Monday, January 14

When the well's dry

Today's Water Tip:
Utility sinks can be a source of cross connection contamination. When cleaning your home or business, be cautious of hoses or retractable faucets becoming submerged in chemicals or contaminated water. If a back pressure or back siphon becomes present within the main water pipes of your distribution system, the fluid that your hose is dangling in can be sucked back into the drinking water supply and cause contamination. This can affect both you and your neighbors.

When the well's dry, we know the worth of water. Benjamin Franklin
Do we really think about the worth of water? Ben Franklin knew that water was and would remain a very precious resource. Even back in the 1700's he knew that water needed to be protected. Many people think that water is an unlimited resource that can be used endlessly and wastefully with no repercussion's. Sadly, it is beginning to catch up with us. With the massive use of water these days in many industries, farming, or simply for personal use, time is our enemy. We should learn to view water in a new way. We need to conserve it, and we need to protect it from contamination.

Have you ever gone camping? Dry camping, where the only water you have, is what you take with you. Did you recognize the value of the water that you possessed? I'll never forget the first time I went camping in our new camp trailer that we had just purchased for our family. I had a little boy who was covered from head to toe in dirt. The bathroom had a bathtub, so I filled it up, bathed my boy, and had to borrow water for the rest of the trip. Luckily, our friends came better prepared than I did! I did not even think about the size of that bath tub in comparison to the size of our water tank.

In a way, we should view our water supply as if we are camping. Yes, maybe a bit extreme, but if we begin to think in these terms, even just a little bit, we would save millions of gallons of water in this country.

Water is consumed for a spectrum of uses, turning round and round, like a water wheel.