Background Information on Water

From prehistoric times, people have regarded fresh water as precious. For most of us in the United States, the ease of turning a tap and having fresh, clean, safe water flow into our homes can make water seem commonplace. But the fact is that there is a long history of conflicts and tensions over water sources, the use of water systems as weapons during war, and the targeting of water systems during conflicts caused by other factors¹.

Sadly, more and more people the world over are faced with scarcity of water and lack of access to safe water supplies. Environmental pollution, the privatization of water sources, and political and governmental conflicts have made for global as well as local challenges to water access.

In centuries past, a spring or well some distance from a river or stream was viewed as magical, mystical, and assured evidence of our Creator's beneficence². It is Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA) hope that this grateful wonder, and therefore respectful conservation of water, may become part of the many ways we, as God's people, acknowledge God's action and will for water in our lives and the life of the world.

Water as life
Water gives life. Water is live. Newborn babies are 78% water. And while that proportion drops to around 65% by age one, we essentially remain between 50 and 65% water throughout our adult lives, depending on our physical and physiological differences.³

The human body needs water to maintain enough blood and other fluids to function properly. Along with the fluids, the body also needs electrolytes, which are salts normally found in blood, other fluids, and cells. If the body loses a substantial amount of fluids and salts and they are not quickly replaced, by drinking water, for example, the body begins to dry up or get dehydrated. Dehydration is the loss of water and salts from the body.

Global involvement
Costa Rica's Rehydration Project⁴ reports, "Approximately 70 percent of diarrhoeal deaths are caused by dehydration — the loss of large quantities of water and salts from the body. ... Diarrhoeal disease is one of the greatest killers of children in the developing world and often the chief cause of child malnutrition." And these diseases are often waterborne, carried in contaminated water.

Each year, in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, approximately 2.2 million children under the age of five years die of acute diarrhea. About 80 percent of these deaths are in the first two years of life. In the developing world as a whole, about one-third of infant and child deaths are due to diarrhea.⁵

Lutherans around the world are involved in advocating and supporting the human right to safe water. Member churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) work from Africa to Brazil to Indonesia to support people's right to access to water as LWF works to prevent the commercialization and commodification of water and other basic necessities of life.⁶ LWF's Sustainable Development and Environmental Desk has water conservation as one of its key focus areas.⁷ The LWF Action Plan on Water was launched to mobilize resources and to highlight how essential water is to human life and for all of creation, as well as to delve into questions concerning the just and affordable distribution and privatization of water.⁸

The LWF is developing a plan on water that will include resource mobilization as a way to highlight how essential water is for every person and all creation. The LWF's plan will also examine the challenges that just distribution of water presents to economic globalization and the privatization of water access.⁹ The LWF has called the ELCA as a member church to challenge all practices where the gifts of God for all are made into commodities in unjust and unnecessary ways, which especially impact the poor. This includes the privatization of water and all other natural resources that are basic for human life and the patenting of seeds for crops and of other living organisms.¹⁰ Clearly, the ELCA's support of the LWF empowers Evangelical Lutherans in the United States and around the world to live their faith in ways that save people's lives. There is much more we can do.

ELCA approaches to water issues
Among the main ways ELCA members can support safe water initiatives worldwide is through the ELCA's World Hunger Program, Global Mission, and Disaster Response.

• Learn how you can help the ELCA's World Hunger dollars address water issues in Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Bangladesh, El Salvador, and Sudan.
   

• Learn about the Great Lakes — this water source affects a far wider area than those states and provinces that border these bodies of water — by viewing ELCA's Winter 2000 issue of MOSAIC, Water: America's Endangered Lifeline. The online discussion guide is available at www.elca.org/mosaic/waterguide.html

Educating ourselves
There are many ways we can educate ourselves. In fact, advocating for corporate, foundational, and governmental support of increased ways for American citizens to learn about our water and water sources is an important course of action.

• Anyone can get a water education kit by visiting www.projectwet.org/publications.htm These kits could be a part of a great vacation Bible school or all-ages Sunday school.
   

• We can each learn about our water with the "Real-time stream flow" map that tracks short-term changes (over several hours) in rivers and streams in the United States. See the United States Geological Survey's WaterWatch Web site (http://water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/), or click on your state at the United States Geological Survey's home page (www.usgs.gov/).
   

• Make use of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Water Education Resource page (www.epa.gov/water/education.html).
   

• There are so many area-specific water Web pages that it is worth doing an Internet search by entering the name of your state and the word "water" in your search engine.

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1. The World's Water, Information on the World's Fresh Water Resources, The Pacific Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think-tank studying issues at the intersection of development, environment, and security. Visit at www.worldwater.org/about.html
2. Orkneyjar, the heritage of the Orkney Islands at www.orkneyjar.com/tradition/sacredwater/index.html
3. Science Education Partnerships, Corvallis School District 509J, Oregon State University and Hewlett Packard, Percentage of H₂0 in Human Body, at www.seps.org/oracle/oracle.archive/Life_Science.Biochem/
2001.06/000991410254.7589.html, and the MadSci Network, "What percentage of water in the human body?" at www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may2000/958588306.An.r.html
4. Rehydration Project, P.O. Box 1, Samara, 5235, Costa Rica, at http://rehydrate.org/about/index.html
5. Ibid
6. From: "For the Healing of the World," Official Report, LWF Tenth Assembly, Winnipeg, Canada, July 21-31, 2003, Report of the Treasurer, page 41 and Trade and Development Policies, page 68.
7. www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/DWS/Focus_Areas/DWS-FA_Sustainable_Development.html
8. Frank Imhoff@ELCA.org 5/26/2006 LUTHERAN WORLD INFORMATION LWI news online: www.lutheranworld.org/News/Welcome.EN.html
9. Ibid, Adopted Resolution, page 70.
10. Ibid, Report of the Treasurer, page 63.