Water Dues
You live down at the far end of a skinny island, you learn pretty quick how important water is. Agua agua everywhere and not a drop to drink is no laugh down here. We’re surrounded by it and it’s salty. Dig a well and use too much, you pull saltwater and then it wants to stay that way. All of us are on wells. Me, I’ve got a hand dug 3 foot diameter hole in the ground that goes down 105 feet. You can push the metal cover to one side and look down with a flashlight to the water below. That 3 foot hole looks about the size of a silver dollar at the bottom.
Us oldtimers all have hand dug wells — although some have upgraded to drilled ones, usually deeper. The new folks have water associations, big holding tanks, pumps, purification systems, filters and lately, computers that calculate tide tables and the optimum time to pump so as to avoid pulling saline. Used to be, the neighbors all watered their lush weednfeed fescue day and night, but they got saltwater intrusion and boy howdy, they learned the hard way why all of us conserve water, not take it for granted. We’re all on the aquifers, although not necessarily the same one. Ours isn’t as deep as the neighbors – or as reliable, but at least I’m not punished for their landscaping dreams. Not yet anyway.
When we first came, we still had the 1930’s piston driven pump. Ka-chug, ka-chug, 50 year old oak rod sections connected to a foot valve down at the bottom, a heartbeat we always paid attention to and that always needed attention. Packings had to be replaced, foot valves too, pressure sensors regulated, tanks repressurized. If the power got knocked out, we could draw water by turning the flywheel by hand. Now we’ve got a submersible pump. 220 volts, no water if the electricity fails. The price we paid for modernization.
But … we don’t pay water dues and we don’t fight with the neighbors over association bylaws. Freedom sometimes is as precious as a glass of clear water. And as fragile….
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