WATER CONSERVATION

Despite the recent relief from drought conditions here in southern Ontario (with more rain predicted this week), water conservation needs to be a year round occurrence. Last week's Elmira independent has an excellent article on page 11 titled "How to conserve our most precious resource" written by N. Glenn Perrett. Often articles like this have a brief description of the author's background but not so in this case.

Common sense goes a long ways. This includes letting your lawn go dormant during a drought, only running dishwashers and laundry machines when you have a full load and taking short showers versus long ones or baths which use more water. In addition replacing toilets and washing machines with more effecient ones using less water is a good idea.

Rainbarrels are fast becoming a staple and in fact my wife far prefers watering the garden and shrubs with rain water versus chlorinated tapwater. Then we get to the somewhat tougher choices. Fixing any and all leaky taps, faucets and toilets will save you money (and water) in the long run. Eating less meat as animals require much more water than grains to produce equal amounts of food for human consumption. Then the one that is closest to my heart: VOICE YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS ! This can be from mega quarries north of us (Melancthon Township) which threaten wetlands and groundwater to more local wetland and groundwater issues. These would include GRCA approvals around floodplain/wetland development to "natural attenuation" of highly contaminated groundwater by allowing it to discharge to creeks and rivers which simply dilute the toxins and allow them to spread farher and wider. Kudos to both Mr. Perrett and the Independent for this article.