Many thanks to Jennifer Hamblen for her contributions to this article.

Part one of a 3 part essay an the importance of nurturing an awareness of water

Before the races this past weekend, Jenn and I camped at a large campground in Monterey County, California. I normally carry a large jug of filtered water, but we ran dry at the campground. I thought twice about it, but I didn't see any other option than to drink the tap water at the campground (besides dehydration). When I awoke running to the bathroom, I knew I made the wrong decision. To make an unpleasant story short, the racing did not go as well as I'd hoped. But while my intestinal flora battled the foreign invasion, my acute problem got me thinking on the far more threatening global water crisis.

To an athlete, water quality is of prime importance. If our bodies are 65-70% water, then it better be the best water possible. If heavy metals, pesticides, nitrates, over-chlorination, fluoride, and harmful bacteria are finding their way to your drinking glass, your cellular health and performance is being compromised.

Now, I live with a hydrologist, so I'm swimming in the deep-end so to speak of water science. In America, there are several factors contributing to diminished water quality and pollutions. In the next few issues of OrganicAthlete, we'll address these factors.

Since OrganicAthlete is directly concerned with the food we eat, I'll address a primary antagonist to healthy water quality: industrial animal farming. The Environmental Protection Agency regards non-point source pollution, such as agricultural runoff, as one of the greatest threats to water quality. Agricultural runoff from industrial, conventional farming includes pesticides, chemical fertilizers, high amounts of nitrates, and sometimes dangerous levels of bacteria from animal feces.

85% of water used in California goes to farming, and much of that goes to produce meat. Most of our meat in supermarkets comes from Animal Feeding Operations, or AFOs. According to the EPA website, "AFOs generally congregate animals, feed, manure, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures. Animal waste and wastewater can enter water bodies from spills or breaks of waste storage structures (due to accidents or excessive rain), and non-agricultural application of manure to crop land." The EPA estimates that hog, chicken and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. A 2-year-long study of government reports and records on Animal Feeding Operations by the Sierra Club revealed "massive water pollution resulting from millions of gallons of animal feces and urine flowing into waterways, workplace deaths, injuries and worker safety violations, 134 million pounds of contaminated and potentially contaminated meat and, repeated, gruesome violations of the federal Humane Slaughter Act."

If you eat meat, consider purchasing organically raised and grass-fed meats. This is usually available at your local natural foods store or search at google for suppliers. You're not only doing the world a good, you're saving your health by not consuming the harmful pesticides and chemicals stored in the animal fat.

In the next issue, we'll look at pesticides in our water.

Learn and take action:
Sierra Club Clean Water Campaign
Clean Water Fund

Don't Drink the Water - Part 2

This is supposed to be about pesticides in water. However, they are such a pervasive threat to our health and athletic potential, I can't limit the article to just one source. Jenn and I compiled this information on pesticide run-off and their effects from various sources.

What the EPA considers as risks.
All athletes should be concerned with a balanced Endocrine system!
Parents of future Olympians need to know the health risks of pesticide exposure to their children. According to the EPA website:

"Pesticides may harm a developing child by blocking the absorption of important food nutrients necessary for normal healthy growth. Another way pesticides may cause harm is if a child's excretory system is not fully developed, the body may not fully remove pesticides. Also, there are 'critical periods' in human development when exposure to a toxin can permanently alter the way an individual's biological system operates."

Female athletes: it's Breast Cancer awareness month. Ever wonder why "early detection is the best prevention?" Read that again. Hmmm...maybe we should look at who's paying for this month's campaign.

"Currently, 16 pesicides linked to breast cancer are being used in the United States. In addition DDT, also linked with breast cancer, is used in other countries who then sell contaminated produce to the United States. Detailed research of several other dangerous pesiticdes by the EPA was curtailed when 80,000 farmers complained about the possible economic repercussions of pulling popular, yet potentially deadly, pesticides off the market. It's not only our food that is being contaminated: drinking water supplies and wells also have been found to have dangerous pesticides in them throughout the country."
From http://www.pesticide.org/BCancerReport.pdf

Don't Drink the Water - Part 3

The last two issues have dealt with agriculture runoff and pesticides, two main contaminates of water supplies today. But what about what you are doing? What actions can you take to clean up the water supply and conserve water resources? But first...Rachel Carson wrote her prophetic book, Silent Spring, over 40 years ago. Her expose on the harmful effects of chemical pesticides still rings, or rather RESOUNDS, with truth today. The following are quotes from her chapter on water:

"The problem of water pollution by pesticides can be understood only in context, as part of the whole to which it belongs -- the pollution of the total environment of mankind." "By a strange paradox, most of the earth's abundant water is not usable for agriculture, industry, or human consumption because of its heavy load of sea salts, and so most of the world's population is experiencing or is threatened with critical shortages. In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference." Now what can you do?

BUY: In a market society, I think your consumer choices are the most important "votes." There is growing market of good that sustain ecology. Buy organic. Buy local. Buy grass-fed, hormone-free meats or don't buy meat at all. Buy cotton alternatives [some sources claim cotton uses over 25% of the world's pesticides; it is a water intensive product grown mostly in the American desert].
REDUCE and REUSE: You can install low flow toilets, showerheads, and graywater systems to reduce your water bill. Learn more at the H20 House and Water Casa.
EDUCATE yourself on water issues. The mass media, for example, paints the mid-east crisis as largely a political and
religious struggle. Human needs are much more basic than that. What would you do if you were dying of thirst?
LEARN MORE: I highly recommend the Cadillac Desert PBS series; you'll learn far more from this 4.5 hours of video than watching TV or going to a movie. Check it out at your library.