As interesting as the history of the traditional holidays are and those that are not marked on our calendars I was curious what wasn't on the calendar for August. I saw that August is National Water Quality Month. I didn't do anything special since I didn't know but what can you do? Living in the city has its perks and yesterday we received something from the city's water department. A grease can with 3 plastic envelops and a phamphlet explaining why households were graced with these items. Apparently disposing of grease has been noted as one of the culprits that caught the attention during the quality check which is creating havoc in some of the sewer lines. This is the first time in 16 years that this issue was raised. Now I have something that may make Johnny think twice about dumping grease down the kitchen sink, well maybe.
Well being as today is the last day of August, it is a bit late to get in the game. My brother in law is a water quality specialist. I wonder if he knew it was national water quality month. That could have been something he could have reminded the people in his office about..since he is the supervisor now, that would be something that he could make hay with no doubt! It is so funny that there is a day, week and month for everything now.
Incidentally, our National Language Week is in the last week of August. It is getting to be a big celebration in schools. But with that National Water Quality Month, that's a very sensible occasion because we all drink water and the quality is, of course, important to all of us. However, what do we do about that month? How do we observe or celebrate the occasion? And you are right, there is a day, a week and even a month for almost anything that they can think of. Now this question - who is that they? I mean who thinks of those day and week and month of occasion? Not the social media sites, I guess.
Tis now September and water quality month is over. As for my wife and I, we observe water quality each and every day for we have a large mineral/vitalization gadget, a distillery and our water purifier in the form of a pitcher. That said, September is National Preparedness Month which puts us back to the 1st paragraph on Water quality. That said again, I might note that next month is National Hispanic Heritage month which takes us back once again to the 1st paragraph for indeed, anyone who has sampled the water in Mexico knows that it is not aligned with either the National months of August nor September. Unless of course, you are totally prepared to go to Mexico next month and are carrying your own clean water or a full 8 pack of TP and some stuffer upper like Milk of Magnesia.
Or, When Johnny goes to the John he should only put into the John what goes through Johnny and nothing more. Try saying that 3 times quickly.
Regarding water quality, or the lack of it, I submit this link to a history of Chicago's wastewater disposal woes, which were of monumental size. By the near end of the 20th. Century, the Chicago Metro wastewater treatment facilities were the largest in the world! When I left the area in the 1970s, they had reached the point of necessarily skimming all solids out of the Chicago Waterway, and burning them. Years earlier, I could clearly see the spired tower of Western Electric's Hawthorne Works main building on Cermak Rd., from my home street 2 miles away. In 1970, the smoke in the air from the Chicago Metropolitan Sanitary District's burning efforts completely obscured such view. Indeed, the air quality was at least as bad, and very possibly worse, than that which I had seen during our travels to Los Angeles! Here is the historical article to which I referred, if you are interested: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1324.html