Jessica Knodel
Water is Life… Use Responsibly
June 15, 2007
|
Jessica KnodelWater is Life… Use ResponsiblyJune 15, 2007
|
Water is Life… Use Responsibly. Hopefully by now you have heard this more than once. It’s a good phrase to live by, or should I say “conserve” by. Water is Life… and we must use it responsibly because in other parts of the world people wish they had started conserving earlier to prevent the crisis they are currently faced with, and we should learn from their scary example of what it’s like living with such little water available.
You probably know the situation here in Williams Lake, but did you know that today in Australia there is a severe water shortage in some areas? The situation has gotten so dire in some southeastern parts that there have been water restrictions limiting water usage to 150 litres per person per day for almost two years now. One hundred and fifty litres per day?! That is a hard number to visualize but imagine three five-minute showers… with low-flow showerheads – that is approximately 150 litres. It is hard to imagine doing all the cooking, cleaning, showering, and gardening on only 150 litres, but when it becomes a necessity for survival I’m sure the sacrifice is considered minimal. In some parts of Australia these days, two-minute showers and turning the water off while soaping-up has become the norm.
In fact, all over the world there are water shortages. In some places the struggle to find water has been going on for decades, while other places have just started using more than nature provides. The only long term solutions for some areas is recycling water, desalinization plants, and capturing storm rain water before it flows into the ocean. All of those solutions are last resort, costly, and, to be quite frank, not very appealing. I mean who really wants to be drinking their recycled toilet water, desalinated salt water, or possibly polluted rain?
Here are a few other interesting world water facts that help everyone to appreciate how valuable water is, and how important it is to use water responsibly:
- Less than 1% of all the earth’s water can be used as drinking water.
- One out of six people in the world today live without access to safe drinking water.
- 14,000 people die daily worldwide from drinking water containing dangerous chemicals or untreated sewage. That’s more people than the entire population of Williams Lake!
Here in Williams Lake, the aquifer has only started to decline - by 0.4 m a year. While this is alarming, we should be happy that this knowledge has surfaced so we can change our wasteful water habits. Each resident here (statistical average) uses almost 700 litres a day which is obviously more than we each need if people in developing countries can survive on less than 10 litres a day, and in Australia others are restricted to 150 litres a day. Now of course not everybody is a water-hog, some of us already conserve… but what we can all do is continue saving as much water as we can, while passing on the word to others so they can start to do the same.
On a different, but still water-related topic, the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society would like to announce and thank the City of Williams Lake and Fisheries and Oceans Canada for contributing funding support vital for the continuation of the Water Wise program until the end of the year. With this partnership we hope in time to announce the Williams Lake aquifer has reached a sustainable level once more.
Water is Life . . . Use Responsibly. For more information on the declining Williams Lake water supply and ways you can easily start reversing and protecting it, please call 250-398-7929 or go to Water Wise. The Water Wise program is brought to you by the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society and is currently funded by Eco Action, Environment Canada. Funding to continue this program is gratefully received from the City of Williams Lake, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, and local CCCS supporters.
First published in the Williams Lake Tribune
- Jessica Knodel, Water Wise Director, Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society
Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society
Unit 201, 197 2nd Ave North Williams Lake, B.C., V2G 1Z5
Phone/Fax: 250 398-7929 • ccentre@ccconserv.org • Coordinator: Marg Evans
Original information in this web site may be reproduced in any form without permission on condition that it is accredited to the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society, with a link back to this site or, in the case of printed material, a clear indication of the site URL. We would appreciate being notified of such use. Although care has been taken in preparing the information contained in this site, the CCCS does not and cannot guarantee its accuracy. Anyone using the information does so at their own risk and shall be deemed to indemnify CCCS from any and all injury or damage that might arise from such use.
