10 Simple Ways to Conserve Water

By Sidor Clare, Grade 9

Conserving water is a big deal. Water is a life-sustaining resource that is running out. It can be overwhelming to read about all the ways water is being polluted or used unwisely. Never fear— here are ten ways to conserve water in your everyday life and why they matter:

1. Fix leaky appliances. This not only conserves water, but it will also save you money.

2. Water your lawn smartly. I know this is a common tip, but it’s important. Between 30-60% of private drinking water is used on yards and gardens(1). It is best to water it before 10am, which reduces the amount of water that evaporates. Make sure your sprinklers are aimed correctly; you don’t want to water your sidewalk. Lastly, you only need to water your lawn once or twice a week with 1-1.5 inches of water per time.

3. Plant a rain garden. These gardens are meant to catch runoff from roofs, driveways, and hard surfaces. Instead of this runoff causing erosion and flooding, it can make a beautiful garden for your yard.

4. Run the dishwasher and washing machine only when you have a full load. This way, you are using less water by washing everything at once rather than doing many smaller loads that use the same amount of water. Besides saving water, this will save you money on your water bill as well.

5. Use brooms instead of hoses to clean outside areas. A broom will help loosen dirt and other things on your sidewalk, driveway, door, and window frames and may prevent the need to use water at all.

6. When washing your car, don’t run the hose. Fill a bucket with soapy water and wash the car with a rag. Only use the hose when rinsing. Even better, you could use a waterless product to clean your car. Either of these water-conserving options can save up to 100 gallons of water(2).

7. Use grey water. This is the water that drains from sinks, laundry machines, and bathtubs. Black water, which drains from toilets, isn’t usable. Anyways, you can catch grey water by placing a bucket in your shower or sink and then use that water to water plants. You could even get a grey water system installed. They reroute the water that goes down the drain and direct it into your landscape.

8. Buy less stuff. Did you know that one third of people’s water footprint is made up of consumer products? It’s surprising how much water goes into the making and transporting goods. Keep that in mind the next time you’re shopping.

9. Use the garbage disposal in your kitchen sink less. This machine uses a lot of water and adds solids to the drainage system, which can cause repair problems later on.

10. Eat more water-friendly foods. A surprising amount of water goes into our diets. Animal products, especially beef, require plenty of water. Changing your diet so you eat more plants unquestionably decreases the water footprint of the food you eat.

https://www.americanrivers.org/rivers/discover-your-river/top-10-ways-for-you-to-save-water-at-home/

https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/45-ways-to-conserve-water-in-the-home-and-yard/

https://www.earthshare.org/drought/

The Wildfire: A Vicious Cycle

By Hans Yang, Grade 9

Gregory Slade stood in front of his vehicle, silently observing the secluded nature retreat he owned for years- a roaring inferno only a few hundred feet away devouring the beautiful leaves of the wonderfully verdant forest adjacent to the front side of the establishment. Having ushered his guests and staff member to safety a few days before, he hung back to witness the tragedy. Turning away, he evacuated to Queensland twelve hours later, knowing of the fate of his labor and love.

The Fraser Island Fires tore through the ecologically sensitive nature sanctuary relentlessly in the last month, only another unfolding chapter of the bushfire crisis that made its genesis in the 2019-2020 bushfire season. It was also yet another raging beast unleashed by a beach bonfire, and fueled by extremely dry conditions. Doubtlessly, the populations of exotic creatures suffered immensely- such as the incredibly rare pure-bred dingoes, false water rat, and flying foxes.

So how do we put out these fires? Water.

But how much water?

Thirteen thousand kilometers away, frustrated Oregon residents asked the same question to their local weather forecasters and meteorologists. The estimate they received was flabbergasting- a whopping 556,666,205 gallons of water would be required to cover the 205,000 acres of land that were currently on fire- to cover the land by one tenth of an inch. In contrast, an average of 101 gallons is used every day by the average resident of a city.

Using these values, the amount of water to cover the land by 1/10 of an inch is equal to the daily water usage of 5,511,546 citizens. Furthermore, 1/10th of an inch is not enough to vanquish most fires- and also detrimental to environments, water supplies, and could lead to the repetition of these disastrous events.

The majority of the water used in wildfire fighting stems from local water sources near the fire, such as groundwater, reservoirs, and other bodies of water which provide a balancing of air humidity and plant support in the area. After a fire, the depletion of the crucial water supplies causes a major change or multiple in environments, such as reducing plant life, making habitats inhospitable, and destroying much of the elements, and disrupting the balance. Also, major water supply contamination can occur.

According to a reputable environmental organization, “During active burning, ash and contaminants associated with ash settle on streams, lakes and water reservoirs.” (EPA 2019). Flame retardant utilized by forest fire teams can also lead to more of these events, even going to an extent to find its way into drinking water in the cities nearby. The aftermath of these events are expensive to fix- a geological institution proclaimed, “water providers spent more than $26 million on water-quality treatment, sediment and debris removal, and related issues after two recent wildfires in Colorado” (USGS), money that could be spent on different, more valuable causes.

All in all, the world will continue to have its cycle of natural diminishment and reinvigoration, pockmarked by the dirty deeds of man-made disasters, which will undoubtedly grow more severe as temperatures rise due to global warming, and gradually reduce our water supply to a trickle. To prevent another Fraser Island, another Big Sur, it will take an enormous amount of active awareness and a plethora of blessings.

https://mailtribune.com/news/happening-now/billions-of-gallons-of-water-would-quench-our-wildfires#:~:text=Covering%20our%20wildfire%20acreage%20with,12%2C000%20gallons%20of%20fire%20retardant.

https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/water-quality-after-wildfire?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects

Replenishing Earth’s Resources: Space Mining?

By Emma Li, Grade 11

Water is one of the most sought-after natural resources in the world. Despite its seeming abundance on Earth, our planet’s available freshwater (usable water that isn’t locked away in glaciers, too polluted for use, or so deep underground it wouldn’t be feasible to extract) only constitutes 0.5%. To put that in perspective, if all of Earth’s water were shrunk down to 100 liters, the water accessible to humans adds up to half a teaspoon (0.003 liters). (1) The implications of water scarcity on Earth are devastating, and many countries largely concentrated in Africa and South Asia were indicated to have vulnerable water resources in the United Nations’ 2015 World Water Report. (2)

Other important resources like oil and coal are also becoming increasingly difficult to harvest due to diminishing quantity; the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere projected that we will run out of oil in 2052, natural gases in 2060, and coal in 2090. (3) The finite amount of natural resources currently at our disposal means that we will eventually run out of the materials needed to sustain life. At the current rate we’re gobbling up the Earth’s resources—1.75 times more than the ecosystems of the planet can regenerate per year—that time may be approaching quickly. (4) It is in part why we are looking beyond Earth to deep space for priceless reservoirs—asteroids, moons, even other planets—in search of rare metals such as platinum and, of course, water. Mining these resources from space may alleviate some of the strain we put on nature, giving it enough time to replenish its inventory for our continued use.

If space mining were to become a serious pursuit, our first target would most likely be the closest extraterrestrial body to us: the Moon. The Moon is a rich source of uranium, titanium, silicon, and other natural resources. Helium-3 in particular, found in scarce quantities on Earth but in abundance on the Moon, is of interest for its energy potential. (5)

Recently, NASA confirmed the existence of water on the Moon. In the early 2000s, several missions to the Moon, including NASA’s Cassini and Deep Impact, identified hints of hydrogen on the lunar surface but were unable to confirm whether or not that hydrogen belonged to water. Samples brought back from the Apollo Missions revealed hints of water molecules in the glass and rock, further supporting the belief that there might be water on the Moon. (6) While several other satellites detected signs of the molecule H2O, the locations of the water sources were always located on the permanently dark side of the Moon, where it remained trapped due to the extreme cold. However, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) detected water in the soil of the Clavier Crater, which lies on the side of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. Unfortunately, the water discovered by SOFIA is measly, amounting to about 1/100 of the water found in the Sahara Desert. (7)

Unlike our Moon, Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, is (at least in theory) a global ocean. The entire moon is covered in a sheet of ice estimated to be up to 20 miles thick, under which lies what could be more than twice as much water than is in all of Earth’s oceans. (8) Scientists discovered signs of water on Europa in 2018, when old data from the Galileo orbiter and Hubble Space Telescope showed plumes rising up from Europa’s surface. The water on Europa is saltwater; it more so resembles the waters in our oceans than something we could use easily. The discovery of water on another planet is still remarkable, especially because of what it could suggest about life in space.

Our main source of metals besides the Moon would probably come from asteroids, which contain lots of raw materials like iron, nickel, and magnesium, and comets, which may contain water and carbon-based molecules important for life. (9)

The technicalities of actually harvesting these materials will require extensive research and development; we currently do not have technologies advanced enough to make space mining a regular industry. We also need to sort through a whole range of logistics. Who gets to do the mining? How are countries going to divide the “land” and “spoils”? Will we have to set up some sort of permanent settlement for harvesting full-time? What sort of harm would we do to our Earth and the masses we use? Still, the prospect of successfully extracting resources from space is exciting, and we would simultaneously be able to learn more about what’s in the universe with us. Wouldn’t that be fun?

(1) “Water Facts - Worldwide Water Supply” US Bureau of Reclamation California Great-Basin

(2) “The United Nations world water development report 2015” United Nations

(3) “When Fossil Fuels Run Out, What Then?” MAHB

(4) “Earth Overshoot Day 2019 is July 29, the earliest ever” Global FootPrint Network

(5) “The approach to sustainable space mining: issues, challenges, and solutions” Xu, ECMS 2019

(6) “There’s Water on the Moon?” NASA Science

(7) “NASA’s SOFIA Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon” NASA

(8) “Europa” NASA

(9) “NEO” NASA CNEOS