a) The water cycle through Los Gatos, California breaks down like this. Los Gatos gets its water through the San Jose Water Company, which manages three water treatment plants in three districts of the South Bay Area. The SJWC has three sources for water, groundwater (40%), imported surface water (40%), and local surface water (10%). In the case of importing surface water, water is imported from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and purchased from the Santa Clara Valley Water District. A majority of all the surface water originates as Sierra Nevada snowmelt. After it goes through the Rinconada Water Treatment plant and through the taps in Los Gatos, the drains dump into the Los Gatos Creek which runs to the Lexington Reservoir a few miles toward the coast. From there it can be recycled by the area in extended no-rainfall periods or slowly feed out to the Pacific Ocean.
b) Here’s
a typical day breaks down for my water usage.
Brewing a Cup of coffee (2) = 8 fluid ounces each = 16 fluid ounces
3 bottles of water = approximately 50 fluid ounces
Shower (3 minutes at 2.1 gallons per minute) = 6.3 gallons
Brushing teeth (2 times) = approximately 2 fluid ounces
3 toilet flushes (3.5 gallons/flush) = 10.5 gallons
3 hand washes = approximately 18 fluid ounces
c) I normally keep my showers around five minutes, but the showerhead I have is dated so 2.1GPM is the steady flow of it. The experiment failed, but I did think on rationing my water usage a good bit. For example, I noticed that my soap dispenser was low enough on soap for some water in the top, so I did that to avoid running the faucet as much. I lead a very athletic life, so I tried to safely limit my water intake while playing basketball today. I also discovered I can’t function properly without two cups of coffee in the morning. On the whole, though, the geographic region I’m in allows for a lot of water wasting, or frivolous water usage. I do not see the same measures in State College, PA to conserve or reclaim/recycle water that I saw while living in California.
Hi Cody, it was interesting to read how the water system works in your hometown in California. I am curious to see how this system has been impacted by the recent water shortages we have been hearing about there. I also didn’t know that there was water collection from snowmelt there, so I found that interesting as I have not heard of that much. I had no clue the water systems vary so much from place to place.
Here’s a link to my blog: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/11/module-4-activity-water-tracking-and-usage/
Hi Cody, I enjoyed reading your post. It was interesting reading about how the water system works in California. It appears that everyone I have seen uses roughly between 50-70 gallons of water per day so it’s understandable how the experiment was tough to accomplish. It is also interesting how you can see the differences between Pennsylvania’s water conservation efforts and that of California’s which is a much dryer state and has to go to greater methods. Interesting read, thanks for sharing.
http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/10/module-4-pavelko-fox/
Hey Cody, I failed the experiment just like you did. The experiment would become more realistic in a place like California due to the droughts. The way Los Gatos gets its water is interesting because it uses three different sources. It’s cool that a lot of the surface water comes from a snowmelt but I feel like that could be dangerous with global warming if it snows less and less.
Check out my post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/10/water-usage-michael-celoni/