In many ancient creation myths, including the story in the book of Genesis, life emerges from the primordial waters.

More than likely these myths stem from the early observation that human babies spend their gestation period in a fluid-filled sac whose bursting signals their imminent arrival in the world. But even if people believed that storks delivered babies, they knew that life was impossible without water.

So it’s strange that people take this primal element so much for granted. Perhaps because the Earth on which we live is mostly water; or because water falls so indiscrimi- nately out of the sky (drenching the just and the unjust alike); or perhaps because we are made up of mostly water ourselves, we tend to think of it as an infinite resource that can’t be used up. In which case, we couldn’t be more wrong.

Certainly for those of us in the northeastern United States, experiencing what meteorologists are calling the third-worst drought of the century, water (and the lack thereof) has crept up a few notches in our consciousness. This is especially true for farmers, gardeners, and those who live in jurisdictions whose political leaders have had the foresight to stop them from watering their lawns.

Even though we’ve had some respite from the drought over the past month here in West Virginia, we are still averaging about a foot short of rainfall since last summer. Estimates of agricultural losses in the state have doubled to $200 million. And we’re not out of the woods. In recent congressional testimony, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman cautioned that we may be facing another fifteen to twenty years of drought conditions in this section of the country—a piece of news that (unsurprisingly) didn’t linger very long in the media loop.

If Glickman is right, then the reactions of our state politicians are all the more striking in their shortsightedness. Of course it’s been no secret to careful observers of the West Virginia political scene that, from its founding in 1863, our state government has been pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporations R Us. So excessive concern about short-term profitability has been the norm. And that has rarely been more true than under the administration of our current governor, Cecil "Deposit Contributions Here" Underwood.

But let’s take the example of longtime WV Secretary of Agriculture Gus Douglass. Douglass is a farmer himself, which has earned him the misplaced trust of most of his fellow farmers in the state. I say "misplaced" because the policies he has pursued as head of the department have invariably favored the export-oriented goals of agribusiness monopolies that have so devastated the American family farm and poisoned the landscape with petroleum-based fertilizers and chemical pesticides.

Before the drought, taking his cue from the business-friendly American Farm Bureau, Douglass used to make fun of the concept of global warming. Now that he’s a victim of it himself, in the form of the drought, he’s not so sure anymore whether it’s happening or not. (Naturally, he can’t follow this line of thinking too far—coal, after all, is still king.) Nevertheless, his newfound environmental awareness has apparently not awakened in him an appreciation for just how precious a resource water can be. But he has at least found a way to turn the drought to his advantage.

The evidence for this is a report his department recently issued on water quality data collected in the Potomac River watershed. As part of a half-hearted effort to comply with the federal Clean Water Act, several years ago Douglass established the Agricultural Water Quality Lab in Moorefield, the poultry capital of West Virginia. The giant poultry operations that have proliferated in that area since the beginning of the decade have been the prime suspects in the rapid growth of fecal contamination in the Potomac headwaters.

In a well-publicized press conference, Douglass stayed true to his role as agribusiness cheerleader, announcing with great fanfare that preliminary data examined by the lab had exonerated the poultry industry as the source of this fecal pollution. This conclusion of course had no basis in fact.

As faithful guardian of West Virginia rivers Pam Moe-Merritt noted in a subsequent op-ed piece in the Charleston Gazette, "bacteria don’t have feet." The data that Douglass was trumpeting had all been collected during the drought--meaning there was no significant rainfall to carry the bacteria-laden poultry manure from the sheds and fields down to the rivers and streams. The data, therefore, did not support Douglass’ conclusions--a point underscored by the scientists at the Cacapon Institute, who are conducting an independent study of the same region. Furthermore, what makes Douglass’ statement stink worse than a poultry shed is the fact that data collected in the nine months before the drought began was mysteriously missing from his report.

So much for "science"--which corporate apologists, by selectively reading the data, are always invoking as their reason for opposing environmental regulations.

Here’s another great example of that: when the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced a ban on two widely used agricultural pesticides for the neurological damage they do to children, a Hampshire County orchardist told West Virginia public radio--referring to environmentalists--"I hope they all choke to death on a worm." He claimed the "science" wasn’t there to support the ban.

Now I happen to know this guy, because he’s one of our county commis- sioners. He is a rabid fundamentalist who not only thinks that global warming is a hoax perpetuated by one-world government socialists, but he also rejects the ideas of evolution and the Big Bang. He says he gets all the science he needs from the Bible, and so he can spray all the chemicals he wants — which he does, enthusiastically. He views the idea that "man" can harm the environment as a humanist conceit.

Studies indicate that most urban residents now carry traces of at least six different pesticides in their urine. A spokesman for the WV Department of Agriculture recently suggested that the presence of pesticides in drinking water was due to "housewives spraying their flowers."

Moe-Merritt rightly pointed out in her Gazette column that "every farming state in the country has significant water quality problems due to agriculture." But it’s not just our country—it’s every country. And it’s not just water quality—it’s quantity.

An alarming report released last month by the Worldwatch Institute warns that "water scarcity is now the single biggest threat to global food production." Water tables are dropping on every continent, with the primary reason being that "farmers are pumping groundwater faster than nature is replenishing it" in the world’s major food-producing regions. There is an annual water deficit worldwide of about 160 billion cubic meters, which is the amount used to produce nearly ten percent of the world’s grain. The Green Revolution isn’t so "green."

Aggravating the situation is global climate change, which the report suggests will likely result in a "reduction in available water supplies during the summer months, when farms and cities need water most. In addition, for some period of time, our reservoirs and water systems will be poorly matched to altered rainfall and river flow patterns, creating additional vulnerabilities in our water and food systems."

You would think Gus Douglass would have already figured that out.