Captain Renault to Rick in Casablanca: “How extravagant you are, throwing away women like that. Someday they may be scarce.”
One of my favorite movie quotes. Tonight, it made me think of Michigan water. On our leisurely round-about drive to the beach this evening, going thru Grand Haven, we noticed all the sprinklers on. So many businesses with the sprinklers running. Timers engaged, as we had at least an inch of rain last night. Almost everywhere you look, lush green grass. (A notable exception being the United States Post Office. Dormant brown grass, weeds and bare earth… to which the locals have been up in arms about.) All summer long, water usage that would be considered extravagant elsewhere. And yet here, it is viewed as almost endless.
Perhaps, because it is basically is endless. Water continuously flows from Lake Superior to Lake Michigan, and on… eventually emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. But how many gallons of beautiful fresh water are held in Lake Michigan at any one time?
“Lake Michigan, according to satellite measurements and formulas, holds One Quadrillion gallons of water. That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of life-giving, weather altering, fish-loving water. It’s so vast that in order to raise the lake’s water level just by one inch, it would take around 400 Billion gallons of water.”
One quadrillion gallons! Just in Lake Michigan. So, sprinkle away Grand Haven. And eat your hearts out Arizona, Southern California, and all those Midwest states that are in danger of sucking the Ogallala Aquifer dry.
Endless fresh water is a beautiful thing.