“We never miss the water til the well goes dry,” is a saying that is as old as the hills. With water making up half of our body weight (45-60 per cent for women and 50-65 per cent for men), one would think that we might be more concerned about the quality and availability of water. Going more than three days without water leaves one very close to death.
When our ancestors embarked on a little old wooden ship to make the voyage to the New World, the captain made sure that adequate fresh water was on board to provide for the passengers and crew for the trip. Ships were also set up to collect rain water to be sure that even if the voyage was delayed by rough seas or not enough wind to fill the sails, no one would have to drink salt water.
When pioneers arrived in our county, the first thing they looked for when choosing a lot of land was if it had a spring or a creek on it. When one of my ancestors awoke the first morning on his land, his ox had left in the night and he spent that day tracking him down. He found the ox lying beside a large spring where the water was clear and cold. He decided that the ox had made a better choice of a lot than he did and went back for the small pack of belongings he had carried on his back to the other lot the day before.
When we chose a site for our dairy barn we looked at several farms, lots and locations. When we finally chose a site, before building, we hired a well driller and made sure that the well could supply adequate water for the project and made sure the water passed all tests for quality before starting construction.
Wells drilled in limestone rock will yield water much higher in pH than wells in gravel or granite rock. Milk cows drink about 50 gallons of water every day. Washing and sanitizing milking equipment, barn equipment and floors and using cold water plate coolers to pre-cool the milk before pumping it to the bulk tank takes more water.
Anywhere food is produced, processed or prepared the water must be analyzed to assure it is of potable quality. This water analysis is also used to get the cleaning soaps, acids, and disinfectants balanced just right to match with the farms water for best cleaning.
Even the milk replacer that is sometimes fed to calves must be compatible with the water on the farm. With cows consuming hundreds of pounds of water every day, water analysis is very important to allow the feed nutritionist to correctly balance the feed ration for different groups of animals.
Chicken and hog farms also check water analysis for the same reason. Some farms have very high salt content in their water and add no extra salt to the animal’s diet. Some wells are high in sulphur. Some water sources are deemed contaminated because of E.coli bacteria.
Water analysis is extremely important to assure a safe drinking water supply. We can all remember the Walkerton water disaster where someone who was in charge of the regular water tests didn’t check close enough to see if proper water sampling and analysis were done and as a result many people were sick and some died.
As we become accustomed to safe water being provided we become complacent with water quality. The water that we water our gardens or lawns with can affect the health and look of our yard. Even rain water can vary from location to location. In the country where we have no heavy industry or pulp mills, rainwater is usually clean and free from acids, sulphur or other heavy metals.
Some towns or cities add chlorine to drinking water to kill E.coli: but the residual chlorine in the water can raise the levels in the soil, just as the chlorine in road salt left on the lawn can encourage dandelion growth.
Rainwater is usually lower in pH and better for vegetable gardens. We used to have too heavy a crust or solid content in our liquid manure tank. The solution was to add a few truckloads of pond water from a beaver pond. That water was very high in bacteria that could eat up any straw or other bedding in the manure and within a couple of days and a little agitation the manure lagoon would be very liquid and the addition of some bacteria from the beaver pond and some oxygen by agitation, would compost the lagoon and greatly reduce the strong manure smell.
When some crop fields seem to have better weed control than others, maybe the analysis of the water wasn’t compatible with the chemical used or maybe the amount of dew on the weeds wasn’t calculated when spraying the field?
Canada has the largest supply of fresh water in the world. Let’s ask our politicians to protect this precious and valuable resource.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
