Liquid Gold

H
ere in Newcastle we are lucky to have an ample amount of fresh water right below our feet. When we turn our faucets on, water comes out and many of us think nothing more of it. As long as the water is there, no worries right? 
Wrong.
According to TheWorldCounts, 75% of the world is covered by water but, 97.5% of that water is salt water, leaving only 2.5% of that as fresh, drinkable water. A portion of that is trapped in ice that will never be accessible by humans alive today, leaving 1% of the world’s water as drinkable, accessible water. 
On a daily basis, we use 10 billion tons of water worldwide. The average American uses 100 to 175 gallons of water per day. 
Of the water usage in the world, only 8% of that goes towards drinking, brushing and flushing, the other 92% goes to agriculture and industrial needs. 
Agriculture alone can consume 75 to 90% of a region’s available freshwater. 
Did you know that 1 ton of grain requires 1000 tons of water? Did you know that 1,650 liters of water is used to produce one quarter-pound hamburger when you contribute all the ingredients and packaging for the products? 
A lot of organizations and environmentalists across the world are saying that our water supply is dwindling and very few take it seriously, especially in America. But did you know that several large cities across the globe are facing a water crisis?
The reason why, generally, that is we treat water like it will be there forever, as if it is a renewable resource, when in reality it is the exact opposite. You could say that water is the petroleum of the next century and it is time that we think more carefully about our water use. 
There are several benefits of valuing water that we and environmentalists across the globe see. For one, we wouldn’t use our nearly priceless necessity to water alfalfa in the desert, and we sure as heck would demand that our water infrastructure was prioritized. 
In this week’s News Letter Journal we have a story about the increase in water line breaks seen within the city this year. City Engineer Mike Moore reported that to date there have been 24 line breaks within city water infrastructure, the most recent of those resulting in nearly 100,000 gallons of water loss in an hour. 
We as members of this community, the United States and the world have the need to look more closely at our water usage and the things we prioritize our water for. There is no way we should be okay with letting water run down our sinks or down our streets. 
Cape City was the first major city in the world able to pause “day zero” indefinitely. The city changed their water usage habits and was able to push back the time that they will run out of usable water into the unforeseeable future. 
The problem is, they didn’t do that until they had to. They didn’t address the problem until “day zero” was staring them in the face. 
Our time to act is now. We need to recognize how necessary water is and take the actions we can to prevent the waste of water. We need to encourage our local and state governments to look at spending and do whatever possible to fix our water infrastructure so we don’t loose 100,000 gallons of water in an hour.