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30+ Tips for Coping Without Running Water

February 20, 2018

30+ Tips for Coping Without Running Water

Every prepper worth their salt stores water and lots of it.  Not only that, they store one, two, three or more ways to purify water.  That is all well and good because you never know when a disaster or other disruptive event may occur and those water resources will be called upon for drinking, cleaning, hygiene, and sanitation purposes.

Recently, my number came up and I was the one without water during a short term, personal water apocalypse.  Now really, that may be a bit dramatic because I was simply without running water.  This was caused by a break in the line from the water main at the street to my home.  All told, I was without running water for 12 days.

16 Tips for Coping Without Running WaterSave

To be honest, I was quite relaxed about the ordeal.  After all, I had cases of bottled water for drinking, a 55 gallon water barrel holding purified water, a source of raw, unfiltered water from a gravity pump right outside my house, and of course, my Berkey, LifeStraw Family, SolarBag, and pool shock for water purification.

RH Raw Water 250Save

Still, being without running water brought up issues I had not considered.  Albeit water-ready, the reality of not being able to turn on the tap and have fresh, and especially hot, water was a new experience.

Today I share tips for coping without running water so that you can be better prepared if something similar happens to you.

Contents [show]

16 Tips [UPDATE: Now 31 Tips] for Coping Without Water

1. Fill the bathtub

With advance notice of a water shutoff, fill the bathtub and as many spare jugs and buckets as you can round up. In addition, fill the Berkey, if you have one and all of your sinks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Better water use can cut global food gap

February 17, 2016

Better water use can cut global food gap

CROP--Irrigation_system

An irrigation system on a pumpkin patch in a semi-arid area of New Mexico in southwestern US.
Image: Daniel Schwen via Wikimedia Commons

Scientists say that forecasts of a world food shortage need not prove as disastrous as previously thought if humans learn to use water more effectively.

LONDON, 16 February, 2016 – Although growing human numbers, climate change and other crises threaten the world‘s ability to feed itself, researchers believe that if we used water more sensibly that would go a long way towards closing the global food gap.

Politicians and experts have simply underestimated what better water use can do to save millions of people from starvation, they say.

For the first time, scientists have assessed the global potential for growing more food with the same amount of water. They found that production could rise by 40%, simply by optimising rain use and careful irrigation. That is half the increase the UN says is needed to eradicate world hunger by mid-century.

The lead author of the study, Jonas Jägermeyr, an Earth system analyst at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research(PIK), says the potential yields from good water management have not been taken fully into account.

Climate resilience

Already parched areas, he says, have the most potential for increases in yield, especially water-scarce regions in China, Australia, the western US, Mexico and South Africa.

“It turns out that crop water management is a largely under-rated approach to reducing undernourishment and increasing the climate resilience of smallholders,” he says.

In theory, the gains could be massive, but the authors acknowledge that getting local people to adopt best practice remains a challenge.

They have been careful to limit their estimates to existing croplands, and not to include additional water resources. But they have taken into account a number of very different water management options, from low-tech solutions for smallholders to the industrial scale.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EPA Study: Fracking Puts Drinking Water Supplies at Risk of Contamination

June 5, 2015

EPA Study: Fracking Puts Drinking Water Supplies at Risk of Contamination

The Environmental Protection Agency has released its long awaited draft assessment of the impacts that fracking has on the nation’s drinking water supplies — confirming that the process does indeed contaminate water.

“From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources,” the EPA wrote.

The impacts take a variety of forms, the EPA wrote, listing the effects of water consumption especially in arid regions or during droughts, chemical and wastewater spills, “fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources,” the movement of liquids and gasses below ground “and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater.”

The agency wrote that it had documented “specific instances” where each of those problems had in fact happened and some cases where multiple problems combined to pollute water supplies.

Environmental groups welcomed the agency’s central conclusion as vindication.

“Today EPA confirmed what communities living with fracking have known for years,” said Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel. “Fracking pollutes drinking water.”

But they also cautioned that the EPA‘s assessment seemed likely to understate the risks associated with fracking, in part because it relied heavily on data that was self-reported by the drilling industry.

So, just how badly has the process contaminated America’s water already, and how big are the risks from more fracking? The EPA can’t say, the draft report concluded.

“We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States,” the EPA wrote.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

May 31, 2015

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

California reservoir drought

A reservoir showing the effect of drought conditions in California

In recent news, there has been significant coverage of California’s struggle with its below average precipitation in the past several years.  Yes, they call it a drought.

Governor Jerry Brown and California State Water Resources Control Board have come forward with restrictions on water use, primarily in urban and suburban areas.

People are ripping up lawns.

Landscape designers are drooling (not too much) over the opportunity to redesign so many areas for better water conservation.  Many are replacing lawns with cookie-cutter designed ‘xeriscapes’ or ‘desertscapes’ such as this one.

Urbanites are pitted against agrarians saying the other is more responsible.

One recent interview on NPR highlights cemetery caretakers wondering “if cemeteries, particularly for veterans, shouldn’t play by different rules than, say, a suburban lawn”?

And now, there’s a struggle between allowing salmon to spawn and the ability of Bay area residents to drink water that doesn’t taste funky.

This is where I follow up with saying, ‘The end is near!’

OK so perhaps I’m making light of the situation a bit.  This is a serious situation.  But we have gotten ourselves into this mess.  We have been deliberately diminishing our water resources in the western US for a long time.

It’s just that the thought of water scarcity is a bit more evident now.

The good news?  We’ve gotten ourselves into this mess, and we can get ourselves out.  But it won’t be easy and it won’t be painless.  Those in California are already beginning to feel the pain.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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