water supply – Shelf Talk

With the 8th hottest winter on record since 1895, the Washington State Department of Ecology declared a state-wide drought this week. Though there are limited exceptions for Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett metro areas, thoughtful consideration of your household’s water consumption can only help our local water ecologies. Below are some resources to help you consider how you can reduce your water usage, conserve rainfall, and create water-conscious gardens.

If you live in the Seattle area, Seattle Public Utilities and Saving Water Partnership have a good starting guide for what you can do in your home, from getting a rebate to replace older, less water efficient toilets to free gardening classes for planting drought-resistant gardens. Laura Allen, cofounder of Greywater Action, offers even more ideas in her book The Water-wise Home. Though some projects may seem daunting, clear instructions provide solid guidance for those just beginning as well as those ready to fully revolutionize how water is used in their home.

Continue reading “Living in the Time of Drought(s)”

How often do we really stop and think about the water we consume each day? Not just the eight glasses we’re supposed to drink on a daily basis, but the water from the dishwasher, the laundry, washing our cars, brushing our teeth and that daily shower or pot of coffee. It’s an understatement at this point to say we probably tend to take it all for granted. Unfortunately, for much of the world’s population, access to clean water for drinking and hygiene purposes is a day-to-day struggle.

Many nations and communities without strong infrastructures find transporting and dispersing water to be prohibitively difficult and expensive. According to WaterAid and UNICEF, respectively, at least 1.1 billion people do not have adequate access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion people do not have adequate access to water for sanitation and waste management purposes (as of 2008). This, unfortunately, leaves the inhabitants of these regions in dramatically heightened danger of dehydration, dysentery and many other afflictions that result from a lack of clean water.

The United Nations has addressed these issues on March 22^nd of every year since 1993 with their annual World Water Day, a day devoted to applying and executing UN water recommendations and raising awareness of the crisis. Information about the 2010 event can be found at the official website and be sure to visit the “Events Calendar” page if you’re interested in getting involved with any of the events and festivities on March 22^nd.

The water crisis has also spawned some intriguing books that can be found in our collection, including the alarming and informative Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America by Chris Wood (2008), The very well-written and accessible Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq de Villiers (1999) and Maude Barlow’s passionate call-to-arms – Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (2007).