Celebrate Water

“Filthy water cannot be washed.”

WEST AFRICAN PROVERB

Water is Beautiful

Love it

Respect it

Use it wisely

Water is essential for life

“Water is the best of all things.”

-PINDAR (C. 522-C. 438 B.C.), Olympian Odes

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”

-LORAN EISELY, The Immense Journey, 1957

“All the water that will ever be is, right now.”

-National Geographic, October 1993

“If you gave me several million years, there would be nothing that did not grow in beauty if it were surrounded by water.”

-JAN ERIK VOLD, What All The World Knows, 1970

“Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing, that makes water and nobody knows what that is.”

-D.H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930), Pansies, 1929

“Water has no taste, no color, no odor; it cannot be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself. It fills us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.”

-ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY (1900-1944), Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939

“Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.”

-JEAN GIRAUDOUX (1882-1944), The Madwomen of Chaillot, 1946

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.”

-BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, (1706-1790), Poor Richard's Almanac, 1746

“The crisis of our diminishing water resources is just as severe (if less obviously immediate) as any wartime crisis we have ever faced. Our survival is just as much at stake as it was at the time of Pearl Harbor, or the Argonne, or Gettysburg, or Saratoga.”

-JIM WRIGHT, U.S. Representative, The Coming Water Famine, 1966

“Of all our planet's activities--geological movements, the reproduction and decay of biota, and even the disruptive propensities of certain species (elephants and humans come to mind)--no force is greater than the hydrologic cycle.”

-RICHARD BANGS and CHRISTIAN KALLEN, Rivergods, 1985

“Water has become a highly precious resource. There are some places where a barrel of water costs more than a barrel of oil.”

-Lloyd Axworthy, Foreign Minister of Canada (1999 - News Conference)

“Between earth and earth's atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself.”

-LINDA HOGAN, Northern Lights, Autumn 1990

“In every glass of water we drink, some of the water has already passed through fishes, trees, bacteria, worms in the soil, and many other organisms, including people...Living systems cleanse water and make it fit, among other things, for human consumption.”

-ELLIOT A. NORSE, in R.J. Hoage, ed., Animal Extinctions, 1985

“Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there.”

-ISAAC ASIMOV, Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988

“The oceans are the planet's last great living wilderness, man's only remaining frontier on earth, and perhaps his last chance to produce himself a rational species.”

-JOHN L. CULLNEY, Wilderness Conservation, September- October 1990

“Only those people that have directly experienced the wetlands that line the shore...can appreciate their mystic qualities. The beauty of rising mists at dusk, the ebb and flow of the tides, the merging of fresh and salt waters....”

-GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE ON MARINE AND COASTAL AFFAIRS, "Delaware: Wetlands," 1972

“Wetlands have a poor public image.... Yet they are among the earth's greatest natural assets... mankind's waterlogged wealth.”

-EDWARD MALTBY, Waterlogged Wealth, 1986

For information about where Vancouver's drinking water comes from visit:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=19&msid=113998329938066691176.000475f3f774222119255