Treading Water in Salzburg
Salzburg is blessed with lots of excellent water to swim in or just to drink. Can you imagine paying a private company for your tap water?
Of all the things an islander like me most misses the sea takes the top spot. Luckily for me I have the lakes around Salzburg to dive into and enjoy the feeling of cool water on my skin. Still, I miss the sea. The lakes are beautiful but you do not get the drama of those raging sea storms where metrehigh waves crash onto the rocky shores as if the world was coming to an end, nor do you smell the tangy, salty smell when the tide recedes. You can float in salt water and the salt and the sun clean your skin of blemishes and spots. The lakes, however, have their own advantages. So rather than an alternative to the sea, they are sometimes a better place to have a swim.
First of all, if you choose wisely like I do, you can actually go to a place which is not crowded, where the water is as clear as glass and the stillness is broken only by the occasional fish jumping out of the water. Secondly, you obviously do not need to take a shower afterwards to get the salt off your skin. The recent yearly report on water quality in the lakes confirms what many of us already know: the lakes are some of the cleanest around. Thirdly, whilst you cannot float around, fresh water forces you to really swim because it does not hold you up like salt water does. This means one actually has to exercise one’s muscles and, believe me, I am one of those who desperately need to do this! There are also no speedboats or motorboats which leave oil spills on the surface of the water. More importantly there are no jellyfish which may sting you. Truly, Salzburg and Upper Austria are blessed with a heavenly lake district of their own. The sight of so much fresh water is amazing to people like me who come from a semi-arid island with no rivers and whose only freshwater source is either groundwater or desalinated water from the sea.
Water is extremely precious to us Maltese and costs a lot more than in Austria because it is mostly artificially produced and the process is costly. I still catch myself turning the tap off when I wash my hands to save water, a habit practised by many of my countrymen. Austrians do not do this because they tend to rely on the fact that it always rains or snows here and water will always be readily available. Last summer people in Salzburg got a taste of what it feels like in southern Europe. One heat wave followed another and water became scarce in parts of Salzburg. Crops died and the harvest in some cases was completely ruined. It amazes me sometimes that millions of euros are spent in creating reservoirs so that we can ski in winter when we need that water literally for our daily bread. Another threat to our wonderful water seems to be lurking in the shadows. There isa rumour going round of lobbying attempts by an international company to privatize the water supply. This must be opposed at all costs otherwise one day we will end up paying through our noses for something which is abundantly available.
On a positive note, I am pleased to note that many young people have taken up the habit of carrying reusable glass water bottles to drink from instead of plastic ones. Plastic brings me back to the sea: you have probably seen pictures of huge carpets of plastic refuse floating on the sea and of whales, birds and tortoises dying due to ingested plastic. I often ask myself: if Germany can effectively create and run a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium cans, why is it so hard for Austria to follow suit?