Will It Really Help?

     While watching the Super Bowl and working on my taxes, I saws this ad telling me that if I let the water run while brushing my teeth, it wastes four gallons of water. Then the ad told me that four gallons of water is more than many people on this earth have available to them in a month.

     I’ve been thinking about that. Two main points bother me. Before I launch into this tirade let me establish the fact that I know what four gallons of water looks like. I’ve hauled five gallon buckets of water and other things around enough in my life to recognize about what four-fifths of that bucket full of liquid looks like. I don’t know how most people brush their teeth, but there is no way the water I let run during my teeth brushing amounts to four gallons. Now maybe they meant that I waste four gallons in a week or a month, but they didn’t say that. They made it sound, maybe on purpose or maybe not, that the four gallons was per brushing.

     I hope their statement about some people in the world having to live on four gallons per month or less is not misleading and I have no reason to dispute that claim. Now I’m guessing that these unfortunate people live in hot, dry climates. Four gallons equals 512 ounces of water, which leaves that person surviving on about sixteen ounces, or two eight-ounce cups of water per day. I guess an individual might be able to survive on that, although a quote from the Mayo Clinic website says this, “So how much fluid does the average, healthy adult living in a temperate climate need? The Institute of Medicine determined that an adequate intake (AI) for men is roughly about 13 cups (3 liters) of total beverages a day. The AI for women is about 9 cups (2.2 liters) of total beverages a day.”

     Three liters equals 101 ounces of water per day.  2.2 liters equals 74 ounces of water per day. And notice that’s in a temperate climate. So we’ve established that these four-gallons-per-month people are probably not doing well at all, unless they have other beverages available to them.

     This situation is depressing and unfortunate to the extreme. But just what does it have to do with my shutting off the water when I brush my teeth. Here in Central Oregon we have plenty of easily accessible fresh water, at least at this time. If Central Oregon were in a drought situation, my conserving water would not only probably be mandatory, but make sense.

Is my using less water going to increase the supply of water in areas where they have less accessible fresh water? My cursory research says, I think not!

Where do those water molecules go that I let slip down the drain? Or, for that matter the ones that I happen to swallow while brushing my teeth. They go through the Redmond Water Treatment Facility, get cleaned up along with some other water molecules that have become involved in some even grosser activities, but are still water molecules and worth saving. These cleaned-up water molecules are eventually dispatched into a clean water source and head downhill looking forward to their trip to the sea. However, on the way any one water molecule may be kidnapped and made to serve in an irrigation project.

So what happens then? If the water molecule escaped being sucked up by some plant, it will either evaporate up into the atmosphere, or sink down until it joins many of its cousins in an aquifer.

Most of the water molecules sucked up by a plant are passed into the atmosphere, transpiration or evaporation. A small portion, like 5%, of the sucked-up water molecules go toward creating glucose and oxygen or what is called photosynthesis. Evidently, half of the this 5%, get sacrificed in this way.

Like humans, plant life is made up mainly of water. For instance, on the higher end, an apple is 84% water, a lettuce leaf is 96% water. So, in the food you eat you are acquiring lots of water which begins the whole journey again.

If the water does reach the sea, it evaporates, falls as rain, usually back into the ocean, but occasionally on land, where it becomes part of the planet’s fresh water supply and starts that journey again.  

What I’m trying to say is that a water molecule is a water molecule, is a water molecule. Except for certain instances, it stays a water molecule, it does many jobs, but it does not disappear off the planet just because it goes down my drain. Now for a disclaimer – I’m not an hydrologist, so my understanding of this issue may not be 100% accurate. At best, this is a very simplified version of a very complex system, so please don’t use this to teach your children.

My immunity to feeling guilty because I have something that someone else doesn’t have, probably goes back to my childhood. And I’m probably not alone in this. Did your mother ever say to you, “Eat your mush, (or whatever), there are starving children in China who would love to have this.”

Even at a young age, this argument seemed flawed. In my case I would have loved to donate my mush (cooked oatmeal or some other unfortunate grain), to those children, knowing all the while that there was no way in the world to get my mush over to China, and distributed to those poor children. And I always thought the claim that these kids would love my mush, was extremely overly optimistic. Just my opinion.

Now my donating some of my resources to buy mush for somebody who cannot afford, but wants mush, or help some village dig a well for fresh water, that’s a whole different issue, and a whole different level of personal responsibility.