the water lady

THE WATER LADY
this morning as i zoomed through the news articles on line
this one about the
water lady from new mexico caught my eyes

cbs news

she delivers water in a big water truck to 250 customers
in the navajo reservation
its the only water source they have

she monthly visits each home emptying the allocated water
in 50 gallon tanks

interesting since there is a lot of water under the reservation
which has been tapped with wells before
but
they all got contaminated with uranium from mines
and
of course all the well users got sick
from the uranium

each person uses about 7 gallons of water a day
they learn to conserve water
eg
they share rinse water with 3 people to save water
when washing their hair
theres no flushing at their houses
bathing is a luxury
no landscape is irrigated
paper plates are used do dishes arent washed
hope they recycle them
we do
we put them in our compost pile

im sure if you looked closely at what they do
we all could learn from them on how to conserve
water

man we waste a lot of water
well not here at the country n

now we during the drought had to have a water truck
bring us water
because i accidentally emptied two large tanks
sure made my pasture real green during the hot droughty summer

so at the end of the article is this link
water usage in your home

click on it
to calculate how water wise your house is
now
since our water use and system is unique
it didnt quite fit our life style and system
eg
we have old toilets but
we do have 10 acres to use to save water
i joke sometimes
telling my wife she
i just saved 5 gallons
probably several times a day as i work outside
its the country way

then
we have a low flow shower upstairs
not because we have a special shower head attachment
well we do have a reduced flow one
but
our well pump is not a high pressure one
so pumping the water 15 ft to the upstairs shower
makes for a natural reduced flow system
plus
we catch the shower water in a bucket
which we pour into a 50 gallon barrel on our upstairs
deck
which is attached to a drip system to our plants in
our front yard
so that system didnt fit the questionnaire

our washing machine dumps its water out to water
two of our trees

nor did our not having a dishwasher
well we do have two
me in the school year
my wife she in the summer and holidays
limiting our water use as we wash dishes
using the rinse water to water our indoor plants
and
our outside ones
so that didnt fit into the questionnaire very well

then
it seemed to over calculate our hot water usage
and
our overall in house water usage

but
even then our overall water wise score was a good one
it calculated our use at 45,000+ a year
i know thats not accurate since we dont collect near that amount
in our rainwater system
a typical house uses 66,000+ a year
a water wise house uses 38,000+ a year
my calculations manually estimates our water usage
at about 25,000+ a year

thats 10 of these big tanks

and now
click and calculate
your usage

what did you get
whats your number

dont let the promise of an el nino winter let your
water conservation measures guard down

the organicgreen doctor