A drop of natural water

To drink perchance to die

In every Catalan village, the casal is always a four-walled testament to the religion of concrete-prone architecture that dominated Spanish construction in the later 20th century.

They’re always a far cry from the ajuntament or casa de vila which is usually housed in some historic building. And if not a pretty building, it’s a structure incredibly modern with massive windows—they say when it rains, you can hear money drip from the glass.

The casal does only as much as it needs which is exist as a gathering point for residents when agglomerations larger than chats in the street are called for. To call the casal a “town hall” would be nearly correct where it not for the fact that a village with only several hundred residents hardly qualifies to be called a “town”.

The village around the casal may be small but everything and everyone has long-had their place. The farmers tended vines and once the grape harvest arrived, they’d tend to their olive trees. There were admittedly few other enterprises as anyone with loftier goals or more to the point, not wanting to work in farming, would move to one of the cities beyond the hills.

The few who didn’t fit the farming mold would find themselves ripe for being a local politician, boldly leading a village that largely ran itself.

Given this, meetings at the casal weren’t terribly common. The previous mayor and village administration had seen to this and if to emphasize the agrarian, nowhere-ness image, the casal wasn’t even listed on Google Maps, despite its supposed centrality and necessity to village life. If you were from the village, clearly, you just knew where it was, it’s the casal, and why are you bitching, again, about the church bells that ring throughout the night?

One day however, in the latter hours of the evening, a notice was quietly dropped into each and every mailbox. Terse and to the point, it simply said that the municipal water supply, was officially not potable.

A spark was lit and the casal was called into service.

The evening of the meeting was cool and fresh. Leaves on the vines had lost their color and were just starting to fall as the cold, northern winds would gust down from the Pyrénées in the late hours of the afternoon.

The village was abuzz being in the middle of the olive harvest. Despite so many having been out in the trees all day, more than half the entire village had filled the casal to the brim. A seemingly-small total, the other half of the population was undoubtedly filled in immediately after by those in attendance as words do not go to waste in the village.

Water issues in the village are a common occurrence. While they enrage residents of cities when they happen rarely, cuts are no surprise and are in fact par for the course for anyone living in villages.

Due to the lack of constant renewal, the water network in any village is comprised of over a century of work both whole and half-assed in nature. The slightest tremor in pressure or perhaps even a wayward sneeze in the wrong direction can and will cause a rupture.

Jaume filling up the cistern tank on his tractor or Enric filling up his temporary swimming pool can cause a disturbance in the force network, taking it down as yet another leak is discovered and patched.

Despite the general acceptance of ever-present cuts, the concept of the water itself not being potable was something quite new and people were more than mildly incensed over the issue.

The meeting started right on time, most likely prompted by the mayor seeing a growing discontent of those in attendance and wanting to speak before the torches and pitchforks were handed out.

“Okay. Okay. So, you’re all here because of the notice that we sent out. Let me explain a bit about our water system. We have two wells for the village.”

He paused and emphasized the well count with two fingers as a visual accent for those not listening in the back or possibly, unable to count to two.

“There’s the primary one and then we have backup. So again, two wells. [again, the two fingers] The primary one has been fine for almost 30 years now because it’s not like our neighbors over hill where they have to keep sinking endless wells just to exist. We’ve got plenty of water. Plenty.”

A beam of pride seemed to wash over those in attendance as to be a village not lacking in water in the region was something worth bragging about even if that was the village’s only real point of pride.

“But what happened was that earlier this month there was that torrential downpour and the primary well collapsed. It’s like there’s just no damned hole now and we can’t use it. So, we’ve switched to the backup. Problem is, the backup isn’t within the safety limits for drinking water because the nitrate content is just above the legal limit.”

“Then why on earth was this the backup well if it’s not safe to drink?!!”, yelled out one of amongst many concerned citizens.

“Well, the limits are new and they’re set at 50mg/l for nitrates. The backup was drilled before this came into effect. It wasn’t really a problem until now and it’s really not that high above the limit. But look, it’s a lot like drunk driving. We all used to drink and drive when there was no law against it and hey, we’re all fine now, right?”

The crowd wasn’t fully understanding the logic given that people did in fact die in great quantities when it was still legal to be hammered at the wheel of a moving vehicle in Spain. The mayor seemed to be aware of the gaping chasm in his analogy as it showed that he had only won the last election due to being unopposed and having a very large family, not through any oratory acumen.

He quickly swerved back on to the highway and the main topic.

“So anyways, we need to drill a new well, probably right next to the old one and yeah, that’s about it.”

“Yeah, so how long will that take? We’ve already been drinking this contaminated water for three weeks!” yet another concerned citizen yelled out.

“Don’t worry, it’s in the works. Look, all of us on the village council live here too so we need it as fast as possible.”

A craftier concerned citizen who’d done his homework prior to the meeting spoke up, “But you have the legal obligation to provide potable water to residents and if the water from the tap isn’t, then it has to be trucked in.”

It was clear that the mayor had been worried about a homework-prone citizen such as this coming to the meeting, although it was also clear that he’d done little to prepare for such an event.

“Well, yeah… you see, we could do that but… it’s a month contract and costs 2,000€ and well, everything should be fixed really soon and so it doesn’t seem necessary now, does it? I mean, the tap water is at 57mg/l in nitrate contamination. Again, that’s really just a little over the limit, so we don’t need to do this do we?”

“Fine by me!” shouted out an unconcerned citizen, “I’ve been getting my water from the fountain at the church square for years.”

“Yeah, me too!”

“Me too!”

“Yeah! I don’t trust whatever it is that you guys do to the municipal water.”

Another village council member leaned into the microphone at that point, “Um, we only add chlorine to make sure it’s decontaminated and safe for drinking. That’s it.”

“Well, I don’t like that! I like my water pure and unadulterated!”

“But, without the chlorine, mold grows and the water goes stale…”

“Un-a-dulterated!”

The mayor looked taken aback at the fervor and excitement the villagers had for drinking from the fountain on the church square. “Um, well, yes that fountain is indeed untreated. In fact it comes from a water mine in the hill behind the village and has no connection to the municipal water at all.”

“Yes, that’s the point! Clean, natural water!”

“Water as mother nature intended, directly from the depths of the earth!”

“Yeah, that strange foreigner lady up on the hill said that it’s the best water and has the ‘higher moral ground’ because it’s so pure! People from other villages come here for this water. Everyone else in the county may not like us but they love this water!”

“Right…” the mayor continued, “But by definition, this means that water is whatever comes out of the ground and in this case, that fountain tests at three times the legal limits for nitrates, something like 158mg/l…” More words followed but we lost in the depths of mumbling and intentional obfuscation.

The room went completely dead for a second and then a tsunami of chatter ensued.

The shock of the villagers that their precious church square fountain was in fact the worst water they could drink was taking a bit to process.

It couldn’t be true, could it?

They’d been drinking that water since they were children and childhood is pure, no?

It was simply, the best, “purest” water there was. Everyone had been saying so for generations. Surely, people couldn’t be wrong?

The mayor did what he knows is best to do with the villagers and simply waited for the rumbling to thin out so as to mop up the evening. “Okay, so we’ll be working on getting the new well set up as soon as possible. Until then, buy bottled water for drinking as well as cooking.”

“Cooking? Why?”

“Ah yeah, boiling water raises the concentration of nitrates. Anyways, we’ll keep you apprised. Good evening!”

With that the meeting was adjourned and it seemed the case that no future meetings might happen again on any subject. A new well was intended to be drilled in the coming weeks, but two months after the collapse, no well had appeared and no work was on the horizon. Questions to the mayor and other members of the village councils were always answered with inaudible mumbles and swift walking in the opposite direction. If encountered in their offices, they would shuffle papers back and forth until the person asking gave up and left.

Instead of the new well being drilled, a reverse osmosis system had been slapped on to the backup well. While temporary, it had all the infamous Iberian trappings of permanence. None of this was helped by the backup well proving to be inadequate in terms of volume and seeing the water cut out on weekends when everyone was at home. It ultimately needed to be supplemented by water that was trucked in.

This new format of water proved to be polemic.

Some men in the village questioned the neutrality of their new water on the grounds that it was too “clean” and this somehow made it “bad” as it lacked the hardness and authenticity of the “real” water they’d long known.

Women of the village espoused their love of its effect on having both softer hair as well as the plumbing not getting corroded as the water was indeed softer, palatable, and undeniably “better”.

The village council only said, “don’t abuse it” as the leading solution to contend with the water cuts on weekends. There was however no enforcement of this decree.

The natural water from the church square fountain that apparently so many people drank, continued to be both untreated and, as there had been little rain throughout the winter, it grew more concentrated and in fact, worse to drink.

A sign was placed above the fountain stating, “No beveu! Aigua no potable.” (“Do not drink! Water isn’t potable!”) The village council, in line with their “don’t abuse it” announcement, found this a reasonable method to ward off all those who intended to drink of this poor, unhealthy fountain.

But even still, once the sun set and a cloak of darkness shrouded the village, there were those that emerged from inside their warm homes, jugs in hand, slinking quietly through the streets like a cat in the moonlight until they reached the church square. They took of this forbidden water as they remained convinced that no matter how much quantity of fact was thrown their way, this natural water was beyond all doubt the healthiest, the best, the purest.

And the casal was never spoken of again.