How are you "wasting water" when you leave your faucet running?

TomHurtins wrote:

Really have something against liberals? They're not letting you enjoy modern technology? Oh wait, who are the ones making the largest advancements in science and technology again?

25 years ago as a fresh MS grad (actually hadn't defended yet) applying to PhD programs, I worked at an EPA research lab. I was a Rush Limbaugh fan at the time (have since turned against him and haven't listened in 15 years) and listened in my office but would turn it down when people came around, a little scared to ruffle feathers. I did not turn it down when the lady came and delivered mail each day. One day she stopped, listened for a minute, and said "oh, it's that Rush Limbaugh guy. Everyone in this building listens to the show".

Those making advances in science and technology are about half foreigners, 3/4 people who couldn't give a rip about politics, some liberals and some conservatives. Maybe there are more liberals, but conservatives are well represented. There is some overlap, but the people fixing problems are not the same people who gripe about problems.

One Summer, our city officials started crying over the water supply. They said to everyone not to shower long, wash your vehicles, water the lawn, etc.

The next day I went out to the front hose and squeezed the nozzle and guess what? The same amount of water came out as before. Same pressure too.

No water shortage at my house. I had a green lawn, clean cars, and sweet smelling pits.

The Earth is 3/4 water. There is no shortage.....just stupid people who cannot figure out how to effectively transport it. Not my problem.

So, we COULD say we are not wasting water.

What we are wasting is the water districts efforts at maintaining a plentiful supply of available tap water.

What the water district is wasting is the taxpayer money.

I get my water from my own well in my front yard. I'm 3000 miles from California, so I don't feel the need to conserve. Have a wood stove, uses firewood which I cut. Again, no need to conserve.

Those are my renewable resources.

Fatal Attraction wrote:

So, we COULD say we are not wasting water.

What we are wasting is the water districts efforts at maintaining a plentiful supply of available tap water.

What the water district is wasting is the taxpayer money.

Exactly. Water is a "progressively" priced. Therein lies the problem.

Don't eat plants. It takes a lot of water to grow a plant. Quite a bit more than would go down the sink with the faucet running for a few seconds.

You can also save water by peeing outside. This is less useful an idea if the neighbors are watching though.

As a water treatment plant superintendent for a municipality, this thread has been entertaining to say the least.

A few pretty good responses already, but I'll jump in.

As far as the "water cycle" stuff. I'd say the OP can be right, but as the engineer pointed out. Just because you're municipal water comes out of the ground, doesn't mean the water that leaves the wastewater plant is going back into that same aquifer.

However, I can assure some of you, that in the vast majority of cases. You're not pulling anywhere near potable water out of the ground. There are some areas of the country that get that lucky. But it general ground water is hit or miss. And in my experience. Is mostly not great.

I wanted to address Aquamando's comments directly though because it's an interesting display of the lack of awareness surrounding this industry. When you're water district asks you to use less water, it would be freaking nice if you had the kindness to do so. What you don't realize is that every plant only has so much capacity to treat water, and so much storage on hand. Likewise, water usage ("demand" as it's called in the industry) is very dependent on season and time of day. Now law states, that the system pressure can't drop below 20PSI without having to re-disinfect the entire thing. So it's highly unlikely you'd ever see that happen. But what's happening behind the scenes when you're blissfully watering the crap out of your lawn, mid morning in July. Is that everyone else who is getting up to go to work, and also water there lawn, is using up way more than the plant can produce. Which does present the very real possibility that the town will effectively "run out". Meaning your water district would have to start telling industrial customers they have to quit using today, citizens have to quit using as much, etc and potentially enforce some sort of punitive damages for a failure to do so.

Not to mention the fact that pushing the plant harder than it should be run in order to satisfy the demand, makes treating the water to the same standard very much more difficult. You also might be causing your treatment plant staff to have to work copious amounts of overtime for months on end (I know I know, cue the sad music for the overtime-working gov't worker). All so you can have a green lawn.

Beyond reservoirs, or a river that supplies my water treatment plant, (surface water is what they are classified as) are wells.

Wells do NOT replenish quickly in a lot of cases. A heavy downpour doesn't turn that baby around.

Another town local to me last year had to put on water restrictions, not because the plant couldn't treat the water fast enough, but because their water source, wells, were getting very very low. A light snow year for the north east in winter '15-'16 lead to low water tables to start the spring season. That turned into them hurting for a source for water in mid-August.

In California and the Northeast United states, a lot of rivers, wells, reservoirs, etc are replenished by the melting snowpack in the spring. Without deep snow that is usually typical of region, the water just isn't there.

Alls I really need is enuf HtwoO to flush the toilet once a day and shower twice a week.

Everything's a crisis these days. Flint don't have clean water but its got the Great Lakes in its back yard, figure it out people.

So riddle me this, how long is "ultimately" in terms of finding it's way back into groundwater aquafer?

anecdote. hyperbole. false equivalency. summed up.

Dr Atkins wrote:

So riddle me this, how long is "ultimately" in terms of finding it's way back into groundwater aquafer?

Depends on a lot of factors, huh? Considering NYC receives a bulk of its water from the Catskill reservoirs, a few light snow years might mean years before full replenishment happens. California metropolitan areas are similar to that. And just this past winter for the first time in the past decade, the snowpack is there to gain ground on raising the amount of potentially consumable water.

So how long it takes depends on the weather. Which has become increasingly more unfavorable for the United States in the past two decades.

Although some of what is mentioned in the first statement/question is skewed, it is a correct statement. Conservation is about the COST to continue to have potable water for the entire population, not about whether the water will disappear forever.

I live in a rural area that gets over 100 inches of snow and 40-50 inches rain a year. Unless there is dramatic climate change, the only cost of water use for me is the electricity to pump water from my well.

get your facts straight wrote:

...

Conservation is about the COST to continue to have potable water for the entire population, not about whether the water will disappear forever.

...

In our grade school they are teaching that the earth IS running out of water. I saw posters on the wall where kids were writing that by the year 2025 two thirds of the world's water will be gone. Any kid who believes that is going to end up doing stupid things when they grow up.

DiscoGary wrote:

get your facts straight wrote:

...

Conservation is about the COST to continue to have potable water for the entire population, not about whether the water will disappear forever.

...

In our grade school they are teaching that the earth IS running out of water. I saw posters on the wall where kids were writing that by the year 2025 two thirds of the world's water will be gone. Any kid who believes that is going to end up doing stupid things when they grow up.

Merica!!!!

Who knew there were so many env. and water resources engineers on lrc. Add one more to the list.

One bit of irony is that many municipalities are extremely dependent on the income generated by people dumping water on their lawns. They want you to conserve during times of drought so the source isn't completely run dry. But when it rains and restrictions are lifted, they want you to use water again. The alternative is we always conserve, and water rates are are raised significantly. There is a large economy of scale in water supply. The less we use the more each gallon will cost.

Dr Atkins wrote:

So riddle me this, how long is "ultimately" in terms of finding it's way back into groundwater aquafer?

Between 1 hour and 1000 years, depending on the "aquafer".

DiscoGary wrote:

get your facts straight wrote:

...

Conservation is about the COST to continue to have potable water for the entire population, not about whether the water will disappear forever.

...

In our grade school they are teaching that the earth IS running out of water. I saw posters on the wall where kids were writing that by the year 2025 two thirds of the world's water will be gone. Any kid who believes that is going to end up doing stupid things when they grow up.

I remember Barney teaching you are immoral if you let the water run while brushing your teeth. Silly. Not that you should believe anything from a purple dinosaur, but still...

1 2 3 green wrote:

Who knew there were so many env. and water resources engineers on lrc. Add one more to the list.

Apparently we all have legitimate jobs besides trolling letsrun.