Water Bankruptcy, Water Contamination and a Show Dog That Shows Up: What I’m Reading This Week

It’s snowing, and all feels right for once. I suspect my excitement is due to the 2026 Winter Olympics.

I love watching the athletes during the opening ceremony. What an accomplishment to qualify and to represent your country. I also enjoy watching those athlete profiles, because a 1-minute race, 3-minute performance or even 60-minute game is not enough time for spectators like me to fully grasp—or at least appreciate—the years of training and sacrifices these athletes (and their families) have made.

Every event is an opportunity to witness persistence and resilience. The athletes wear their hearts on their sleeves and seeing their reactions usually makes me emotional, too. The games are an opportunity to recognize greatness, regardless of indivual backgrounds or geographic borders.

If you’re not planning to tune into the Olympics this month, I hope you find something else that brings you joy and reminds you the importance of following your dreams.

Until next time, stay safe, be kind and be well!

Water Bankruptcy

In the future, what if nations didn’t scramble to secure rare earth minerals but access to fresh water? It seems far-fetched now, but a changing climate is upending our very way of life. Nearly 4 billion people face water scarcity for at least one month every year, according to a recent United Nations report.

The report concludes that the world has entered “an era of global water bankruptcy” with irreversible consequences. The terms “water stress” and “water crisis” fall short in describing the magnitude of the problem.

“This report tells an uncomfortable truth: Many regions are living beyond their hydrological means, and many critical water systems are already bankrupt,” says lead author Kaveh Madani, director of the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).

The report also found that more than 50% of the planet’s large lakes have lost water since 1990, 70% of major aquifers are in long-term decline, and glaciers have shrunk 30% since 1970. There are other challenges that can compromise the precious water we do have, such as garbage, PFAS and agricultural runoff.

It’s so easy to take for granted something that we can turn on and off with a flick of a faucet. But it’s past time we recognize and respect water as the life sustaining resource that it is.

You can read the UN report here and an article about the report here.

Water Contamination

It appears I’m hydrophilic this week, as I bookmarked this other water-related article to share.

In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson traces the environmental impacts of synthetic pesticides. Some effects were easy to observe, such as cows developing neurological disorders days after eating grass that had been sprayed with DDT. Other times, the effects weren’t as immediate or evident, such as lakes miles away from sprayed farmland becoming contaminated with DDT. In the end, they determined the pesticides entered the lake through the groundwater.

Nowadays, lakes, streams and other fresh water sources are testing positive for a different contaminant: PFAS, or forever chemicals. Michael Phillis and Helen Wieffering detail the damage in Stella, Wisconsin, a township close to the Michigan border with a population of just under 600 people, according to census data. But Stella is only one of many communities that have seen their water test possible—sometimes magnitudes above the permissible limit—for PFAS.

Government estimates suggest as much as half of U.S. households have some level of PFAS in their water, either from a private well or tap. Utilities are regulated, but groundwater isn’t. That puts about 40 million people in the United States who rely on private drinking water at risk, especially since governmental testing is so limited.

The Associated Press found that at least 20 states do not test private wells for PFAS outside of areas where problems are already suspected. For those states that do test private drinking water, the wait is longer and affected residents receive far less assistance than those who rely on municipal tap water. Pillis and Wieffering also note that the Environmental Protection Agency does not recommend testing private wells for PFAS unless it is a known local problem.

This must-read article shows what’s at stake and how contaminated well water affects individuals and communities for years.

A Show Dog That Shows Up

I am, as you may know, a dog lover. My friends have teased me for getting more excited to see a dog than other humans. Guilty as charged!

So, I was utterly delighted to discover Sarah Lyall’s profile about Nick the 4-year-old Tibetan spaniel. When Nick isn’t competing at the Westminster and other dog shows, he works as a therapy dog at a memory care unit in Vancouver, Washington.

I once accompanied a friend and her dog to a nearby memory care unit. It was heartbreakingly sweet to see these people, some of whom couldn’t recognize their family members, not just light up—but transform—when they saw a dog padding through the locked doors.

Lyall witnessed the same phenomenon with Nick. She writes: “His presence had a striking effect. As he visited each person, sitting on the laps of those who requested it, he unlocked something in them, and they began to talk—not conversing so much as reminiscing about dogs from their pasts. Dogs they had as children. Dogs they had when they had children of their own. Rescue dogs they adopted and cared for into the animals’ old age.”

I encourage you to read the article and view the accompanying images and videos here. It will leave you smiling and maybe a little teary-eyed (in the best possible way).