Another Word to the Water Wise

Our Water Use Impacts are Cumulative

It is a poor but adequate analogy to think of our fresh-water aquifers as a bathtub that starts to fill only in October or November, a month after the winter rains start in earnest. While we don't know when or if that tub fills all the way up each year, we know that it stops filling in the Spring, when the rains are no longer "super saturating" the ground. All of the groundwater we use after the "tub" stops filling in May or June, lowers the water level and increases the chances of aquifers drying up and of salt-water intrusion in your well and/or the wells of your neighbors.

The point being. We need to practice a culture of water conservation over the entire year, and it will become ever more critical as climate change alters our patterns of precipitation with longer, hotter and drier summers and as the population of Thetis and the size of houses and cabins continues to increase.

David Slade