There are many things that you can do to help preserve our water sources, both at the local level and nationally. These range from actions that will take you no more than 10 minutes, to others that involve regular participation and much more dedication of time and effort. All efforts are important in helping to raise consciousness about the importance of conserving water in your community, and encouraging your local and national lawmakers to prioritize our valuable water resources.
1) Learn about your local water utility company and the sources of your drinking water
Most water utility companies now have a wide array of information on their websites. A water utility website will typically display information on the source(s) of your drinking water, water quality reports, rebates, water use restrictions, conservation tips, and other news. If you don’t find this information on your local water utility website, give them a call and ask them to provide it to you in writing.
Drinking Water Sources and Water Quality
Finding complete information on the quality of your drinking water is not always easy. Your local water utility company is required by law to produce an annual report on the quality of your drinking water, which discloses all contaminants that are regulated by the EPA. This report however does not usually mention pollutants that are not regulated by the EPA, including a wide range of pesticides, chemicals, heavy metals, and other contaminants. In addition to reviewing the official report, we recommend that you research potential polluters such as industries, large-scale agricultural production, or other companies that are found upriver or in the vicinity of your drinking water source. Just a bit of research will help you to better understand which types of non-regulated pollutants may also be found in your water.
Other sources of information that can help you better understand your local water sources and water quality include the EPA site, and the USGS site. To learn more about water programs in your state, go to the “Water, Use It Wisely” site. You can also hypothetically “test” potential contaminants of your water based on taste, smell, color, and other factors, at The Water Quality Association site. If you have significant doubts about the quality of your water, we recommend that you contact an independent testing company to have your water tested. You can contact a local company or an internet-based company who will send you a kit to take your sample, then test your water and forward you the results within 7-10 days.
If you find any significant threats to your local watershed from existing or planned projects or industries, make this the central message of your advocacy. Educate community members about the issues through your local newspaper; write letters to your local and state representatives; and help raise awareness of the threats and action to be taken. If you discover issues with your existing water quality, make sure to inform the public and local/state officials immediately so that corrective action can be taken. And remember to encourage people to conserve water to help improve your water quality.
Rebates
Rebates are not only an important incentive for residents and local businesses to begin saving water—they are also an indication of how much a priority water conservation is for your city, county or state. If your water authority does not offer rebates for water-saving devices, then make the implementation of a rebate system a part of your message to local and state officials (and directly to your water utility company).
Many states and counties now offer rebates for the installation of low-flow or high-efficiency appliances and/or fixtures. This may range from rebates of up to $125 for trading in your old water-guzzling toilet for a new low-flow one (1.6 gpf), or $200 for a high-efficiency toilet (1.28 gpf or less), as is the case in Albuquerque,NM. Or it may include rebates of up to $400 for a high-efficiency clothes washing machine or $200 for a smart sprinkler controller as in Southern California. Most states offer at least one type of rebate for installing water-efficient fixtures or appliances. While the rebates are sometimes state or county mandated they are often managed through your local water utility company, who is therefore your best source of information on which local rebates are offered.
2) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper
Writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper can be a great way to raise awareness regarding local water issues. You can help bring the facts to your community and if well-written, your letter will likely spark a debate and continued interest in the topic.
If you’re not sure where to start, we provide some talking points below that can help you write about a few different angles on water conservation. Just remember to include your own personal touch and make the story as relevant as you can to your local community, supplementing with facts about your local water sources or water quality. The more personal and relevant to your community, the better a chance you have of getting the letter published.
3) Write a letter to your local state representative
Your local state representative plays a key role in making decisions that directly affect your local community and your state. While local representatives often have a lower profile than your representatives to the federal government, they can make an even bigger difference in your community. Give your local representative’s office a phone call, write a letter, or send an email to raise the water conservation issues that you are concerned about. To find the contact information for your local representative, simply look up your State Legislature Website, which should easily direct you to the appropriate representative and respective contact information. Again, refer to the talking points below if you need help getting started.
4) Write a letter to your Congressperson
Your federal Congressperson is responsible for representing the interests of your community to the federal government. Make sure that he or she knows about any water issues in your community, and encourage him or her to act accordingly to improve protection for both your local water and watersheds in the United States. As water is only slowing becoming a high-profile issue nationally, your Congressperson may be unaware of how concerned your community is about it. Your letter or phone call can make a difference in how he or she votes on national legislation, and projects that affect your community. Go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml to find the contact information for your representative. Use the talking points below for inspiration.
5) Write a letter to your Senators
Your Senators look out for the interests of your state, and play a key role in developing and approving national legislation. Make sure that they too know about any water issues that you feel passionately about, and ask them to protect national and state watersheds. Again, your letter or phone call can make an important difference in how he or she votes on national legislation. To contact your senators, go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm# and refer to the talking points if you’d like help articulating some of your concerns.
6) Become active in your local environmental group(s)
In addition to contacting your government representatives and raising awareness through your local newspaper, you can get involved with local environmental groups and begin to tackle issues together. There may already be local groups who have organized around water problems specific to your community. You are also likely to find allies willing to actively take on water issues at your local Sierra Club, Audubon Society, PIRG, Defenders of Wildlife, and Wilderness Society groups. To contact local chapters of these groups, just click on the links below:
7) Become a member of national water conservation advocacy groups
There are a few national organizations dedicated to spreading the word about water conservation, and several national environmental groups who have taken on water conservation among many other issues. We encourage you to take a look at their websites, learn even more about water issues, subscribe to their mailing lists, or become a member. Our top recommendations are:
8) Donate to organizations working to save the environment and our water resources
In addition to becoming a member or donating to the organizations mentioned above, we would also recommend that you check out the website www.saveourenvironment.org which represents 20 different environmental organizations, and is well-organized to help advocate for environmental issues. If you come across other non-profit organizations that are doing passionate and results-oriented work to help conserve water, please send us a feedback email and we'll include them here as well.
9) Spread the word about NUPRANA!
Let your friends, family, and organizations you’re a member of know about NUPRANA, and how easy it is to save water with a minimal investment in water-saving fixtures. Just imagine if your school, university, church, or workplace decided to upgrade their faucet aerators, toilets, or lawn equipment to high-efficiency fixtures—a tremendous amount of water could be saved!
Did you know that many states offer much higher rebates to businesses or schools who upgrade their water fixtures? This effectively offsets an important part of the cost of the upgrades. Often making these changes just requires someone to do the math: How much water will be saved? What is the initial investment? How much money will this save over time? Once you have those figures, you can easily convince the administrators of the need to make the change.
Forward a link of our website (look for the "ShareThis" icon on the left panel of this page) to people who might be interested, post a comment linking back to our site on your Facebook or MySpace profiles, your blog or other related blogs, send a tweet about us, purchase a gift certificate to get them started , and help us to get the word out about the importance of water conservation and just how easy it is to save water!
Talking Points
Why is Water Conservation So Important?
• Water is our most essential natural resource—we cannot survive without it. Yet for years we have been treating our water sources as garbage disposals by dumping toxic waste, chemicals, pesticides, and even sewage water into our pristine waterways. According to a recent report on water quality in the United States, 45% of assessed stream miles, 47% of lake acres, and 32% of bay and estuarine square miles were so contaminated that they could not even be used for fishing and swimming (EPA).
• Now population growth, droughts, industrial and agricultural demands, dams & diversion projects, and other factors have begun to dry up many of our water sources. Rivers are running dry, aquifer levels are decreasing faster than they are replenished, and many cities are struggling to provide water. According to the EPA, a recent US government survey revealed that at least 36 states are anticipating local, regional, or statewide water shortages by 2013.
• We continue to use the limited fresh drinking water that is left to irrigate our lawns and golf courses, and at home we consume much more fresh water than we need to flush our toilets and attend to other personal needs. On the average, most Americans today use around 100 gallons of water per day to attend to personal and household needs. Another 50-70 gallons per capita per day is used to water lawns and gardens. But back in the early 1900’s, the average American only used 5-10 gallons of water per day. If we look closely at our water use, there are many ways that we can cut back without affecting our quality of life.
• Conserving water helps ensure that we will continue to have water available to meet our daily needs, but it also helps to protect the quality of our water. Decreasing water levels leads to higher concentrations of natural contaminants, such as radon and arsenic, or human pollutants, such as agricultural and chemical wastes. The more concentrated these contaminants are, the more dangerous for our health. Excess water use can also lead to sewage system failures, causing sewage water to spill into our clean water. Over-irrigation of crops or yards spreads pesticides and chemicals into our aquifers. And the more water we need, the more we begin to drain wetlands which serve as natural filters of contaminants.
• Saving water also helps save energy. According to the Pacific Institute, American public water supply and treatment facilities consume about 56 billion kilowatt-hours per year, which is enough electricity to power more than 5 million homes for an entire year. In addition, tremendous amounts of water are required for cooling traditional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Water shortages may limit energy production, and energy constraints may limit water availability or at the very least increase the price of water. Efficient water use can also reduce the amount of energy needed to treat wastewater, resulting in less energy demand and, therefore, fewer harmful byproducts from power plants.
Call to Action
We can save 20% or more of our city’s water consumption, just by making a few easy and cost-effective changes to our fixtures and appliances. Let’s begin by conserving the water we have left, before having to drill deeper wells, pipe in polluted river water, recycle waste water, or find some other solution that is more expensive and less safe than what we already have!
Rebates
• Rebates are an excellent way to demonstrate a city/state’s commitment to water conservation. They provide incentives for homes and businesses to make the necessary fixture and appliance changes in order to conserve significant amounts of water. Show that you are serious about water conservation by implementing new rebates for water conservation products in our community.
• According to an EPA study “Cases in Water Conservation”, the introduction of rebates for toilets and high-efficiency showerheads in Ashland, OR contributed to a decrease of 16% in the city’s winter water usage. Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District was able to reduce water use by 59 million gallons per day, thanks in large part to rebates offered for high-efficiency clothes washers, toilets, showerheads, and faucet aerators. New York City saved an estimated 70-80 million gallons of water per day by implementing a rebate program to replace high water-use toilets. These examples demonstrate that rebates are a highly effective means of decreasing water consumption.
• Many other cities throughout the country have already provided for household and business rebates including:
o High-efficiency and low-flow toilets
o Toilet flappers
o Showerheads and faucet aerators
o Sprinkler system timers and rain gauges
o Washing machines
o Dishwashers
o Rain barrels
o Grey water systems
o Grass lawn replacement with Xeriscaping
Call to Action
We can save 20% or more of our city’s water consumption, just by making a few easy and cost-effective changes to our fixtures and appliances. Let’s begin by conserving the water we have left, before having to drill deeper wells, pipe in polluted river water, recycle waste water, or find some other solution that is more expensive and less safe than what we already have!
Household Water Conservation
• According to the EPA, the average U.S. household spends as much as $500 per year on its water and sewer bill. By making just a few simple changes to use water more efficiently, you could save about $170 per year. If all U.S. households installed water-efficient appliances, the country would save more than 3 trillion gallons of water and more than $18 billion dollars per year!
• New technologies for high-efficiency toilets (less than 1.6 gallons per flush or gpf) make them just as effective as their water-guzzling predecessors thanks to the use of air pressure in addition to water. Replacing a 3.5 gpf toilet with a 1.6 gpf model can save a family of four more than 14,000 gallons of water per year. If just 1% of American homes replaced an older toilet with a new WaterSense labeled toilet, the country would save more than 38 million kilowatt-hours of electricity—enough electricity to supply more than 43,000 households for one month.
• If you have a 5.5 gallon per minute (gpm) showerhead, you probably use over 11,000 gallons of water each year showering. You can reduce that to only 3,000 gallons with a 1.5 gpm showerhead. High-efficiency showerheads use new technologies that mean you don’t even feel the difference in water pressure, so it won’t take you any longer to shower than you’re your old showerhead.
• Much of the water consumed by U.S. households is in the yard or garden, for irrigation. Most Americans tend to use two or three times the water necessary to keep the lawn green and healthy. Outdoor watering uses 5 to 10 gallons per minute. So in 10 or 20 minutes, you may use 100 gallons – the amount used by an average person each day for all personal water needs. You can conserve water by simply watering less often and for less time, or by adding a hose time, high-efficiency hose nozzle, or rain shutoff devices for your automatic sprinkler system.
Call to Action
We can save 20% or more of our city’s water consumption, just by making a few easy and cost-effective changes. Let’s begin by conserving the water we have left, before having to drill deeper wells, pipe in polluted river water, recycle waste water, or find some other solution that is more expensive and less safe than what we already have!
City Water Conservation
• Water is our most essential natural resource—we cannot survive without it. Yet for years we have been treating our water sources as garbage disposals by dumping toxic waste, chemicals, pesticides, and even sewage water into our pristine waterways. Now population growth, droughts, industrial and agricultural demands, dams & diversion projects, and other factors have begun to dry up many of our water sources. Rivers are running dry, aquifer levels are decreasing faster than they are replenished, and many cities are struggling to provide water. According to the EPA, a recent US government survey revealed that at least 36 states are anticipating local, regional, or statewide water shortages by 2013.
• Household water conservation is important and by conserving in our homes and businesses we can save 20-30% of the water our city currently uses. But on average in the United States, only 13% of water is used in homes. Significantly more is used for other purposes: 45% of our water is supplied to industry and 42% used for agricultural production. Around 35 billion gallons of fresh water are used by households each day in the United States, while power plants alone consume 136 billion gallons of fresh water each day. Agricultural irrigation uses 142 billion gallons per day, and other industrial facilities withdraw more than 20 billion gallons of fresh water per day.
• To avoid increasing water costs and imposing water restrictions, the city can do many things:
o Implement rebate programs to encourage installation of high-efficiency toilets, appliances, faucets, and showerheads
o Fix leaks and water meters
o Require that agricultural water users be at least 10% more efficient
o Require that industrial water users be at least 10% more efficient
o Use recycled waste water (instead of fresh drinking water) for industrial purposes such as cooling power plants
Call to Action
If our city were to implement all of the above, we could save 40% or more of our city’s water consumption. Let’s begin by conserving the water we have left, before having to drill deeper wells, pipe in polluted river water, recycle waste water, or find some other solution that is more expensive and less safe than what we already have!
|
|
|
