I'm Feeling so Guilty

L

Lon

Well-known Member
Location
Central California
Here we are in a severe drought in Central California and I keep forgetting to turn off the water faucet in the kitchen and bathroom. I have actually posted a little reminder at both sinks to remember.
 

Don't feel bad Lon, you're not alone. An older gal who used to work with me was always leaving the water run in the restroom, and either myself or someone else would follow her and shut it off. We weren't in severe drought, but wasting water is never a good idea. Posting reminder notes is a good idea, many people do it. My mother in law actually painted her stove off buttons in red nail polish, so it reminded her and her husband not to leave the gas on.
 
Lon, I used to do the same thing until I hit upon a solution.

I bought a little spider monkey who I trained to blast an air horn every time I left the water running.
 
pchrise said:
A trip to a hardway store to change them to an auto off type or ask the complex to add them. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_faucet
I at least have them in the shower area to control the water flow. At the home depot those cost about 25 and not hard to put up or take down when you leave.
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I'm wanting to change out the bathroom sink faucets with motion sensing, but the home improvement store only care motion sensing Kitchen sink faucets, no BR faucets. I went to a commercial plumbing supply house, which does have commercial-grade motion sensing faucets, but they run about $400. :-(
 
Leaving the water on is one thing, but the gas? Time to change to electric or move to assisted living...
 
Ralphy1 said:
Leaving the water on is one thing, but the gas? Time to change to electric or move to assisted living...
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Or forgetting about something you are heating on an electric range. I hate to say it, but leaving water running and forgetting about it may not be a good sign.
 
ok.... so I'm going to ask a question that has puzzled me for ever.. I understand drought situations... However, They say that fresh water is running out.. How can that be? Doesn't water evaporate up into the atmosphere... and return to earth as fresh water? Isn't the earth surface made up of 2/3 water? Salt does not evaporate up into the clouds.. SO... maybe I'm dense... How are we running out of fresh water?
 
To respond to your question QS, maybe part of the problem is the ongoing and ever increasing levels of pollution in the surface water. The pollution that is resulting from overuse of pesticides, herbicides and animal waste, all of which have the power to make water unusable. Then there's also the question of water use by 'frackers' and the pollution that is (so I've heard) resulting from Northern Alberta's tar sands and affecting rivers that flow south.

As well, the issue of the elimination of South America's rains forest which is critical to rain production for the planet could be another reason why we are running out of fresh, usable water. In S. America, the forests are initially cut down for the logging industry, the land is then either turned over to cattle production or corn/soybean production which is used to feed cattle and other food animals. Those forests are not replanted as is required in Canada's logging regions. Not sure if replanting is required in the US.

http://rainforests.mongabay.com '...Rainforests provide important ecological services, including storing hundreds of billions of tons of carbon, buffering against flood and drought, stabilizing soils, influencing rainfall patterns, ...The biggest cause of deforestation is conversion of forest land for agriculture. In the past subsistence agriculture was the primary driver of rainforest conversion, but today industrial agriculture — especially monoculture and livestock production — is the dominant driver of rainforest loss worldwide....'

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/11/amazon-global-warming-trees '...The tropics are drivers of the world's weather systems and killing the Amazon is likely to change them forever. We don't know exactly what would happen but we could expect more extreme weather...."

Some possible explanations for your consideration.

Actually, if you do some reading on rain forests and climate change and deforestation, the outlook is quite devastating for the globe if it continues as it currently is going! One site said that in the past 50 years, world rain forests have gone from covering 14% of the planets surface to only 6% and even the suggested required limitation of only a 2% increase in temperature would destroy 85% of the Amazon rainforest. Plant trees folks, plant trees and never buy cheap wood products because those likely come from poached lumber where there are no controls or regulations on replanting being observed! We're sitting on a time bomb without even taking politics into consideration.

 
QuickSilver said:
Don't the water treatment and filtration plants help with that?
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There are no water treatment plants beside the CAFO's that dot the country so anytime there are leaks from the waste ponds, it will find the lowest levels which is where the rivers and creeks are as well and that doesn't even take into consideration if farmers are overspraying that waste onto fields. Fields can only handle so much at one time and I've heard of instances where excess did find it's way into surface water. Nor are there water treatment plants beside the millions of acres of land being used to grow animal feeds which are sprayed with tonnes of pesticides and herbicides every year. So that would directly affect wells in the vicinity I would think.

And while I would think that in the intakes for municipal water needs, treatment occurs as you are suggesting, at the same time, those same issues (millions of tonnes of animal waste exuding methane and millions of acres of monocultures(growing animal feed) instead of natural forests) are causative in changing weather patterns as described by some of the links in my last comment. All of which will reduce the amounts of rainfall in many areas, thus leading to major and devastating droughts in some areas and extreme weather in others which I would think would also wreak havoc in food production.

After all, if your winter snows/rains last longer than usual in northern regions, equipment couldn't be moved onto those fields, thus slowing down planting and maybe screwing with the lengths of growing seasons which might make it difficult to simply shift from growing in say California to growing those products in a now 'warmer' region of Canada or Washington State. Like my little grandson once said to his mom, "It's a doom mummy!" He was talking about a cartoon, but this really is far more serious.
 
QuickSilver said:
Not disputing climate change or pollution... Just wondering how we are running out of fresh water.
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Another thing I just thought of, with the climate warming and the polar ice caps melting (into the sea) and the loss of rain forests to get that weather cycle going, maybe there's less rain overall and fresh water is not being held in glaciers and ice caps like it once was. I think this is probably one of those issues where there are a multiple of reasons.
 
The small town I live in is trying to upgrade the sewer system and pay for it by jacking up the price of water. Consequently the cheapskate in me has made me acutely conscious of water wasting and I never forget.
 
My husband leaves the Electricity on standby all the time and I used to get sooooo mad. So to resolve this every time I see something left on he gets fined 10c, we have a piece of paper on the fridge to write it down on. I am making a profit that goes towards the bill and we end up having more of a joke about it. He certainly doesn't leave things on as much as he used to.
 
U.S. Navy ships have their own desalinization plants so that may be the answer. This may be true for cruise ships. Very expensive, but the oceans won't run out of water. I remember seeing something about towing icebergs from Antarctica to places short of water.
 
Lon said:
Here we are in a severe drought in Central California and I keep forgetting to turn off the water faucet in the kitchen and bathroom. I have actually posted a little reminder at both sinks to remember.
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Don't feel guilty Don. In my kitchen I've had three fires and several floodings due to my forgetfulness and they weren't recent either.
 
I never had an automatic dish washer until 3 years ago. I know I use more water to clean dishes now.
It is not a cheap dishwasher, but no matter what they say, you cannot get by without rinsing them first.
 

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