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Food and drink: Hey, my fellow water hogs — we’re the winning losers

World Water Day, March 22, might make you think twice

Ah, spring - officially just around the corner, early this year on March 20, and broadly demarcated by wisps of various green shoots, Easter, Norouz (New Day) festival for our Persian friends and, unexpectedly, World Water Day.

Held every year on March 22, loosely approximating spring equinox and other new beginnings, International World Water Day was first declared by the UN in 1993 to focus new awareness on the importance of fresh water, something we Canadians largely take for granted.

Sadly, our loser reputation precedes us. Years ago, when I was in Japan, I stayed with a family friend who had visited Canada. He was far too gracious to lecture, but while showing me the bathroom quietly remarked, Canadians, I remember you use very much water.

Next morning, I showered quickly but, as might be expected, once beyond his purview instantly reverted to my old water ways.

Canadians are the biggest water hogs on Earth. We each use an average of 638 litres/day, beating out the next in line for this ignominious title, our American cousins at 575 litres/day. The Japanese, on the other hand, use an average of 374 litres daily, just over half of what each one of us uses here in B.C.

I don't know if it's all the beer we drink, but British Columbians shame even the Canadian average, consuming some 678 litres of fresh water a day, the lion's share - 65 per cent - in the bathroom. That makes us the world's No. 1 Water Hogs.

By comparison, people in Rwanda, Uganda and pre-earthquake Haiti average a mere 15 litres of water a day. People of Mozambique, our water opposites, live on four litres/day, below the minimum the UN has identified for human survival - three to five litres/day for drinking with another 20 litres daily for cooking, bathing and cleaning.

World Water Day or not, water is on the radar screen of Whistlerites. But not in all the ways we might like it to be.

"Water" is one of the sustainability indicators in the Whistler 2020 strategy, a good thing. However, the numbers show that in 2008, the most recent year given for that indicator, average Whistler water usage, although below the Canadian and B.C. averages, came in exactly the same as that of our U.S. friends: 575 litres/day.

The overall trend, however, is up - up from the 2007 average (520 litres/day), up from the average in 2000 (508 litres/day), when the 2020 sustainability program started and no one was really trying.

Given wiser use of anything starts with awareness, I rang up James Hallisey, the municipal manager of environmental projects, who shared a wealth of water information.

He explained that there are actually several sources of Whistler water - 21 Mile Creek and some 14 different wells. Plus there's a private water system, owned by John Perrett, supplying everyone at Function Junction; Edgewater Lodge has its own water supply as well.

The split between the creek source and the 14 wells is about 50/50, all of it snow-fed, with the well water percolating for months or years through subterranean sand.

"It's actually a very safe source of water. It's naturally filtered, so in some ways the groundwater is preferable," James says. (The same filtration principle was applied by University of Alberta researchers who developed a low-tech filter that uses sand and algae to effectively clean water in desperate regions.)

At Whistler, where clean water is often treated like dirt, all of it flowing though kitchen faucets, toilets, showerheads, washing machines, commercial kitchens and hoses comes from these sources - a hefty 5.16 billion litres in 2008.

When you stop and think that you only pay 40 cents for 1,000 litres of the stuff, you can see what a bargain it is compared to that horrid-tasting water bottled in plastic for a buck a litre.

With the exception of the big party this February, when sewage treatment was almost at capacity what with all those showers and flushing toilets, you might be surprised to learn that Whistler's water-use highs aren't in winter with all the visitors.

"Seasonally, we use way more water in summer than we do in the winter because irrigation is a much bigger deal than all the water people can use. In winter we never have too much difficulty - summertime is when we struggle," James says.

The culprits aren't golf courses and major parks, which have their own water wells. It's all the landscaping around the likes of hotels and boulevards, something any good landscape architect will tell you can be relieved by using native plants.

Given the above and this year's theme for World Water Day - clean water for a healthy world - we could honour our precious water supplies by trying to use water like a Mozambican, just for the day. So line up four litres on the counter for each member of the household and see how far you get.

Canadians use only about 10 per cent of our water in the kitchen. Considering the average person flushes five times a day and an older toilet uses anywhere from 13 to 20 litres each flush, we could start there. By comparison, newer toilets use six litres, while dual flush ones average four litres per flush, the total amount of water a Mozambican uses all day for everything.

There's no good reason for flushing every time, other than old habits die hard. No, James assures us, the toilet paper won't clog up the works if it sits a bit. To get you in the swing, here's a little saying from my aunt and uncle's old cabin at Pigeon Lake: if it's yellow, it's mellow. If it's brown flush it down.

Another antiquated piece of acculturated Canadiana bites the dust every time you just say no to running the tap when you brush your teeth. Pretend you're camping and use a glass of water to brush and rinse.

Like using veggie wash on your fruits and veggies? Keep a bowl of soapy water in the sink for a few washes, and simply rinse away the residue. Better yet, buy organic. And save your pot liquor from cooked veggies - it tastes great.

Shower short, not long. And why shower every day, anyway? I am so waiting for bidets to hit Canadian bathrooms, but that's another story.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who loves water.