Hot and Cold Ruination

Day six of No Impact Week emphasizes water conservation, a subject dear to my heart.

I think hot and cold running water may have become our ruination. Long ago, when people had to carry water from a stream or cistern or well into their houses, they were much more conservative in their use of that life-sustaining substance.

When I was a girl we had running water in the house. It came from a back-yard cistern that was replenished only from rain that fell on our roof. Whenever rain came, even in the dead of night, Dad allowed the gutters to flow into the yard just long enough to cleanse the roof. Then he donned a raincoat and went outside to redirect the gutter water into the cistern.

Water conservation was always on our minds. Mother used two dishpans full of water for washing dishes, one for washing and one for rinsing. This same water was carried outside to water flowerbeds in clement weather. No more than two inches of water was allowed in the bathtub. Only Dad, whose farm work involved getting dirty every day, took a daily bath. For daily clean-up we put a rubber stopper in the bathroom lavatory and ran a little water in it to wash our faces and other body parts. Brushing teeth involved one glass of water and no more. We washed our hair in a small enamel basin in the kitchen sink. No one even dreamed of watering a lawn.

These conservative practices were aided by the way we got hot water. It was years before we had a water heater in the basement. All our hot water came from the teakettle heated on the kitchen stove. Carrying hot water to the bathtub a kettleful at a time discouraged excessive use of cold water for bathing, too.

Everything is different with hot and cold running water supplied by municipal water treatment plants. Here in Paradise we have water from Rural Water District Number Two's big blue water tower.

Dennis enjoys a long hot shower every morning, as do at least two million other Americans, assuming that at least two-thirds of our population practices this habit. We use the bathroom lavatory like a shower, letting water run continuously while we wash our hands and faces and brush our teeth. We rinse dishes under running water before loading them into the dishwasher. Single faucets that serve up both hot and cold water have made things even worse. If the faucet last emitted hot water and we want cold, we let the hot water run out until the cold comes through, and vice versa. Easy come, easy go.

Water is our most precious resource and only one percent of earth's finite water supply is fresh, drinkable water. Without it life would be unsustainable, yet we use it profligately not just in our homes but also in industry, manufacturing, cooling nuclear reactors, agriculture, and recreation. Now fracking is further despoiling our water resources and rapidly depleting the Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath the Great Plains and which many people depend on for their household water. The aquifer accumulated over millions of years, but we will use it all up in this century.

Ah, what fools we mortals be.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer