Last week for the third time in recent weeks, we were served with a notice from DC Water that our water was going to be turned off for pipe repairs. The first two times were for short periods during the night, but it didn’t appear that the water was ever stopped. The most recent one was more serious – it said that the water would be off for eight hours beginning at 8 a.m. on June 28. We prepared the night before, saving enough water for use yesterday. But – of course – the water was never turned off at all.

Last night, we went out for dinner. We planned to do that because we weren’t going to have any water in the house, and when it was clear that we would still have water, we decided not to change our plans. A simple dinner at an even simpler Mexican restaurant about a mile or so from the house. After supper, I decided to walk home – the temperature was reasonable and the humidity was manageable. There was no sun in the sky. I had forgotten about the Code Orange air and the haze from the Canadian forest fires.

At any rate, as I got to our block, there were two DC Water trucks. I asked one of the drivers about the water. It was about 7:30 p.m. and he said “the water is being turned off as we speak” and would be off four to six hours. I didn’t want to get into an argument about proper notice, so I just said OK and went home. The water was still running when I checked at 9:30.

If I had been writing about this on my blog at that time, I’d call the post “The Water Company that Cried Wolf”.

But, believe it or not, when I checked back about 10:30, the water was off. You would think that would end my thinking about this, and that I would be off for a good night’s sleep. But it was not to be. I had a hard time sleeping all night, and I spent a fair amount of time thinking about our water.

Yes, I was a bit anxious once again. Why did they cut off our water? What types of repairs were they making? What if they were not successful and we either were never to have running water in our house again, or what if whatever they were doing was going to poison us? I felt like DC Water’s operation on our pipes was, in effect, a medical procedure being done on my own internal pipes, but being done remotely, by doctors I had not met, for reasons that had not been explained to me. AI at its worst. Is this the way the future will be?

And then, of course, I began thinking about places that may actually run out of water. Phoenix, Las Vegas, parts of Southern California. And places where there was too much water (and still not necessarily enough to drink). Bangladesh, parts of Pakistan. And then the desertification of so much of the world, creating famine and the need to move on. And melting ice and icebergs, and what will happen to Miami and Venice and even Venice Beach?

That got me to recent reports about the earth’s tilt being altered by the draining of aquifers and the like by humans. What is more scary than the alteration of the earth’s tilt? Will we in Washington wind up down under like the Australians now find themselves? Hard to fathom, but very scary, I am sure.

I tell people to read Seth Siegel’s fascinating book, “Let There Be Water”, the story of how Israel has solved its water problems basically by nationalizing water. All water resources in the country – whether from lakes or rivers, underground aquifers, off shore sources, or even rainwater in a bucket become assets of the state, subject to rigorous regulatory actions. The opposite of what happens here in America and, as so often is the case when other countries do just what we don’t do, successful while we dither. But now I realize that solving Israel’s water problems won’t help the rest of the world, unless the rest of the world takes bold steps like the Israelis have done. And what chance is there that that will ever happen?

Well, the good news is that our water is back on, our kitchen and bathrooms spigots have been flushed, and all those places that I worry about are far from here. We have more water than we need. What more can one ask?