I've been getting updates from the friendly folks at www.useitwisely.com around water resources and the most recent tweet I found was the "100 Ways to Conserve" list that they compiled most recently.

I must say, I truly appreciate these helpful hints and here are a few that I haven't heard in the past:

#10: For cold drinks keep a pitcher of water in the refrigerator instead of running the tap. This way, every drop goes down you and not the drain.

#17: Collect the water you run to rinse off veggies and water the houseplants with it.

#28: Put food coloring in your toilet tank. If it seeps into the toilet bowl without flushing, you have a leak. Fixing it can save up to 1,000 gallons a month.

#61: Next time you add or replace a flower or shrub, choose a low water use plant for year-round landscape color and save up to 550 gallons each year.

#75: Drop your tissue in the trash instead of the toliet and save water every time.

Check out the complete list here and challenge yourself to adapt 5 of them. 

I think personal sustainbility is KEY to combating issues like water usage, global warming and others- however, i think there needs to be a closely related effort to monitor industry and agriculture when it comes to water usage and how better to have those facets of American life recognize their usage and how to better manage it.  To do this without "blue washing" is key and necessary when it comes to the sustainability of water on this planet.  These industries use 80% of our fresh water in the United States. How do we work on that?

YouthNoise got the opportunity and privledge to work with an outstanding group of people in coordinating an event last week that YouthNoise was a co-partner with. I traveled to New York before the Baltimore summit on Thursday, Feb. 19th to help host "The Water Front" screening, panel and party which took place at the Brecht Forum, an amazing space for social activism. 

We partnered with some amazing organizations- Food and Water Watch, Media that Matters, and of course, Liz Miller and her film "the Water Front" which I highly recommend viewing.The best part that happened was probably the high attendance (the place was packed with 80 people) and the amount of interest of people wanting to take on new actions, etc. Four participants took home a dvd to show and screen on their campuses and in their communities, and others discussed how they wanted to create dialouge around water in the United States. Very successful!

Here are some photos from the event:

Set UP:

Leah Sapian, Media that Matters and Panelist.

Liz Miller, Director of "The Water Front" 

Packed house at the Brecht Forum:

Liz Miller, answering questions about the film:

Lauren (YN), Tennillee (E.P.I.C. and DROP participant), Valerie (YN DROP Intern), James (YN Staff)

Leah, Media that Matters, Rachael from Food and Water Watch New York City, Lauren

Liz and Dustin, long time friend from film school!

Overall, this event couldn't have been possible without Food and Water Watch and all the amazing people that helped create it. I was truly inspired by Rachael, Leah and Liz as well as the folks that showed up on a Thursday night to discuss these vitally important issues to our communities, country and world. 

I'm sitting here thinking about my personal water intake. Ever since working on the DROP campaign and learning more about our consumption of fresh water here in the good ol U.S. of A, I've really cut back my usage in a number of ways. (go me)

1. I NEVER drink bottled water. Not going to pay for that nonsense, espceically when the tap is delicious.

2. Not sure if I should admit this, but I have reduced my shower time to approx. 3-5 minutes. (after learning that non-low flow shower heads use approx. 5-7 gallons A MINUTE) Not only that by I try and take showers every other day to reduce the use.

3. I sign every petition given to me from Food and Water Watch. It makes me feel like I'm doing my part on that whole advocacy side of the world.

4. I turn off the tap when brushing the teeth, washing the face, basically doing anything in the sink region of the world.

5. No LAWN. The beauty of apartment style living along with the no CAR thing too. Saves me money, saves me water.

6. Reduce my meat intake. It really blew my mind looking at the facts about meat production - using close to 5,000 liters of water for one 1/4 pound of hamburger. YIKES.

So, here I am feeling a swell about my stuff. "oh Lauren, you're such a great water activist.." Then I took the ..dh , duh, duhhhhhhhh...H20 Water Calculator. 

The Results?

693 gallons of water A DAY- Holy crap.

One thing to feel good about , the average is 1,190

Just goes to show, even living smaller impact lives still means we live in a pretty affluent place where thinking about how much water we consume is pretty much off the radar.

Take the test and see if you rock the water world.  

“Close your eyes” and think back to when you were in elementary school. What did you learn about? Most likely, you learned basic math, reading and spent a lot of time making really cute art. You probably didn’t learn about the environment and scarcity of natural resources. In fact, that information probably didn’t cross your curriculum until high school or college.

I will admit that until high school, I was not even aware that the environment existed. To me, the forest, water, flora and fauna were always things that were just kind of there. Freshman year in high school I had a great biology teacher, Mr. Milestone, who required 25 hours of public service to pass his class. I signed up to participate in the extermination of invasive species (plucking plants that looked all the same to me) in the Crissy Field, a wetlands area in San Francisco. But I learned about the environment and how we can all do little things to help preserve it. I think that was my first step as an activist and advocate.

If we learn about the environment, we are more likely to protect it. This means if we learn about the environment early on, say in elementary school, we will grow up more aware and are more likely to curb habits that have an adverse effect on the environment. Recently, I came across a water conservation poetry contest from the NYC’s Dep. of Environmental Protection. Kids in elementary school wrote about water and why it’s important to conserve it. They will grow up into conscious citizens. Now, imagine what a positive impact everyone could have if environmental education was mandatory and every kid grew up with a sense of moral obligation. Here is one of the many wonderful poems:

Drip Drop

Drip drop, drip drop
We use water a lot,
We must be careful not to waste
Water when we use toothpaste
Water is a precious gift
It allows the boat to drift.
Water cools us down when we’re hot,
And it helps the flowers in the pot.
Water‘s hot, water’s cold
Let us drink ‘til we are old.
Water’s good, water’s fresh
Let’s be sure to waste it less.
Drip drop, drip drop,
We think that water rocks!

Talib
St. Agatha School
Brooklyn
4th Grade

I take water for granted.

It's true. Over this faceless, highly impersonal medium of self exposition, I can bare soul and admit that. In this regard, I think I am, unfortunately, in the majority. It isn't that I waste water by any means. No no. A born and bred Southern Californian, conservation is in my blood. Sad Diego is basically in a perpetual drought. I turn off the water when I brush my teeth. I judge my neighbors who over water their exotic, liquid leeching, non-native landscape artwork, bending laws of desert ecosystems to their will. I take speedy showers. Heck, I skip showers altogether. However, being judgmental and dirty are not the same thing as being appreciative of water.

  Simply put--when I turn on a tap, I expect water to come out. It's so logical. It is what happens 99.9% of the time. The best way of course to appreciate the miraculousness of this fact, is to have it wrenched from you at the very least convenient of times. Like, for example, this Sunday morning when I woke to get ready for Take Back the Tap, my very first event to cover for YouthNOISE, an event to which I should absolutely show up looking presentable, alert and like I had ever taken a shower. As per the plan, my cell phone alarm unceremoniously wakes me up and I drag my grimy, mid term stenched self from the cozy embrace of my twin sized dorm bed and into the bathroom. There I learned that instead of emitting my top choice in tap emissions, water, my shower would emit only other worldly gurgling noises. Dismayed, I took a moment and reflected that the possibility of this happening had not occurred to me. This is because I take the presence of clean, useable water in my life utterly for granted.

So, the moral of this ironically timed juxtaposition of events is this: let's start making conscious efforts to appreciate the abundance of assets our delightful homeland affords us, to mobilize in support of getting everyone in the world access to clean useable water, and finally to stop leaving showers until the very last second before a major event, because clearly, you just never know.

For those of you concerned, the epilogue to the Shower Story was that the hot water had been turned off to the entire bathroom, however cold water was available in the kitchen. One sink shower and one highly amused roommate later, I made it to the fantastic Take Back the Tap event in conditions suitable for human interaction and the day was saved.