Water Conservation
By Jim Palmer Jr.

This is the time of year when I start to think about water conservation at my own home.  Recently, while filling a water trough for horses, the pump saver switched the water off and I was left wanting, with only a partially filled trough.  I’m well aware of what it takes to conserve water since we’ve lived with a low producing well for many years, but I’m concerned and even irritated by falsehoods that are being promoted across the world by zealots who use localized water shortages to “cry wolf”  on that topic.  Alarmists make it sound like global warming and population expansion are causing severe water shortages worldwide and that all of us must be engaged in a conscious effort to use less water.  That is ironic when I think about all of that extra water theoretically made available by melting ice caps!

Last year Washington legislation reversed the case law of the Hirst Decision when Representatives were confronted by actual science that showed the flaws in that knee-jerk decision that ruled concerning an alleged impairment of an agricultural water right because of encroaching housing developments.  Revealed truths easily convinced legislators that rural well water used in homes and yards largely returns to the ground water where it originates, after being drawn from domestic wells, then filtered back into the ground water after being treated by septic systems.  It is calculated that only about 3% of well water is lost to evaporation or runoff that isn’t directly returned to the immediate aquifer.

In some parts of the world water scarcity may be an ongoing concern, but generally speaking that is not a concern in our region, except for a few areas (like my place) where water cannot collect beneath the surface because of solid rock structures.  The truth is that the massive underground aquifer that serves Spokane and the surrounding region is one of the largest water sources of its kind! 

Commercials frequently air on local TV stations that say something to the effect, “Conserve water, stop wasting water on your lawn!” and they end with the logical phrase, “Water it’s beneath us”.   I could understand this warning if we lived in Arizona or California where constant desert conditions continually strain municipal supplies.

Does water disappear from the earth?  No!  It is a perfect system where even water evaporated from the salty brine of the world’s oceans disseminates across the skies, eventually returned to earth by snowflakes or raindrops.  There will always be enough and to spare!