Some people believe that folks concerned with water quality only care about the things in the water, but we believe otherwise. Anyone truly concerned about safe drinking water should also care about making sure we have enough safe drinking water.
Millions of gallons of perfectly good, clean water winds up getting sent into waste water treatment plants unnecessarily because of leaky faucets, dripping spigots, running toilets, and old, worn out seals and gaskets.
One thing a lot of people forget: Once we run out of fresh, unused water, we will have no choice but to seriously consider turning to greywater as a source of drinking water.
For those not aware of what the term greywater means, quite simply greywater contains the water coming from common, everyday activities such as doing laundry, washing dishes (by hand) and bathing. Mmmm… Sounds appealing, right?
Yuck, and worse, yet, once we run out of greywater we will have to turn to… using recycled blackwater as a source of drinking water.
That REALLY does not sound all that appealing to us. How does it sound to you?
In Florida some officials in areas potentially facing a water shortage have decided to alert the public to the amount of rainfall in the region recently and the importance of making sure no one wastes water through leaky or malfunctioning sprinklers, pipes or other irrigation devices.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board voted today to declare a Phase I water shortage for the district’s entire 16-county area, including Manatee County beginning Dec. 1.
The Phase I alert is intended to raise the public’s awareness of dry conditions, and to direct water utilities and their local governments to prepare for worsening conditions. Under Phase I, residents are asked to check their irrigation systems to ensure they are working properly. This means testing and repairing broken pipes and leaks, and damaged or tilted sprinkler heads. Residents should also check their irrigation timer to ensure the settings are correct and the rain sensor is working properly in accordance with state law. ( source )
So… Why did we bother posting this article? We want more people to start focusing on keeping track of the amount of water they may waste on a daily basis.
This may sound a bit backwards coming from us since this site advocates more testing and turning to greywater and/or blackwater would mean a definite need for more testing, but come on… do you think WE want to drink or bathe in greywater or blackwater if we can help it?
As we said before, “Yuck.”
Therefore, if you take ANYthing away from this article, please remember to check your faucets, lawn sprinkler systems, outside spigots, etc.
Water preservation helps all of us… and for those not concerned with the greater good, conserving water will reduce your monthly water bills. Who doesn’t like to save money?
