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Mon 28 Mar, 2016 11:41 pm
I've been seeing this commercial on TV about conserving water; it shows a guy brushing his teeth with the water running and the voice-over says something about the amount of water wasted in this way is more than some people in other parts of the world have for an entire week, so shut off the water while brushing your teeth. Does this make any sense? If I don't run as much water does it somehow become available in Guatemala or Sudan or Mumbai? Is this actually what they're trying to tell me? Or is there another message that I'm missing? I understand not being wasteful and I'm generally not, but how exactly does water get "wasted"? It's a cycle, no matter how you look at it or the scale...At my house, I pay for the electricity to pump water out of my well, I use it for various things, it flows down the drain, into my septic tank, through the leach bed and seeps back into the ground. Eventually it makes it's way back into the aquafer and back into my well. It may not be that simple, there may be flows deep underground and my water may never reach me again, but it will get to somebody else's well while some other person's will get to mine. The aquafer is replenished by rain and snow. In a big city the water is pumped up from a river or lake, into the treatment plant, through the supply pipes to the houses, down the drains and into the waste water treatment plants and then back to the river...As far as I understand the amount of water remains constant, the only thing that can be wasted is the energy used to move it around and clean it. Please comment.
@TomTomBinks,
I have read articles about some water bottler consuming vast quantities of water and shipping it around the country. I kept thinking that it was being drunk, not wasted. What was wasted was the bottles and costs of transporting it, including fuel costs.
Of course, once it flows through the sewer systems and into the ocean, it needs to be desalinated, but dammit, a feller's got a right to take a piss without people looking over his shoulder.
@roger,
Even desalination is part of the cycle. It evaporates from the ocean, falls as rain and ends up in the rivers and the groundwater.
@TomTomBinks,
I feel that, once we begin long distance transport of water, then extreme conservation means will make sense.
Now, in Pa we have Delaware and Susquehanna River Commissions (Both Federal agencies), they only impose conservation during droughts and that is mostly to protect water intakes for large cities. They usually tke extreme measures to impose on the water uses of places like GolfCourses (which wasted huge amounts of water)
WQe are better at predicting droughts in more temperate regions than we are for desert environments that rely on natural importation of water from snow melt engorging all the little streams or from large rivers that start deep in mountain ranges
I suppose in some parts of the country water conservation is more important than others. For instance, in a desert community, say, in Tuscon. People move there from other parts of the country and want lush, green yards and plant trees that require large amounts of water, instead of planting native stuff. Collectively, that puts a huge strain on the aquifer, because, yes, the water evaporates but it falls somewhere else than the desert. And I believe it's Tuscon where they are experiencing water shortages, and the city government is recommending that people landscape with xeric yards with desert plants.
Also, a golf course in the middle of a desert is a bad idea and a waste of scarce resources. In the same way, farming and watering huge crops in drier areas can stress limited aquifers.
In Texas until recently we had a huge, long lasting drought. Some lakes--reservoirs--virtually dried up leaving small towns without water. In many places, though, I agree, there is no shortage.
@coluber2001,
The logic of water transmission in the US west has always escaped me. Almost all the water transmission lines are open top aquiduct like structures that have free surface evapo dynamics that assure an 80% resource loss.
In the east, however, all athe aquaduct systems (like That of NYC) are mostly closed giant pipe lined]s buried deeply.
@TomTomBinks,
Personally the commercial annoys me....come on I am a grown adult I don't need a lecture from a toothpaste company on conserving water.
However, I don't think the meaning is that we conserve water thus we will help some one in Sudan. I think the overall idea is to conserve water as we should all be trying to minimize our carbon footprint. I think them throwing in places like Sudan is to drive home the fact of how we should appreciate the ease with which we get our resources and how we shouldn't just throw it away as a result.
That is what I get out of it -- but I don't want a toothpaste company to lecture me on it.
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