Managing water is a growing concern in the United States. Communities across the country are starting to face challenges regarding water supply and water infrastructure. Launched in 2006, WaterSense is an EPA-sponsored partnership program that seeks to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by promoting water efficiency and enhancing the market for water-efficient products, programs, and practices..

Save water at home with a few easy fixes:

1. Replace your toilets. If your toilet is from 1992 or earlier, you probably have an inefficient model that uses at least 3.5 gallons per flush. New and improved WaterSense labeled models use less than 1.28 gallons per flush-that generally 60 percent less than their older, less efficient counterparts saving you money each year.
2. Fix a Leaky Faucet. Leaky faucets that drip at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water each year
3. Make it a Full Load. The average washing machine uses about 41 gallons of water per load. High-efficiency washing machines use less than 28 gallons of water per load. To achieve even greater savings, wash only full loads of laundry or use the appropriate load size selection on the washing machine.
4. Take a Shower. A full bath tub requires about 70 gallons of water, while taking a five-minute shower uses 10 to 25 gallons. If you take a bath, stopper the drain immediately and adjust the temperature as you fill the tub.
5. Water Your Yard Wisely. The typical single-family suburban household uses at least 30 percent of their water outdoors for irrigation. Some experts estimate that more than 50 percent of landscape water use goes to waste due to evaporation or runoff caused by overwatering.
6. Install drip irrigation systems which will use between 20 to 50 percent less water than conventional in-ground sprinkler systems. They are also much more efficient than conventional sprinklers because no water is lost to wind, runoff, and evaporation

“Defend the Soil With Your Life!”
“…the living world is complex, and beholding it should leave us all aching with awe. So start with topsoil, the beginning place. Remember, one million creatures per tablespoon. It’s alive, and it will protect itself if we stop assaulting it. It protects itself with perennial polycultures, with lots and lots of plants intertwining their roots, adding carbonaceous leaves, and working together with mycelium, bacteria, protozoa, making a new organism between them, the mycorrhiza that talks and nourishes and directs.

“Defend the soil with your life, reader: there is no other organism that can touch the intelligence of what goes on beneath your feet.

“So here are the questions you should ask, a new form of grace to say over your food. Does this food build or destroy topsoil? Does it use only ambient sun and rainfall, or does it require fossil soil, fossil fuel, fossil water, and drained wetlands, damaged rivers? Could you walk to where it grows, or does it come to you on a path slick with petroleum?”

– The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability by Lierre Keith