Water Water Everywhere
They’ve stayed in my memory for years these lines, actually the entire narrative has. It’s Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. Our old School Principal, Bob Foster taught it to us when he was filling in for our French teacher over a period of weeks.
“Day after day, day after day l We stuck, nor breath nor motion
As idle as a painted ship l Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere l And all the boards did shrink
Water, water, everywhere l Nor any drop to drink. ”
I think all of us in Form Class 3L lived in craven fear he’d choose us to recite the days verse so we all learnt the poem in abject fear and trembling rather than because it evoked in us a genuine love of its archaic yet expressive words. According to William Wordsworth, the poem was inspired while Coleridge, Wordsworth and Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy were on a walking tour through the Quantock Hills in Somerset in the spring of 1798.
A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea
“The discussion had turned to a book that Wordsworth was reading, ‘A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea (1726), by Captain George Shelvocke. In the book, a melancholy sailor, Simon Hatley, shoots a black albatross. As they discussed Shelvocke’s book, Wordsworth proffers the following developmental critique to Coleridge, which importantly contains a reference to tutelary spirits: Suppose you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the south sea, and the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime. By the time the trio finished their walk, the poem had taken shape”.
Compliance Standards & Other Concerns
For some inexplicable reason, the words of the poem prompted me to look more closely at the issue of water with reference to my home town of Waipukurau. Now fluoridation aside, I wondered how we were travelling with regard to Compliance in our Drinking Water Standards.
Over in Agoura Hills, California, in November last year, Consumer Advocate Erin Brockovich had been looking at a similar thing. Like me, Erin says she’s not a scientist but unlike her I’m not on the front lines of our fight for potable water, or water of sufficiently high quality that it can be consumed or used without risk of immediate or long term harm.
National WINZ Database
I’m no Erin Brockovich by any stretch of the imagination but I have to admit when I pulled up the latest published Compliance Water Information New Zealand for Waipukurau, as extracted from the National WINZ database on 18 Jan 2010 I was more than a little horrified. The data on the website was from a survey for the 12 month period from 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2008. I was hoping last years was looking better and I felt more than a little perturbed. It’s RED in all the wrong places to me!
“Community drinking-water supplies in New Zealand are expected to demonstrate compliance with the New Zealand Drinking-Water Standards 2005 or 2000. These specify water monitoring (i.e. taking samples for testing) and other requirements for supplies, both at the treatment plant and within the distribution zone itself.
The number of samples to be tested varies depending upon the size of the community, the quality of source water being used (e.g. deep ground water versus river or lake water), and the treatments and risk-minimising processes that are in place.
Compliance with the Standards is measured by looking at how the zone or plant meets the requirements for a 12 month period. Compliance status’ are colour-coded. Green is good, red is bad, and other colours are somewhat in-between”. Ours in Waipukurau were ALL Red. I choked.
In the RED
I don’t want to be crying ‘Wolf!” on this one and again fluoridation aside this water issue has the feel of a dead albatross around the neck but perhaps the residents of Waipukurau ought to be asking some serious questions of its Local Government Council. Questions of its compliance with the New Zealand drinking water standards and why ours are in the RED!
Let’s hope it’s only because no update of the stats in the website have been done and we can all rest assured there’s only the fluoridation issue still outstanding! But don’t take my word for it, take a look at the charts in the ‘Compliance Water Information New Zealand for Waipukurau’ yourself. It’s worth the question to the Local Council though isn’t it? Of course it is, even if it’s for no other reason than peace of mind.
Water, water, everywhere l Nor any drop to drink.”
* This is 6 of a 7 part blog. The NEXT blog is entitled ‘Maelstrom’
