Water - Jun

I've always lived near water. Whether it was the Pacific Ocean, the Hudson River, various creeks, ponds, and lakes in the Adirondacks, the Gulf of Mexico (I will not be calling it anything else), and now the beautiful Salish Sea, I have been blessed by the presence of natural bodies of water.

 

1/100s //  33mm  //  f4.5  //  ISO 2500

 

My senior year of high school, there was an elective science class available called "Spheres of the Universe". We spent probably half the semester making bottle rockets (and failing), and for the rest of the time, we got to choose projects and experiments that interested us. I wanted to learn about what caused the different colors of the auroras and how binary star systems move through space, so I did. Another endeavor was a project I titled "Water = Life". Working in foodservice, I knew that there was something called "the danger zone", so I had the suspicion that sunlight (heat) would provide microorganisms in various water sources with ample fuel for reproduction. 

 

1/200s  //  63mm  //  f5  //  ISO 12800

 

My project partner and I would collect water from several sources - a puddle, a pond, a lake, a river, and a well with potable water. We observed each sample under the microscope, and counted the number of microorganisms we found in the field of view. Then, we set the bottles on the windowsill in the sun for a week, and observed again. Lo and behold, the number of microorganisms in each sample had grown - even the well water. And, as I had suspected, the more stagnant the water, the more microorganisms there were in the samples. My 17-year-old self's hypothesis was that the mere presence of water was itself conducive to the proliferation of life. It would seem that was the case. 

Roughly 12 years later, the Obama administration greenlit the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline that cuts through a sacred burial site of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as crossing waterways a whopping 202 times. Unfortunately, while the Obama administration halted construction after overwhelming public support for the unparalleled gathering of thousands of water protectors from hundreds of Indigenous tribes across Turtle Island and beyond, Trump's 2016 administration put it back on track.  

 

1/250s  //  69mm  //  f5.3  //  ISO 1100

 

The mantra of the #NoDAPL movement was Mní Wičóni - a Lakota phrase meaning Water is Life. As freshwater becomes scarcer (we are now in what is being called water bankruptcy), it would behoove us all to heed the phrase.