This week’s episode follows up on last week’s interview with Aaron Baumann of the Watershed Management Group. WMG proposes that our area’s water supply can be made independent of the Colorado River by increased efficiency of rainwater harvesting, gray water reuse and reduction of personal water use from the current average of 120 gallons a day to 40. That is rather ambitious, but if you consider that in desert areas in other parts of the world, people use as little as 2 gallons a day, the objective appears more approachable.
Saving water is about many little things adding up to a lot. If, for instance, a faucet leaks 1 little drop of water per second, it adds up to several thousand gallons in a year. So reducing personal water use is very much a matter of shaving off a little bit here and a little bit there. Replacing a washer costs 50 cents. A thousand gallons of water, about 50 bucks.
Saving water is very much a personal thing: it is about cooking dinner, about personal hygiene, about going to the bathroom. So I would like to share with you my personal efforts to pinch the flow.
Bypassing the bathroom, my main beef is with the kitchen sink. About 20% of the water we use goes through it and from personal experience, while doing the dishes every morning, I’d say that about half of that goes in as good, clean water, just running off while I wait for the temperature to rise or because I lack a third hand to control the faucet while the other two are engaged in washing activities.