As students, university life bombards us each day with words. We listen to professors lecture, talk with our friends and read words of great scholars. Words represent concepts through which we understand the world. They are the content of the way we think, the tenets in which we believe and the activities in which we engage. Language is our most powerful tool of knowledge, and it should not be distorted. “The cheapening of words is a great moral danger,” a fellow student told me yesterday. For this reason, we carry a deep and heavy burden: The burden of intellectual honesty and ethical responsibility for the words we choose.

There is an event happening on campus now which makes me question whether we value the urgency of our responsibility to use language properly. One goal of Israel Apartheid Week is clear just from its title: to associate Israel with a hateful regime of oppression, segregation and discrimination. The charged language used by its organizers conveys a message that we, as human beings committed to morality, couldn’t possibly disagree with. Having a huge sign on the main green that asks, “Do You Want Your School Profiting from Apartheid?” leaves no room for objection. This presentation makes opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict mutually exclusive: If you are pro-Israel, you support apartheid. If you are pro-Palestine, or perhaps anti-Israel, you support human rights and equality.

During this week, I anticipate you will hear no mention of life happening within Israel that is the opposite of apartheid. There are places in Israel, like the cities of Lod, Jaffa and Acre, where Christians, Jews, Muslims, blacks, whites, Arabs and Asians work together toward common goals like eradicating inner city violence, educating at-risk children or providing food for the hungry. In this melting pot, citizens live together and possess the same rights. Obviously, inequality exists in Israel as in any nation, including ours, but within its borders Israel is not racially divided. Instead of acknowledging both this positive reality and the unbearable reality experienced by Palestinians in the territories, this week compacts the many things that Israel is into the simple title of apartheid. It substitutes a bold and ugly concept for the challenge of understanding an exceptionally nuanced and politically complex circumstance. Imposing this historical paradigm rife with associations will take us nowhere except backward.

I am a Brown student for Palestine in the most literal sense of the phrase. I don’t support the goal of the campaign, which is divestment of Brown University funds from Israeli companies. Nevertheless, I am a practiced critic of the Israeli government and army. I am grieved by Palestinian suffering caused by their decisions. I want to fight for a Palestinian state that has self-governance, equality, stability and prosperity. I believe in the right to self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians. I dream of the day when the Palestinian state will be established alongside the existing Israeli state. I acknowledge this will require a reduction of Israeli lands and a relocation of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. I only wish that those supporting the creation of the Palestinian state would express with the same fervor the enduring importance of the existence of the state of Israel instead of vilifying Israel and calling for divestment from its economy.

All students are entitled to advocate their personal beliefs, but not to the extent that they trample upon fellow students’ beliefs. I feel trampled by the terminology of this campaign and think others fighting for peace may as well. To those voices that support the existence of Israel to my left and my right, I say, don’t feel delegitimized. Please don’t let what feels like an omnipresent voice of condemnation against Israel alienate you or your views. Contrary to the campaign’s frame, you can support Palestine AND Israel. Ask around, and you will soon realize you are far from alone.

This campaign pains me because it blames one group and exonerates the other. It criminalizes one group and victimizes the other. It offers only a simplified and single-sided view of a very complex situation. My suspicion is that most students believe in both states. Don’t let this week divide the Brown campus. End the polarization that Israel Apartheid Week creates. The world, the Middle East and this campus are divided by enough issues. Let’s make this an issue about which Brown can unite. We as the Brown community can support both the creation of a Palestinian state and the defense of the existing Israeli country.

I lost a close friend, an Israeli veteran and the most adamant pursuer of peace and justice I have ever met, about two weeks ago.  If he were here, I strongly believe he would have been writing this article instead of me. A few months ago, Avi Schaefer ’13 wrote, “Only through recognition of the other side will there be peace.” Let’s recognize each other and use our words toward a constructive end. Brown should move forward together, not backwards apart.

Roberta Goldman ’13 wrote this column in memory of Avi Schaefer ’13. She can be contacted at roberta [at] brown.edu

There was an excellent article in the Daily Herald a few weeks agao on water and the issues facing Chicagoland and Lake county in general. While my shoulder recovers from its flare-up of bursitis I will let you enjoy them.

The oil of the 21st century
BY PATRICK GARMOE
Daily Herald Staff Writer

Suburban sprawl spurs traffic jams, but new roads eventually relieve bottlenecks.

New homes bring more kids to crowd classrooms, but new schools ease the squeeze.

As bulldozers continue to stretch the suburbs, however, another predicament grows, unseen yet inevitable.

By the time today's toddlers graduate from college, among their top concerns will be a scarcity of a simple yet almost irreplaceable commodity.

Water.

Globally, the United Nations says more than half the world will be living with water shortages within 50 years.

Nationally, the issue is so serious a congressional panel issued a 2003 report on scarcity entitled, "Water: Is it the 'Oil' of the 21st Century?"

Locally, the suburbs will not be immune.

Experts in environment, planning and geology all say swaths of suburbs in Kane, Lake and McHenry counties could face serious water shortages in the next 20 years.

The number of people will rise, but the water available will remain the same - putting a squeeze on supplies.

Outlying towns will feel the brunt of the problem first. Unable to draw water from Lake Michigan, they instead must tap into underground pools called aquifers.

Sand and gravel make up some aquifers and lie no more than 100 feet below ground. Some aquifers form in layers of bedrock, up to 1,200 feet down.

Nature alone refills these aquifers. Rain falls and the ground absorbs the water, which trickles down into sand or rock.

Towns sink wells into these pools and pump the water up.

A century ago, when the first wells poked area aquifers, no pump was needed. When first tapped, aquifers would spew water 30 feet into the air.

"Now after a century of use, that water level is 600 to 700 feet below land's surface," says Allen Wehrmann, director of the center for groundwater science at the Illinois State Water Survey.

With water use increasing as the population swells, water levels will continue to fall -from a few inches a year to a few feet depending on location.

"They're pulling it out faster than they can recharge," says Harry Hendrickson, former head of groundwater education for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Think last summer was bad, when the drought sparked water restrictions?

"The water demands we're seeing now because of the dry weather could be a normal demand we see in a wet year in 30 years," Wehrmann said. "And then what do you do when you have a dry year?"

Only when drought reaches out and touches homeowners, or when water bills go up, do water discussions dot government meetings.

Either those discussions continue to flow, or the water in long-term won't, warn experts who've been studying water availability in Chicago's collar counties.

Supply and demand

The math is simple.

Today, 7 million people live in the six-county northeastern Illinois region.

They use 630 million gallons of water per day, or 90 gallons of water per person per day -average use of all Americans, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In 2020, population forecasts show the six-county region hitting 9æmillion people.

If the average holds, they'll use 810 million gallons of water each and every day.

Statistically, there will be enough water overall to accommodate that demand.

Realistically, however, the distribution of growth and existing water sources won't match up. Many towns, because of money, geography or federal limits, can't tap into Lake Michigan.

That means they must rely on the water down below - which will be in short supply as soon as 2020, according to a Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission study.

Kane and McHenry counties sit in the bull's-eye of water worries because they're chiefly reliant on well Among the townships at risk are Batavia, Dundee, Geneva, Rutland and St. Charles in Kane County, and Algonquin and Grafton in McHenry County.

Some spots in DuPage, Lake and Will counties could run into some of the same shortages, experts say.

Naperville Township in DuPage County, Hanover and Rich townships in Cook County, and DuPage and Joliet townships in Will County could be in jeopardy.

The communities in Cook and Lake counties now drinking Lake Michigan water, however, shouldn't think they have no worries.

The rate at which outlying areas tap into aquifers ultimately affects how fast Lake Michigan gets replenished.

"It's like a ripple effect," warns state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Democrat from Lake Forest who has been sounding the alarm in Springfield about long-term water shortages for several years.

The bull's-eye

McHenry County's Groundwater Resources Management Plan predicts the county's population growth, and corresponding surge in water demand, will rise 73æpercent, to about 63 million gallons per day, by 2030.

While there's enough groundwater in the county as a whole to yield 120 million gallons per day, the report warns certain townships may be in trouble given that the distribution of water usage won't correspond to the water supply.

Algonquin, Grafton and McHenry townships were named in the report as in need of monitoring for water shortages by 2030, and Dorr, Nunda and Burton townships were considered to be areas of growing concern.

The future of Kane County's water supply also has been cast in a stark light, though a comprehensive account of its situation still is under way.

Kane County commissioned a five-year study to map the availability of water underground and calculate the future demands of the region. The report by the Illinois State Water and Geological Surveys is due out next year.

"The geological study will enable us to literally take slices of the county in any direction - north, south, east, west," said Paul Schuch, Kane County's director of water resources. That, in turn, can help guide future growth in the county.

Lake not immune

Because so much of Lake County sips water from Lake Michigan, many residents there may feel like water shortages can't affect them.

Philip J. Rovang, Lake County's director of planning, building and development doesn't sound so certain.

About 40 percent of the county draws water from Lake Michigan, but whether enough water exists below ground for the other 60 percent is unclear.

"We project that by the year 2020, there's going to be 280,000 residents living in western Lake County who will have to rely on non-Lake Michigan water," Rovang says.

That doesn't bode well for the county, since some officials are concerned certain aquifers are already being overtaxed.

A study of water availability is due out in a few years. It will provide a much clearer picture of what to expect.

"As soon as the results of the studies start coming in, then we can start reacting," Rovang says.

The water supply could also impact future job growth.

The county estimates 71,000 jobs will come to the county by 2020, a 20 percent increase, but that won't happen if there isn't an ample supply of "This is really a critical issue facing Lake County from an economic development standpoint," Rovang warns. "If we cannot guarantee a water supply to a future business, they're not going to come here."

Outlook dismal

While projecting future water problems is an imperfect science, the decline in well levels is more measurable proof that groundwater aquifers are under stress.

DuPage County suffered a steady drop in well levels before most of its towns switched to Lake Michigan water in the 1990s. Over 80 years, the water table in the county dropped 700 to 800 feet.

Since Lake Michigan saved the day by largely relieving DuPage of its dependence on groundwater, the well levels have climbed, but "it's not coming up as quickly as anticipated," Hendrickson said.

That could be because so much of the land is paved over, making it more difficult for rain and snow to soak into the ground and recharge aquifers.

According to Hendrickson, about 24 percent of DuPage County has been paved over, and "eastern Kane County is headed that way."

People who manage wells see it, too.

Former Huntley Utilities Superintendent Will Smith said some wells don't pump as much water as they used to, and the water levels are slipping.

"Every year they drop down 10 to 15 feet," Smith said.

Experts mean to sound the alarm, but not raise a panic. The future is manageable, they say, as long as communities start planning now.

"Our populations are getting to the point where we are reaching the (the end of) easy availability to draw water," said Larry Thomas of the Crystal Lake engineering firm Baxter and Woodman. "Now we have to start thinking about how we're going to allocate the water, how we're going to fairly distribute the water."