and figure how we can manage resources in ways that are easy to implement and cost effective. 

Exactly how can we in Kentucky, landlocked so many miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, have a direct impact on the quality of the water in the world’s oceans?  Most of us know that we are part of the Mississippi River Watershed, which after the Amazon and the Congo, is the third largest watershed in the world.  We are a part of that watershed.  It is a huge area encompassing thousands of acres of the most fertile agricultural land in the United States.  That is a blessing.  It need not be a curse. 

Storm water run off - from Kentucky’s cities, suburbs, and rural areas - ev
entually find its way to the Ohio River and then to the Mississippi before it finally reaches the Gulf of Mexico.  Our rain will travel well over a thousand miles on its way to the Gulf.  

As the water travels along the meandering path of the Mississippi river, it gathers and transports the run off from all the excess agricultural chemicals (i.e. herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers) from the fertile farm land of the Mississippi Valley and dumps it into the Gulf of Mexico.  A fair share of those chemicals come from suburban lawns.  Once in the Gulf, the fertilizers create one of the largest and infamous algae blooms in the world’s oceans.  In due time these blooms die off and consume a great deal of the available oxygen in the water as they decompose.  These oxygen starved areas of the ocean, know as “dead zones”, are not able to support marine life. 

Enjoy shrimp cocktail with your bourbon and coke?  It might become harder to come by in the future if we do not at least make an attempt to manage our water resources a bit better.  This is a big complicated problem but there are some cost effective and simple things we can do to make things better. 

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.  Well that opportunity has passed but we can encourage urban forestry today and do so with an emphasis on utilizing native species.  Likewise, we can take the same approach with our lawns and select species that require little or no chemical treatment.

Stop the production of unnecessary non-food related agriculture.  Shift food related agriculture towards the most productive soils.  Convert sub-prime soils, residual areas (i.e. medians, areas at highway interchanges) and portions of public property into landscapes that filter storm water. Encourage industrial development, which typically consumes large tracts of land, to do the same.

These tactics can have the double benefit of filtering storm water before it discharges into our waterways and reducing the quantity of agricultural chemicals going into them.  There is a third benefit.  Farming and landscaping in this manner would consume less fossil fuel for production and maintenance.  So not only is less fuel utilized but there is less production of green house gas and fewer mercury emissions from the burning of the fossil fuel.  That means less mercury in the water and food supply.

Certainly, these efforts are not a cure all for the problems we face.  The environment is an incredibly complicated system affected by an enormous number of factors.  But they are a step in the right direction and even the simplest of actions can have a profound impact on the most complex of systems.

Submitted by KWA Member & Guest Blogger Jonathan Ware, AIA, LEED AP, LEED CxA
jware@gray.com 

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