I am from right here in State College and live only about ten minutes away from main campus. The water supply to my house comes from the State College Borough Water Authority. The water is collected by SCBWA through their 7 Well Fields and the Shingletown reservoir. The water is piped from these two sources into a 6 million gallon per day water treatment plant. In this treatment plant it undergoes the process of fluoridation to prepare it for households. The borough owns over 270 miles of water mains in the State College area and neighboring areas. Through these water mains the water is pumped to each customer’s household such as my own into water tanks. Excess or wasted water is pumped back to the water treatment plant in which the process begins all over again.
One Day of Water
Flush toilet: 4 times = 12 gallons
Wash hands: 8 times = 8 gallons
Take shower: 2 times/15 minutes each = 150 gallons
Drinking water: 8 cups = .5 gallons
Brush teeth: 2 times = 1 gallon
Dishwasher: 1 time = 10 gallons
Total = 181.5 Gallons
I don’t think I could ever live off of two gallons of water a day because I use almost 100 times that on a daily basis. If I had to live off of that with no other option my top three priorities would be drinking water, cooking water, and water to wash my hands. All other things although very nice, are not absolutely necessary in order to get by. I tried for a day to cut down my water usage by taking only one short five minute shower, and turning the water off when brushing my teeth. My experiment of living off of only two gallons failed when I had used up my entire two gallons in the first half of the day and couldn’t go on without washing my hands.
Geography is extremely important to water use because depending on where you are water can be a very scarce or very bountiful. For example if you live in the desert there obviously isn’t a lot of extra water due to it almost never raining. While on the other hand if you live near a freshwater lake or mountains where rainfall is regular then you could be free to use it when you need it.
Hi Kevin!
It’s cool to learn where the State College water comes from since I live here too. Thanks for sharing!
I think that you could learn an important lesson from this module about water conservation. It doesn’t require much work on your part either. I noticed the biggest problem was the 150 gallons of water per day that you use showering. If everyone in State College did that, we would have a huge problem! I think the individual action is something to heavily consider.
There are plenty of ways to conserve water too, not just by avoiding long showers or leaving the water on while brushing your teeth. It is very possible to live off 2 gallons a day, but it requires a lot of extra work. You can check out my blog post if you want to learn more; https://wp.me/p3RCAy-bqC
Hi, my name is Jake Hughes. It is really cool to hear about a local water source since you leave near State College. I wonder if you would get water from the same place as everywhere on campus! I did almost the same thing as you, I used up all my water in the first half of my day. I would have used almost all of it by just taking a shower. I would absolutely use water for the same essentials as you mentioned, drinking water, cooking water, and water to wash our hands with. Here is a link to my entry if you would like to read it: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/09/water-tracking-and-usage-jake-hughes/