The Weight of Water: Part Two
Nicole Civita is the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at Sterling College and volunteer member of the Craftsbury Fire District #2’s Board of Commissioners. The views expressed in this piece are her own.
This story isn’t over yet. Not for the world. Not even for Craftsbury Common.
It was a relief to know that our community – and importantly our students – would have a stable supply of clean water. It was as local as possible, reasonably sustainable, and it came in reusable 3 and 5 gallon plastic jugs. It might be less convenient than simply turning on the tap – but it was clean, safe, and could be counted on. Surely, we could lug water around for a few months while we worked through all of this…
A few months turned into 18, and – frustratingly yet thankfully – weekly water deliveries are still part of our lives at Sterling. 41.7 pounds – the weight of a full five gallon jug of water – no longer feels as heavy as it once did. It feels even lighter when many members of the Sterling community unload the truck together.
CFD#2 has diligently pursued a range of options to access both temporary and more permanent sources of safe drinking water – and hit roadblocks at every turn. There has been ample, admirable collaboration between the College and the CFD#2, its contracted engineers at Dubois & King, our regulators at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and local residents, landowners and water system customers. The details of our efforts to develop a new water source probably aren’t terribly interesting unless you, too, are grappling with a PFAS challenge in a small, modestly resourced, rural water system. Suffice it to say CFD#2 is about to drill a third well, the second on the College’s property, in its search for sufficient clean water. A substantial access road was just constructed from Sterling’s McCarthy Barns into our Pine Pasture to facilitate the drilling and (hopefully) the maintenance of a new well – with lots of care and attention to erosion, habitat impact, livestock safety, and invasive species management. We are hopeful that the third hole we put in the ground will yield the flow rate we need and be free of contaminants, but between the geology of our region, the pace of groundwater recharge, and the prevalence of environmental contaminants – even in the most picturesque and pristine places – we’re taking nothing for granted.
At Sterling, we never waste the learning potential of a challenging experience. So we’ve stopped complaining about having to use bottled water and engaged in the process of developing new water infrastructure in ways that are ecologically sensitive. Students in the watersheds class shadowed CDF2 and its engineers as we selected a well site. Others have been happy to help with moving the big bottles around campus, cleaning up when the bottles occasionally but inevitably crack, and helping our neighbors load the water they need into and out of their cars. And we’ve gotten used to returning the bottles that hold this life-sustaining resource so they can be cleaned and filled again. One student even used found materials to build a shelf on which community members can neatly return empty water jugs, ideally reducing the amount of cracking and extending the life of these very useful vessels.
None of this is ideal. But it is also not presently an acute crisis. We’ve collaborated to find solutions, collectively shouldered a common burden, and are working together to protect the common good.