In today’s GreenSpace column, I wrote about water conservation.
Even in our rain-rich region, it’s important. Rivers sometimes run low. Groundwater, which provides most of the drinking water for the suburban communities, can be depleted. Indeed, portions of the region are considered a groundwater protected area by the Delaware River Basin Commission, which limits withdrawals from it.
Another consideration: It takes electricity to pump and treat drinking water, and we all know how important it is to conserve electricity. Besides, guess what one of the biggest industrial users of water is: electricity generation plants, which use water for cooling.
It takes energy to treat water after we’ve used it, too. And our aging wastewater treatment plants are generally burdened by a growing population, so putting more water through them doesn’t help.
Along those lines, in addition to a private well, I have an aged septic system. It passed muster when we had it inspected, but I still treat it as if it were tender as an egg, trying to eek a long life out of it.
If I’m ever feeling burdened by trying to conserve water, I can always think back to a time when it was more fun: My husband and I lived on boats in the Bahamas for a total of nearly two years. The first boat’s onboard tank held only 40 gallons, the second boat’s tank maybe 100. The more we conserved (and the more rainwater we managed to catch), the longer we could stay “out” — away from towns, which was part of the point.
We flushed with salt water, of course. We washed the dishes in salt and gave a quick rinse in fresh. We bathed overboard, then took a quick rinse with fresh. A good downpour was a real bathing and laundry event!
Overall, we got our usage down to about six gallons a day.
GreenSpace - her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life - appears every other Monday in Health & Science.
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