Imagine turning your television on to the following Public Service Announcement. A woman is sitting at a small table in her kitchen drinking a tall glass of water with no ice. The camera draws in on her face as she says, “If each and every one of us conserved enough water to cut our use in half, we could double the number of people moving into our county. That’s why every night before I go to bed, I turn on every spigot in the house and leave them running all night long!”
Before you think that I have totally gone off of the deep end, let me say unequivocally that I am not advocating wasting water as a means to limit growth — it would never work. Conservation is an ethical responsibility that we all must follow in order to preserve one of our area’s most vital and limited natural resources, water. The ambiguity lies not in if we should conserve water, but why.
Public perception may or may not be based on reality. Regardless of its basis, the public’s perception of an issue can not be underestimated. Many citizens of Southwest Florida believe that conserving water is not meaningful because the water they conserve is not actually saved. Instead it becomes available for use by someone else. And that someone else doesn’t even live here yet. Unfortunately this perception is not far from reality.
The future water supply plans for both Sarasota County and the Water Management District list every gallon of water conserved as an available future water supply source. The thinking from the water planners’ perspective is that every gallon saved is one gallon less that will have to be taken from the region’s vulnerable ground or surface water resources. Nevertheless, conserved water does end up on the “available-for-consumption” side of the water equation. For many citizens, this is not a compelling motive to conserve, perceived or otherwise.
But what if we actually did conserve the conserved water? From the 1920’s to the mid 1970’s many, if not most of Sarasota County’s natural wetlands were ditched and drained. Even today many of the natural benefits of these altered wetlands are still severely impaired. And due to over-pumping, our aquifers are losing pressure and becoming polluted with salt water from the gulf. If the water saved through our conservation initiatives were required to be dedicated to restoring impacted wetlands, aquifers and natural systems to a healthier state, water conservation would soar, and for good reason.
This new conservation philosophy should also include a policy to ensure that natural systems will not be deprived of the water that they need. As we evaluate new water sources for new development, the needs of the natural systems should be determined and set aside or restored and not available for taking. Rather than evaluating how much water we can get by leaving wetlands with minimal water flows and levels, the new ethic would require that natural systems maintain optimum flows and levels.
Unfortunately, the concept of setting aside and preserving the natural system’s water budget first has yet to be adopted by many water planning agencies. This paradigm shift toward restoring and preserving natural systems is likely to produce just as much water as convention strategies, but at a fraction of the all-inclusive price to be paid. The water is there, we are just need to begin taking it in a more sustainable fashion.
With the conserved water now being dedicated to wetlands restoration, aquifer recharge, open space preservation and healthier estuaries, even the most cynical citizens among us would have a reason to conserve water that is both self-serving and altruistic.
New commercial; same lady, same table, same glass of water, only this time as the camera zooms in she says “Every night when I go to bed, I know that my water conservation efforts are going to help preserve the natural beauty that makes Sarasota a such a special place to live!”