One of the most up-setting regulations an earlier President tried to put in effect was the restricting of fertilizers and manure runoff. Thousands of square miles in the Gulf is dead because of the runoff from the Mississippi River. North America has almost one-quarter of the planets liquid fresh water. The regulation was designed to preserve it and keep it safe to drink.

            Soon, many states will be like California and drying up from climate change. Periodic rain and snow storms may help to prolong the inevitable return to a desert environment displacing suburban housing and agriculture. Millions will move to states and areas with fresh surface water. With the oceans rising and flooding coastal cities, their populations will also look to areas with surface water.

            The great underground aquifers are being sucked dry from residential and agricultural use. The Great Ogallala Aquifer of the Plains States is rapidly growing lower with little surface water to replace it. Life on the Plains will have to change.

            Where will the millions of people move to — The Mississippi River and its tributaries, and around the Great Lakes? We must start to be real stewards of our surface water and try to refill the aquifers that the melting glaciers had filled. We must stop polluting our surface water with agricultural, industrial, and municipal waste. Almost every year a majority of Lake Erie is covered with poisonous algae from farm runoffs.             Often we must have some sense and keep ourselves from doing things that harm us and our planet for short term gains. I hope the Biden administration will put us on track to preserve our most precious resource. Where would we be if government didn’t care more for our health than we do?