Hmmm, how far into the future might the ripples of our neglect reach?
I went for a stroll this evening through a park which has a large, shallow pond. I noted with interest that the water levels were higher than I expected for late summer.
Farther up the pathway I saw a place where the asphalt had been dug up and replaced leaving a distinct hump. As I approached the hump, I heard water bubbling into the pond. My curiosity was piqued as this was an entirely new development.
At the edge of the pond, I discovered what I can only describe as a huge bladder about ten feet long and four feet across. A large pipe was attached to it pumping water into the bladder. The bladder was swollen to capacity and water was bubbling out of holes and seams into the pond.
This was a curiosity that demanded further investigation. I followed the pipeline down the path to another hump. The pipeline went under the path, back above ground, through what appeared to be a mobile, industrial pumping station and into the corner of a site which had been excavated for a new apartment building.
The explanation seemed simple. Rain water had gathered in the excavation site and was being pumped out into the pond. But the pipe, which was about eight inches in diameter, seemed to me to be rather large for the purpose.
I traced the pipeline and realized that it was running along the perimeter of the excavation rather than into it. Smaller pipes arched off the main line at intervals of a few feet and went vertically into the ground. It seemed (speculation on my part) that water was being extracted from underground and pumped out into the pond.
Perhaps, I thought, the contractor struck an underground stream while excavating. Naturally, construction would have to stop while the engineers were brought in to size up the situation. Their solution: sink pipes into the ground, extract the water and pump it into the pond.
But this would not be a solution if the problem was an underground stream. The source of the stream could be miles away and of indeterminate volume. I had a momentary image of miles of interconnected, underground waterways connecting to Lake Ontario!
I did a bit of digging on the web and concluded that a more likely source of the water was an aquifer. An aquifer, according to a Wikipedia article, is “an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials such as gravel, sand, or silt”.
Let us set aside for the moment the impact on the pond, an ecosystem in itself, into which the water was being released and the mysterious purpose of the huge bladder. I could not help but wonder what the long term consequences of draining an aquifer might be on the stability of the land above it and the life forms that might indirectly rely upon it.
All too frequently, in the pursuit of human endeavour, the choice is made to not look beyond what is convenient for us to know. Turning a blind eye is a dangerous choice. The vanishing aquiver may just be a metaphor for pulling the rug out from under our own feet – or the feet of generations yet to come. Our neglect could be their undoing.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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Tags: aquifer · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · price of neglectNo Comments