Push for safe drinking water gains legs - runners’ legs

Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

Running through the Mojave Desert on Tuesday, Sunila Jayaraj saw a familiar answer to drought issues in the southwestern United States, one he's been teaching in his native India.

"Rainwater harvesting is the solution for Las Vegas," Jayaraj said.

Jayaraj ran through the city on Day 68 of the Blue Planet Run, in which 20 runners are taking 10-mile turns circling the globe to raise awareness of and money for safe drinking water projects around the world.

Sean Harrington finished his interval at the Peppermill restaurant on the Strip and, on a small lectern, handed the baton to his wife, Brynn.

He dodged a few concrete barriers and lumbered up and down a couple of pedestrian bridges, and he joked that he nearly stopped to catch his breath with "one of those yard long margaritas."

"That was my fear," Brynn said.

Jazz pianist Richard Johnson, who's played with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, rounded out Team Orange, one of five quartets that are covering the 15,200-mile course.

At a concert in Soweto, South Africa, he became enlightened about water issues when he saw someone finish a six-mile walk to bring a jug of water to his family.

"That gets your brain kind of thinking," Johnson said. "That's one of the reasons I'm here. People just need to recognize that water is an issue everywhere."

The runners were picked from an applicant pool of 400 by Jin Zidell, founder and chairman of the Blue Planet Run Foundation , who started planning the event five years ago.

The run, sponsored by Dow Chemical, started on June 1 on the grass outside the United Nations and will end on Sept. 1 in Philadelphia. It will be staged every other year.

The participants have run through London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles. From Las Vegas, their destination is Denver and then Chicago.

Wherever the baton is exchanged, the runners talk to locals about the need for safe drinking water and direct those who can contribute to www.blueplanetrun.org.

The subject is personal to Jayaraj, 29, who grew up in Kolar, in a drought-prone region of southern India.

"The whole issue, the whole crisis, is so personal to me," he said. "I'm fortunate to be associated with the Blue Planet Run."

He studies flood-related issues in developing countries and is working toward a doctorate at Eastern Michigan University. He sponsors 85 schools in Kolar.

"We're teaching them how to work on rainwater harvesting," Jayaraj said, "and with whatever local water resources they have."

Rainwater harvesting projects consist of creating a diversion for rainwater, a system of distribution and a means of storage.

Crossing Siberia, Jayaraj was disappointed to learn locals hadn't tapped into Lake Baikal, at 5,277 feet the deepest lake in the world.

"So much water is available, but it is not managed well," he said. "There were so many with unsafe drinking water, so many problems."

He was told that, according to government figures, Lake Mead has dropped more than 100 feet, to 1,110 feet, since 2000, its lowest level since 1965. Drought level is 1,125 feet.

The drought and growing population that continue to affect the water supply here can be mitigated, he said, by doing everything possible to conserve.

Then he pointed to the terrain that surrounds Las Vegas.

"With the mountains around here," Jayaraj said, "you could do a wonderful job in rainwater harvesting."