Watery Farewell

This is it.

This is my final blog as a Water Conservation Office intern.
This is my second to last week as a student at the University of Georgia.
My graduation on the 14th of December looms nearer and nearer...ever present on the horizon.
I just attended my last home football game (after five seasons) as a UGA student. --Wreck Tech--

My blood bleeds red and black.  But because of this internship, it bleeds blue too.

The things I've learned I've shared with you in all the water conservation station posts.
I hope to have also shared some of my heart with you.
Sometimes it's hard to reach through the internet and connect to readers you never see, but all you can do is be honest and hope those reading believe you.
One thing I have learned is that blogging is a conversation.  It's not a lecture, it's not a scientific paper.  It's me talking to you.  It's the two of us sharing ideas, facts, and news.
Sure, it's not the same as sitting together on North Campus enjoying a beautiful November day, but it's the new age, and as I've mentioned before, it's adapt or get left behind.
Thanks for adapting with me.

To my readers: this has been a beautiful, months long conversation with you.  I will miss talking with you every Tuesday morning.  Thank you for listening.  Please keep coming back to support the new bloggers for Team Water, they love to see your comments and your page views.

To my office: thank you.  This internship has been priceless.

Love,
Annaliese Ashley-Intern

Thanksgiving Water Conservation: Possible?

Last week I talked about how important water is to us, and how thankful I am for it.

With my favorite holiday (Thanksgiving) right around the corner, I wanted to explore water conservation options during the big meal.  It's not something that I would normally think of, but this internship has really opened my eyes to always thinking about conserving our H2O.

Let's start with food prep:

Frozen foods?
Defrost them in the refrigerator instead of running them under hot water.  It just takes a little bit of thinking ahead to transfer foods from the freezer to the fridge.  But...if you're cooking the big meal, you'll be doing a lot of planning anyway.

Washing fresh vegetables and fruit?
Designate a bowl with fresh water instead of sticking them under running water.  Your veggies, fruits, and water bill will thank you.

What's so bad about running your tap water?  Every minute can mean 2 gallons of water down the drain.

Moving onto cooking:

Frying your turkey?  
This is something I've never tried...but for those of you that love watching it sizzle in that deep fryer, I have some tips for you after it's done.
So, what do you do with it?
-You can put it back in the original container, freeze it, and reuse it up to 6 months later.  It might sound strange...but some of the best restaurant food I've had has been cooked with old grease.
-You can add unscented kitty litter, sand, or sawdust to the grease to solidify it, then put it in the garbage.
-You can let it solidify and dump it on trash day.
-Please, Please, PLEASE don't pour the grease down your sink!  There's a large possibility it will congeal and block your pipes...and I'm quite sure plumbers would rather not work over the holidays to clean out turkey grease...especially if they're not getting to eat any of that delicious turkey.

Now to the clean-up:

Fancy china?
I definitely hand wash my Thanksgiving dishes, what with the fancy plates and glasses and all that hoity-toity stuff.  The EPA recommends that you fill one side of your sink with soapy water, place all your dirty dishes in it, scrub, then transfer to the other side for rinsing.  But...don't let the rinsing-side have running water, until you have a pile of dishes to rinse at once!

Crumbs?
Don't put them down the sink, put them in the trash using a paper towel or paper napkin.  The garbage disposal uses a lot of water, so keep that to a minimum.

These tips can help you save up to 10 gallons of water!  (By the way, that's 80 pounds...hefty)
Every little bit helps, even if it's only ten gallons at a time.
Be smart on Turkey Day, be thankful you have the running water with which to cook a wonderful meal to share with your family.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends.


Annaliese Ashley-Intern

Water You thinking about on Thanksgiving?

I'm thinking about how thankful I am for water!

If I've learned anything during this internship, it's how valuable water really is to us, to our city, to Earth.  As my time in the Water Conservation Office draws to a close, it's really had me thinking about how much water, two hydrogens and an oxygen, really means to my life.

The staff here at the Office and those that work around the clock at our treatment and reclamation facilities...Athens wouldn't run without them.  In fact, we couldn't have Thanksgiving dinner without those that give up their holidays to keep our water clean and running.

Even beyond Athens, water is essential.

Our bodies are about 60% water, our  brains are 70% water, and our lungs are nearly 90% water.  Without water...we'll die.  It helps keep our body temperature normal, it keeps our joints cushioned and functioning properly.  It protects our spinal cord, lungs, and other sensitive tissues.  It gets rid of wastes we create through other essential bodily processes (like digestion, breathing, growing, etc).  It helps keep us cool in the heat (perspiration).

The list goes on...our bodies can't function without it.

The importance of water is even bigger than our bodies.

The Earth needs it.  "The Blue Planet," is called that for a reason: it's 70% water.  However, 97% of that water is saltwater, which, unless it's desalinized, is useless to us.  The remaining 3% is freshwater (useable), but 2% is frozen in our ice caps and glaciers.

We have 1% of all the water on Earth to use.

All of that water, salt and fresh, fill the oceans, rivers, lakes, and underground reservoirs that support animals, plants, and human existence.  And, by the way, most of Earth's species live solely in water.
There are an estimated 7million species (excluding bacteria and viruses) living on Earth.  40,000 of those are fish.   200,000 are molluscs, 150,000 are crustaceans, 14,000 are echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, etc), and several thousand sponges and jellyfishes. 

That's over 404,000 species living in the water...not to mention the insects that lay their eggs in the water...and the plankton.

AND all terrestrial species (that includes us) share water with them.

Isn't the Earth cool?  I know I just threw a lot of numbers at you, but it just goes to show how many living things besides us rely on having clean water.  Makes me even more thankful that some humans (like those that are on our water team in Athens) dedicate their lives to keeping it clean.

Annaliese Ashley-Intern

Wet Feet: Understanding your water footprint

Everyone has heard of a carbon footprint, but have you heard of a water footprint?  A water footprint is the total amount of direct and indirect water used by an individual or manufacturer.  

Direct water use is when you turn on a faucet or a hose.  Some examples include brushing teeth, showering, flushing the toilet, washing a car, or watering a garden.  
Indirect water is needed to produce, grow, or manufacture the items we use every day. It refers to the water necessary for producing steel for your car, growing cotton for your jeans, and processing your hamburger meat. 

Understanding how you contribute to your water footprint is the first step to creating a culture of conservation and protecting water on a larger scale. For example, did you know that almost 70% of the freshwater withdrawn is used in agriculture to produce everything from beef to wheat? 

Check out this table to learn how much indirect water is used to produce everyday items.
 

Item	Gallons of Water Required to Produce
1 pound of chocolate	3,170
1 pound of beef	1,799
1 gallon of wine	1,008
1 gallon of milk	880
1 gallon of coffee	880
1 gallon of beer	689
1 pound of chicken	468
1 pound of wheat	134
1 gallon of tea	128

Want to dry up your water footprint a little bit?  Here are some things you can do:
 

Reduce Your Indirect Water Use:

• Switch to a morning cup of tea instead of coffee.  It takes 37 gallons of water to produce an 8oz cup of coffee, but only 8 gallons for the same sized cup of tea.
• Buy only the food you can eat before it goes bad.  Indirect water is needed to produce fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, and dairy.  Anything you throw away is the same as pouring water (and money!) down the drain.
• Skip the meat in your meal one day a week.  Depending on how far back you go in the production chain, a hamburger can use up to 1,300 gallons of water to produce.
• Purchase cloth items made with synthetic materials.  Sheets made of 100% cotton requires 300% more water to produce than a 50/50 cotton/polyester blend.
• Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.  The less we consume, the less water we use.

Reduce Your Direct Water Use:

• Drop your used tissues into the trash instead of flushing down the toilet and save gallons each time.
• Run your dishwasher and clothes washer only when full and save up to 1,000 gallons a month.
• Turn off the water while brushing your teeth and save 25 gallons of water a month.
• Save water and cut down on laundry by reusing your bathroom towels to dry off with.
• Take a shower instead of a bath.  A short shower only uses 10-25 gallons, while a bath takes up to 70 gallons.

We can’t create new water; all the water on the earth is all the water that we will ever have on earth.  

We need to conserve and manage our water in order to meet our water needs now and for future generations. 

Learn about your Water Footprint by visiting one of these two sites:

 

Calculate your water footprint here!   

Or here!

Water Conservation Flash Mob

The Athens-Clarke County Water Conservation Office held a flash mob in University of Georgia's Student Learning Center to help raise awareness for water conservation. Check it out!

I Invented Bottled Water

I have a confession to make.  I invented bottled water.  Not the fancy, sparkly Perrier kind.  The tap water in a bottle kind.  

It happened long ago, when I was on my way back from Mexico.  My friends and I had gone to Rocky Point, a particularly hot and humid location along Mexico’s coast. On our way back to Tempe, AZ, we found ourselves truly dying of thirst.  We stopped at a lonely gas station with a drink vending machine.  I looked at my soft drink choices and said, “All I want is water.  I wish they had water for sale in here.  I’d buy it.”  This led my friends and me to a discussion. Who would buy water in a bottle when you can get it for free (essentially) at your tap every day?  We figured no one would be that stupid and my idea evaporated into the moment.

Apparently I could have been very, very rich today.  The Beverage Marketing Corp keeps up with sales figures for bottled water.  In 2011, 9.1 billion gallons of water were sold.  Charles Fishman did some math for me (thank you, Mr. Fishman) and found “that comes to 222 bottles of water for each person in the country.”  Revenue for bottled water in 2011 reached $21.7 BILLION.  Yep.  I could have been rich and driving in my very own Dodge Challenger today!

But my fortune would have been accompanied by a heaping dose of good old-fashioned Catholic guilt (thanks, mom!).  First is the guilt of producing something packaged in plastic bottles.  (For the record, I do recycle my recyclables, but only 31% of all water bottles make it to recycling.  The rest are piling up in our landfills.)  Second, I would have the knowledge I am charging people an obscene amount of money for the water – it cost 1,900 times more for bottled water than tap water!  Then there is the fact I am draining the aquifers on which communities depend.  I take the water from their aquifers and ship the water to other parts of the country, their water never to be returned to their water cycle.  Finally, every one liter of bottled water I produced would require three liters of water to make.  Not necessarily very water conservation minded.    

However, the true guilt comes from having learned about the water crisis facing our planet.  We are so fortunate in the USA.  We turn on our tap and expect water to come out.  When it doesn’t, we aren’t happy and immediately call the public utilities office or the plumber.  If we are concerned our tap water is too icky, we drive to a store and purchase flats of water to transport back to our homes – where we already have a faucet waiting to bestow clean water.  We typically drive over four miles to pick up our conveniently packaged water.  We might complain about how heavy it is, how much it costs, etc.*

Compare our situation to other places in the world.  Women and children walk four miles every day to a dirty well, waste filled river, or shrinking puddle to get their water.  They carry an average of 44 pounds of water on their backs or heads to deliver to their families.  They use an average of five-gallons of water per day for drinking, bathing, and cleaning.  We buy a five-gallon barrel of water to set in our kitchen by a refrigerator that dispenses cold water and ice. 

I am not willing to say bottled water is an evil as others might.  I realize there is a place and time for it.  And it sure would have been a much appreciated alternative in the vending machine on the way back from Mexico.  But, as the inventor of bottled water, I do ask everyone to appreciate your accessibility to water.  Do not take it for granted.  Be aware of it, appreciate it, and take action to care for it. 

Laurie Loftin-Education Programs Specialist

 

*Watch this video to hear some other complaints people in the U.S. have.  This may make water appear – from your eyes. 

More People, More Floods

That title is pretty fatalistic, isn't it?

Well, to water movement, it kind of is.

Everyone has heard of urbanization, everyone knows what it is: it's everywhere!  However, something that isn't frequently talked about is how urbanization changes the water cycle.  Believe it or not, urbanization has lots of repercussions for the water (or hydrologic) cycle.

First, check out this drawing:

This is a normal hydrologic cycle.  It rains, some water gets intercepted by leaves (for life functions like photosynthesis, etc), some goes directly into streams, and some infiltrates into the ground (it moves through the soil and into the water table, also known as the groundwater).  Eventually the infiltrated water runs off into streams, where it evaporates and is sent back to the beginning.

This is a pretty picture.  The grass, trees, and underground reservoirs (seen on the right, where the rocks are) get plenty of water, and the streams are full.

Now imagine the trees are cut down and the grass razed over to make room for a road, a subdivision, and sewer systems.  This is pretty standard, pretty necessary: we need places to live, right?  We're a little past living in tents and treehouses (as cool as it would be to have a Swiss Family Robinson house).  What happens though, when we remove the trees and ground cover is that the soil (where infiltration happens) is no longer held in place.  This leads to erosion, which we've all heard about before.  Eroded soils end up soiling (pun intended) our stream water, which lowers water quality.  More importantly, the loss of topsoil, trees, and ground cover (and replacing them with  impermeable surfaces) decreases the volume of water getting into the ground.  Instead, that water goes directly into runoff: into our streams.

The next step in urbanization is building septic systems, wells, and diverting streams into areas to meet the water needs of the people.  These activities will further the issue of runoff, plus septic systems will dirty our stream water.  Moreover, drilling wells for personal use will alter the underground water level (water table) which can cause the reservoirs I mentioned earlier to lose water.

Bottom line with urbanization: more runoff.

What does that have to do with flooding?
Remember how in a natural system, the rain does several things: 1) infiltrates into the ground, 2) gets intercepted by plant leaves, 3) fills the underground reservoirs, and then 4) runs into streams?
Well, in a concrete forest the rain 1) can't get into the ground through the concrete, 2) doesn't have plants to take it, 3) can't get into the underground reservoirs, so it just 4) runs into the streams.

But, the streams aren't used to so much water filling them at once.  The streams might see that volume of water over time, but it slowly moves into the streams, instead of all rushing into them at once.  The highest amount of water entering a stream after a storm (peak discharge) is significantly higher in an urban setting than in a natural setting.  The streams just can't handle it, so they overflow.  You get a week of heavy rain in an urban area, and you have a flood!

So, the question is now: "what, are we supposed to go back to tents and tree houses and walking and no roads?"  I think that answer is a resounding "No."  It is an impractical solution...it won't happen.
We have to do the best we can with what we have (in all of life, really).
The United States Geological Survey (where I found this information) has a page with some suggestions on how we can, as an urban society, help keep our waters clean.

As a whole, urban societies can:
1) improve urban drainage to slow runoff
2) drill wells specifically to recharge underground reservoirs
3) create ponds to slow runoff and increase infiltration
4) possibly look into reusing waste water

As an individual, you can:
1) keep litter out of gutters and storm drains (remember, these go directly to our streams!)
2) not wash hazardous oils and liquids (like antifreeze, brake fluid, car oil, paints, etc) off the street, but clean it up and dispose of it in a hazardous waste collection area.
3) follow directions for your fertilizers: don't use too much, and try to avoid those with Phosphorous
4) try to avoid adding impervious surfaces (concrete and asphalt), and be sure to keep your yard covered in grass or another ground cover
5) keep your septic system clean!  Having it checked and emptied every 3-5 years will reduce the leakage into our water system.

I know the title might have seemed a little fatalistic at the beginning, but it all makes sense now.  Floods are a part of the natural water cycle, but the flooding frequency has changed with the increase in concrete forests.
Just something to think about the next time you pass a storm drain.

Annaliese Ashley-Intern