Globally, twelve percent of people lack access to safe water supplies and nearly one-third of the population wants for improved sanitation. By comparison, an American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than an impoverished person in a developing country uses [...]]]>

Art for Water. Photo provided by Christine Destrempes.

Globally, twelve percent of people lack access to safe water supplies and nearly one-third of the population wants for improved sanitation. By comparison, an American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than an impoverished person in a developing country uses in an entire day. For women around the globe, lack of water becomes a tremendous burden: Women collectively spend hundreds of millions of hours each day gathering water for domestic use. Gary White, co-founder of Water.org, estimates that the associated lost productivity is greater than the combined hours worked in a week by employees at Walmart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target and Kroger.

The stress that accompanies water scarcity around the world is one of the messages that Christine Destrempes is trying to convey with her fabulous, roving project Art for Water. She and her team are currently here visiting in Moscow, Idaho. During their first week, Art for Water visited four schools, presented to the Moscow Rotary Club, and gathered written contributions for a video of her Stream of Conscience installation. To learn more about Christine, check out the interview I did with her (Inside the Well with Chirstine Destrempes).

Christine reports that “A big hit in the presentation is the five gallon gas can that we have filled with water for the students to experience the weight of water. They learn that young girls, mostly in Africa, carry five gallons of water between four and eight miles every day for their families and as a result they are not able to go to school. The fact that it’s the girls that have to do this usually gets a rise out of the group. Most of the students agree that this chore would not be a welcome one. Although there are always a couple in the crowd (usually in high school) who claim carrying 40 pounds of water eight miles every day would be easy!”

We could all use a little enlightenment. Thank you, Christine!

(PRWEB) January 31, 2012 — Water [...]]]>

Check out my new Author Page on Facebook for news about my upcoming book, Taking on Water (due out fall 2012), related events, book tour schedule and more. Help me spread the word by “Liking” my Facebook page.

One recent weekend my husband and I spent one day skiing and the second day plumbing. I had never installed a toilet before, but it turned out to be quite a straight-forward task—particularly since the toilet kit came complete with all the necessary tools. Here’s what you do: Shut off [...]]]>

Living Large

One recent weekend my husband and I spent one day skiing and the second day plumbing. I had never installed a toilet before, but it turned out to be quite a straight-forward task—particularly since the toilet kit came complete with all the necessary tools. Here’s what you do: Shut off water, unscrew bolts holding down the old toilet, remove toilet. Obsessively clean behind-the-toilet dust and scum, apply “wax ring” to underbelly of toilet, and bolt new toilet to floor. Bolt on toilet bowl, attach water supply, and turn on water. And, then…lunge to turn off squirting water valve! Dash out to buy replacement water line, install and Voila!—a snazzy, new toilet that uses 1.23 gallons per flush. Compared to our old, water-guzzling, 1980s vintage toilet—which rang in at 2.9 gallons per flush—this was a great improvement. I calculated that we’d likely save 150 gallons of water per month or nearly 1,800 gallons each year. Who needs a plumber?

The blogosphere is showing recent interest in curbing our food waste. A Grist story suggests the average American family of four throws out an estimated $130-$175 per month in spoiled and discarded food. Money, as they point out, that’s going into the garbage or compost [...]]]>

Food: Don't Waste It. Photo by "Lilszeto"

The blogosphere is showing recent interest in curbing our food waste. A Grist story suggests the average American family of four throws out an estimated $130-$175 per month in spoiled and discarded food. Money, as they point out, that’s going into the garbage or compost bin rather than paying off credit cards. Much of this food is tossed because it is: past its due date (quite often a false construct), not as fresh as it once was, too much to consume, or has actually been allowed to spoil.

The implications of all this food waste are not just felt in our collective pocketbooks. A recent study in the United Kingdom calculated that embedded water in food waste within the country accounted for one and a half times the volume of water that people actually used in their homes. The implications of our laziness are rather stunning: These foods end up in landfills where they produce untold amounts of potent methane, a gas 23 times more effective in trapping heat in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. (Note that landfills account for 34% of our total methane emissions.) We are also unnecessarily depleting soils and applying tons of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for foods that are never eaten. It is estimated that fully one quarter of U.S. water consumption is used to produce this wasted food. And, finally, the energy required to produce this food is on the order of 300 million barrels of oil. This is—now hold your hats—more than is extracted annually from the oil and gas reserves off our shores, more than could be gained from many popular energy-efficiency strategies, and more than we might produce as ethanol biofuels derived from grains.

Check out the great cover art for my upcoming book, Taking on Water. Thanks to Sasquatch Books!

Aqui·fer \ˈa-kwə-fər, ˈä-\, noun: A water-bearing stratum of permeable rock, sand, or gravel. [...]]]>

Aquifer I. Acrylic and pumice on canvas, 30" x 30", by Wendy Pabich

Aqui·fer \ˈa-kwə-fər, ˈä-\, noun: A water-bearing stratum of permeable rock, sand, or gravel.

For quite some time now, my husband and I have been hard at work trying to reduce our direct (showers, laundry, irrigation, etc.) and indirect (embedded in products and services) water use. Our results are encouraging and I’m documenting not only reductions in water use, but energy savings [...]]]>

Art by Laura Smith for Southern Nevada Water Authority

For quite some time now, my husband and I have been hard at work trying to reduce our direct (showers, laundry, irrigation, etc.) and indirect (embedded in products and services) water use. Our results are encouraging and I’m documenting not only reductions in water use, but energy savings as well. It is also clear there are other ecological benefits that accrue with our changing choices. The process has been informative, transformative, fun, funny, and satisfying, and at times, vexing. My forthcoming book TAKING ON WATER: How One Water Expert Challenged Her Inner Hypocrite, Reduced Her Water Footprint (without Sacrificing a Toasty Shower), and Found Nirvana (due out fall 2012) chronicles our story.

So while I don’t want to spoil the surprise, I’m interested in hearing your stories. What’s the most interesting, strange, difficult or funny thing you’ve done to reduce your footprint (water, carbon, ecological)? Please send funny or inspiring stories, anecdotes, videos, rules or whatever else you’d like to share. You can either post them as comments or email them to me at wendy@waterdeva.com. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!

I came across an interesting article today by Arif Belgaumi in one of Pakistan’s papers, The Express Tribune. The author reflects on the devastating impacts of environmental degradation in Pakistan, estimated to cost the country nearly 6% of its GDP each year. Not surprisingly, in this ultra-arid [...]]]>

Mugs. Photo by Bryan Pearson.

I came across an interesting article today by Arif Belgaumi in one of Pakistan’s papers, The Express Tribune. The author reflects on the devastating impacts of environmental degradation in Pakistan, estimated to cost the country nearly 6% of its GDP each year. Not surprisingly, in this ultra-arid part of the world, one of the most daunting environmental problems is water scarcity. In response to his country’s water troubles, Belgaumi pledges in the New Year to keep the water from running down the drain each morning as he shaves by using a mug to hold the water. (What he plans to do with that water, he does not say; I assume he also intends to fill only the cup and avoid letting the water run while shaving.)

At first glance, his gesture may seem insignificant—laughable, even. However, Belgaumi then goes on to crunch the numbers: He estimates that he lets about 5 gallons of water go to waste each morning. Over the course a year, he’s wasted 1,900 gallons. He then goes on to estimate the demographics of shaving: a populace of 170 million, 50 percent of which are male and 50 percent of those are clean shaven. If all these clean-shaven men were to be equally conscious of their water use, as a group they would conserve 40 billion gallons of water or enough to grow 70,000 acres of wheat, 24,000 acres of rice or serve the needs of the city of Karachi for 50 days!

And, while one might argue that these numbers underestimate current good behavior—shutting off the faucet between rinses—and overestimate water use, regardless, the point is well made. If we all pitch in—just a little bit—we’ll all be better off. So, what’s your New Year’s resolution?

Unhealthy Waters = Unhealthy Fish (photo by Beatrice Murch)

October 2012 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. First enacted as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, the law was substantially strengthened in 1972 and 1977 to become what is commonly called the Clean Water Act. The objective of [...]]]>  

Unhealthy Waters = Unhealthy Fish (photo by Beatrice Murch)

October 2012 will mark the 40^th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. First enacted as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, the law was substantially strengthened in 1972 and 1977 to become what is commonly called the Clean Water Act. The objective of this landmark legislation was to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters” by eliminating discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the U.S. 

And while the Clean Water Act found great success in its first quarter century, almost doubling the number of rivers and lakes considered “fishable” and “swimmable”, and dramatically increasing the percent of the population served by sewers, it still faces incredible challenges. The 2004 National Water Quality Inventory: Report to Congress estimated 44% of assessed stream miles, 64% of assessed lake acres and 30% of assessed bay and estuarine square miles were not clean enough to support fishing and swimming. The report identified the leading causes of impairment as: pathogens, mercury, nutrients, and organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen, and the top sources of impairment as atmospheric deposition, agriculture, hydrologic modifications and unknown or unspecified sources.

Despite these challenges, on July 13, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2018: Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011. The act proposes to amend the Clean Water Act to “preserve the authority of each State to make determinations relating to the State’s water quality standards, and for other purposes.” The NRDC rightly argues that the bill “reverses the basic premises Clean Water Act – that what one state does affects the waters in other states, and that state policies alone had failed miserably to provide waters that are safe for drinking, swimming and fishing” and that the bill would prevent EPA from requiring states to develop effective clean water protection rules. The bill has not yet been taken up by the Senate. 

As a nation, our water quality issues are not trivial. We have a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico – an area the size of the state of Rhode Island in the bottom waters in which oxygen concentrations are so low that virtually nothing can live, we are contaminating drinking water with fracking fluids, and loading up aquifers with nutrients, antibiotics and microbial pathogens from Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). A 2009 New York Times article suggests that “the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities” and the number of violations had grown over the previous decade. At the same time, powerful industries are successfully lobbying to undermine effective regulation. It seems that this latest attempt to undermine the Clean Water Act is more of the same. As William K. Reilly, EPA Administrator under President George H.W. Bush, said “Unless the E.P.A. is pushing state regulators, a culture of transgression and apathy sets in.”

Have we forgotten the fate of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, which captured national attention and incited outrage when it burst into flames in 1969 (not for the first time, I might add). At the time, the river was said to be one of the most polluted in the U.S. – its surface covered with a brown oily film and trash and debris-filled, thick, black oil slicks — and entirely devoid of fish. The event is considered by many to have largely spurred the environmental movement, the Clean Water Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Is this what we want for our future?

You can learn more at PopVox and take action to defeat H.R. 2018 at Change.org.