Welp, Earl was a dud, but we sure could’ve used the rain.
All that sunshine and hot weather that was inescapable the last two weeks have been hanging around most of the summer while many students were off saving the world and being interns. Too much sunshine hardly seems like a bad thing until a lack of rain equals drought.
And I hate to say it, but we are experiencing a low-level drought.
Surprised? You probably shouldn’t be. This has happened almost every year since 2000, which is as far back as the data available on the North Carolina Division of Water Resources website allowed me to look. In fact, the nicely cyclical color patterns of drought intensity were hypnotizing as I scrolled down the page.
It was, perhaps, not a very scientific survey, but it was telling. Water is a big deal.
Many of us likely remember the recent drought of 2007 and 2008. I recall going home over winter break and joking with my family that there might not be any water in Durham when I got back. OK, only half joking; 25 days of water isn’t really that funny. The entire state was in a bad way.
Duke stopped washing dishes, opting for the paper plate approach, and installed hand sanitizer in bathrooms during that time. All I could think of was the mountains of trash and the superbugs that were sure to be forming before my very eyes.
Flash forward to today. We have yet to be totally consumed by superbugs, and many, but not all, of the changes that were made during that drought crisis are still in place. The more efficient campus-wide systems, the low flow fixtures—in addition to those on campus, Duke gave away almost 1,000 low flow shower heads to faculty, staff and students living off campus—and the ultra-high efficiency washing machines, etc. (There are still hand sanitizing stations, but I think hand-washing is cool again.)
I’m happy to report that the water consumption of the University has not returned to pre-drought levels.
Don’t get too excited. Consider this amazing fact: Researchers at Toolik Field Station, a remote research station in the Arctic, use only about 9.7 gallons of water per person per day, compared to 99 in San Francisco.
Surely us Durhamites and Dukies are on the San Francisco side of that scale. But it’s not a totally fair comparison. We don’t bathe in a sauna or jump in a lake and, while few of us are watering lawns, some of us swim in the pools on campus and enjoy a stroll through the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on occasion.
So then, I encourage you to appreciate the success of past efforts and as you get settled into the semester and develop your little routine, remember to continue to do the little stuff, like turning off the faucet when you brush, taking shorter showers and in general being wise about the water that flows out of the tap.
We live in a watery world, but we don’t get every hurricane.
Liz Bloomhardt is a fourth-year graduate student in mechanical engineering. Her column runs every other Friday.
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