Published: August 22, 2007 11:04 am      

As water resources dwindle, hemp an alternative to logging

Only 2.5 percent of the total water on earth is freshwater. Of that, less than one percent is available for human use. Three-quarters of all freshwater is trapped in the ice caps and in groundwater, not available for life-sustaining consumption. Population and pollution effectively reduce that minuscule amount. The problem is that our planetary water supply is a closed-system. The option to desalinate water is too energy-consumptive for the near future. Therefore, any serious long-term drought in the next decade would devastate life, as we know it.

Abnormally dry weather has brought drought conditions north and south of the Potomac Highlands in the recent past. I remember from several years ago when Dan Williams and his gallant crew hauled water into Mount Savage during a severe drought. The water company's motto then, was, "If it's brown, flush it down, if it's yellow, let it mellow." Lately, nearly 98 percent of Maryland has been abnormally dry during the pre-summer months of this year. Western Maryland, which equals 20 percent of the state, has not improved much. As reported by the Times-News, on July 22 and August 1, we've seen only half of normal rainfall in the region. Our last prolonged drought in 2002 lasted for 13 months, pushing most of Maryland into a state of emergency. If this drought lasts through this coming winter we had better learn how to capture our "mellow" urine to recycle it into drinkable water the way NASA is developing a urine purification system for our space stations.

Sadly, the real horror of any drought is not in human terms only. Every living plant and animal species on this planet depend on the same freshwater supply we use. Yet, humans consume 30 percent of all renewable terrestrial precipitation evaporated from our atmosphere. And still, there are over a billion people without safe drinking water. Logging, grazing and cropland industries ravages our planet with overuse and contaminated water runoff. While the rationale that farming is essential to our well-being is self-evident, the prolongation of forest logging is not.

For more than a decade there exists in Maryland and West Virginia advocacy groups for industrial hemp-tree forestry and production. Within five years worldwide hemp-tree farms harvested annually (not marijuana plants) could reduce demand for forest lumber and paper products by 80 percent or more. And that's just the beginning. Keeping the hemp-tree illegal in our 50 states because of unfounded marijuana fears and government-corporate collusion is tantamount to suicide.

While it's clearly established that hemp-tree foliage is not psychoactive, it remains outlawed nonetheless. Most people are unaware that industrial uses of hemp-trees surpass what we can make from forest trees. Even the hemp seeds are a natural source of nutrition, oils, soaps and many other products. Yet, this state and this nation is unable to drag its attention from the war on marijuana long enough to give hemp-trees their due consideration.

Does forest logging contribute to contamination of earthly water supplies? It does big time. Is it more important to perpetuate marijuana hysteria while we deplete our forests annually? Think of it this way: Each year worldwide we log acres of trees in the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island. How many Rhode Island-sized acres of forestland can humans continue to cut down - annually? You do the math! If we don't learn to recognize where our priorities lie, our vulnerability to water scarcity increases exponentially each and every day we fail to switch from logging our treasured forests to logging forests of renewable hemp-trees.

Dave Crockett
Cumberland