i’ve been earning some extra money indexing files for this woman and i just came across her water bill…
in 93 days her modest house used 700 cubic feet of water with an average daily consumption of 7 cubic feet. total use in gallons in 93 days is 5,000 with an average usage of 56 gallons per day!!
guess how much the bill was for?
only $12.60!!
can you imagine going into a store and buying 56 gallons of water each day? (and then transporting it to your house, no less) you might be able to find a gallon of water for $2 so we’re talking about $112 a day to buy water from a store. that’s $10,416 in 93 days!
i know we both live near the chesapeake watershed area which is the largest (?) in the U.S. but i was just listening to Peter Singer on the radio today talk about his new book/campaign. here’s a quote from the website:
For the first time in history, it is now within our reach to eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly ten million children still die unnecessarily each year.
Singer was explaining to Diane Rhem (LOVE her!) how a large part of what all these kids (age 5 and under) are suffering dying from is diarrhea from unsafe drinking water.
america’s water usage (and over-consumption in general) affects everyone in the world. people are dying because they can’t access the water we use to hose out our assholes or whatever. water is NOT FREE. it is NOT CHEAP! maybe if gas & electric bills were made lower (so, you know, people don’t freeze in the winter time) and we made water bills higher (FUCK LAWNS!) then some of these water-consumption issues would be drastically reduced and people would think twice about taking a half-an-hour shower or fixing a leaky toilet.
have you heard what’s going on in california? by the time winter rolls around you might be hard-pressed to find an out-of-season fruit or vegetable. (buy local and can your shit!)
my high school environment science teacher theorized that the next world war will be over water and food. i don’t doubt it.
