I returned from an impoverished land of struggling people that saddened me, to a bountiful land of struggling people that saddens me even more. We have so much and rarely even think of how lucky we are, never mindful of the waste we manage with every turn of the faucet.

Water flows with some cost from my faucets. A long hot shower is satisfying and even rejuvenating. And I take one every day. My fellow campers and I on a recent Earthwatch expedition were content with the sprinkling from an overhead canvas bag. The native day workers took cold baths at home before coming to heat our coffee water over a kerosene fire.

Conserving water at the confluence of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers will not send water flowing through the huts in Africa or Asia. Nor would it matter to the natives if it did. Either those folks walk miles to bring water into their homes (huts) or they walk miles to bathe in the rivers and wash their clothes. Nor does a few dollars sent to help a cute child do more than support the missionaries that harangue them with fantasies that all will be well if they worship the Christian god or Muslim god.

More devastating is the dehydration that plagues displaced and wandering people driven from their homes and already starving. Our foreign policy stinks and has for years. No amount of money thrown into the third world can prevent water problems. The people there can and will solve the dilemma if they understand how to reclaim the watersheds.

Work is being done by the universities and scientists within those countries by organizations like Earthwatch, National Wildlife Federation, and the International Raptor Research educate native peoples in ways to prevent silt from choking lakes. Habitat destruction will eventually destroy the human species.