Is water conservation important in the US?
Posted by Original-Bad7214@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 384 comments
I often see posts about things like “is a 20 minute shower too long” and then people will give feedback about wash routines, consideration to other people, and discussion about the financial cost of the water, but I rarely see mention of water wastage being an issue in and of itself.
In my country (Australia) there is a lot of emphasis through schools and government initiatives to conserve water, e.g. only allowed to water the garden on certain days. I’m curious as to whether this is simply a result of our climate.
Being so geographically diverse, I assume that in regions of the US that are drought prone there would be more of an emphasis on saving water, but outside of these areas is water conservation seen as a important/a priority?
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Only in parts of the country.
I am in the Great Lakes region. I do not have this problem.
Parts of the west do.
MostlyBrine@reddit
I lived in the Great Lakes areas, on the Canadian side, and the water company used to send us calendars for watering our lawn. It was allowed one day every three days and nit everyone at the same time. Water was also pretty expensive, even if it was coming from Lake Ontario.
Halofauna@reddit
We do water conservation because we have to pay the water bill, not because of shortages.
Outside_Complaint755@reddit
Its going to start becoming an issue in parts of the midwest as well. My hometown had to make a request to switch from its aquifer to Lake Michigan as its source and join the Great Lakes compact due to radon levels in the aquifer rising. If the majority of data centers being build in the area use open cooling, that will also be an issue.
The west is hit harder now because they have had years of drought.
EndlessHalftime@reddit
The amount of water data centers use is absolutely tiny compared to agriculture
karlnite@reddit
Data centres use once through cooling, agriculture sprays the water with pesticides.
Outside_Complaint755@reddit
Agricultural usage has been steadily decreasing due to more efficient methods being used for precision irrigation. Total irrigation usage dropped nearly 3% from 2018-2023.
Meanwhlle we have datacenters illegally siphoning off significantly more water than they were approved for, and officials failing to fine them appropriately. Besides the water used by cooling systems, there is a significant amount of water being both wasted and contaminated during the construction process for datacenters that we don't really need and don't have the electrical infrastructure to support.
genesiss23@reddit
Waukesha?
Outside_Complaint755@reddit
yes
Human_Management8541@reddit
Yeah. Upstate NY. We don't water our lawns because we don't have to. But we could. It's more about the electric bill, not the water...
vanbrima@reddit
Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes. A third of the worlds fresh water is in the great lakes. Aquafers everywhere. Nope.
Abject_Egg_194@reddit
The Eastern United States is pretty wet and doesn't have to worry about water conservation. The Western United States is pretty dry and does have to worry about water conservation. Something that's often not understood by Americans is that water conservation is really about agriculture.
I live in a western state (Colorado) and 90% of the water goes to agriculture. There's a strong desire in Colorado municipalities for people to conserve water, not plant grass, get more efficient appliances, etc. but it's kind of a drop in the bucket compared to the water being used to grow hay and potatoes in the state.
Responsible_Ask3976@reddit
Absolutely love living in Michigan
NflJam71@reddit
It's important everywhere, but not taken seriously in a lot of places.
LynnSeattle@reddit
Are you sure? See the comment above yours about Seattle.
NflJam71@reddit
In some places it's taken very seriously, it just entirely depends on region.
LynnSeattle@reddit
So it’s not important everywhere?
NflJam71@reddit
Again, it is important everywhere, but not taken seriously everywhere.
wismke83@reddit
Same. I’ve lived my entire life within the Great Lakes region and I don’t recall any continual emphasis on water conservation. The only time water conservation is discussed is when weather is extreme. For certain communities that rely on aquifers rather than surface lake water, have had years when they ask people to cut back. We also have been asked during large rain events to not use as much water to limit discharge to wastewater to ensure the system doesn’t overcharge, but not due to lack of water. I used to work in local government and have had colleagues who worked in western states (Colorado) and were amazed how cheap (relatively) water use costs are here and that we don’t have any real disagreements/ fights over water rights.
We_R_the_Penguins@reddit
Interesting; I’d never thought of water usage during rain as a problem, but that makes perfect sense.
Brave_Cauliflower728@reddit
Only because of "combined" sewer systems that route sanitary waste into the same pipes as runoff. This is an outdated design but it takes a long time and much investment to split systems in built up environment.
AliMcGraw@reddit
Over a billion dollars to separate in a city of 130,000
wismke83@reddit
Thats correct on the combined sewers being the main problem, but there can also be problems with overcharge in systems where sanitary and storm are separate. I live in Milwaukee, which is part of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District (MMSD) which includes most of the suburbs around Milwaukee to treat wastewater. There’s been a concerted effort over the last 15 years to retrofit the areas within the district that have combined sanitary/storm infrastructure, but it’s expensive. There are also issues in areas that have the systems separate with rain water inflow and infiltration from private sewer laterals (due to cracks in pipes) and sump pumps connected illegally to sanitary lines (usually pipes context to basement sinks).
belinck@reddit
We're doing this in Michigan as well as building rain gardens. Essentially, they're holding areas for mass rain events.
Lcdmt3@reddit
Great lakes and in elementary school on the 80s we talked about conservation. Turn off the water when brushing, turn off the lights when you leave a room.
Gunzablazin1958@reddit
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s in a mildly remote rural Great Lakes village of less than 2,000 residents with a school system having only 100 students per grade and we talked about environmental issues like conserving water all the time.
I suspect it mattered to us because farming and outdoor sports (hunting and fishing) are so important around here.
I have never seen **anyone** water their lawn. I’m sure some rich fucks do in their gated communities.
My point is it depends greatly on the region, the schools, and the industries around us.
Travelsat150@reddit
You do not need to water your lawn because it rains. When I first moved to California from NJ (where it always rained) I didn’t water my lawn and the entire thing dried and died. It cost $800 back then to install a new lawn with working sprinklers in a timer. Gardening is much different as well. You have to water vegetables all the time or they just won’t grow. My lemon tree actually burned a few years ago it got so hot.
belinck@reddit
Circumspice, baby!
Adept_Carpet@reddit
Yes it was so strange to me, as someone who has always lived in the wetter parts of the country, the first time I saw someone here that was financially ruined by a leaky pipe or running toilet.
PrincessMuk@reddit
I'm also from that region and in my day-to-day life there wasn't much said about water conservation, but in my science classes and in my girl scouts troop we talked about it a LOT.
fighter_pil0t@reddit
Pretty much all of the west except PNW.
7eregrine@reddit
Great Lakes Crew checking in. I let the water run when I brush my teeth.
(not really)
Frewtti@reddit
Yes we just let it drain from one lake and discharge sewage downstream in the next.
The cost is just treatment, the water doesn't leave the system
BurritoBowlw_guac@reddit
Agreed. I’m in Ohio, south of Great Lakes. There was one very dry year but otherwise I’ve never had drought fears. We’re blessed
StarWars_Girl_@reddit
Yeah, or if you're on a well during a drought, then you might be thinking about it.
Definitely not an issue right now in Maryland... Sigh
DonDee74@reddit
This. Not every place has this problem. I live in the southwest (CA) and we usually only get rain between late fall and spring. Sometimes it rains for a week straight, sometimes only a few days. Most times it takes weeks or months before the next rain comes. Outside of those seasons is many consecutive months of no rain whatsoever. We have drought years every now and then. We have some reservoirs that can sustain us for a few years if we get absolutely no rainfall, but the more people that move in, the less adequate that becomes. We do have heavy precipitation once in a while but we don't have enough reservoirs to capture all that water for future use (although I wish we did), so on dry years we are told to conserve water as best we can. On drought years, it becomes more serious.
ritchie70@reddit
Same. I was think we’re getting more rain than usual if anything. Our grass was green all summer last year.
AliMcGraw@reddit
(also, if you interplant your lawn with white clover, you never have to fertilize it again and you don't have to water it even in drought. The clover fixes nitrogen in the soil which fertilizes the grass, and it provides shade for the grass and its roots so that they do not brown and wither when it's hot and dry. Plus the flowers are good for the bees and and you can just mow it like normal. You'll have the greenest lawn on the block in both senses!)
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
AI says clover needs water about every 10 days and prefers 30 inches of rain a year. We get less than 10 inches a year and don't see clover as drought tolerance at all. Humidity is below 20% all summer and clover gets crispy pretty quickly.
AliMcGraw@reddit
Yeah but the guy I was replying to is in DuPage County Illinois, right next door to me, so I feel pretty confident about the recommendation for him. :)
You should check with your local county extension in California for information on low-maintenance yards for local info https://ucanr.edu/site/division-agriculture-and-natural-resources/locations
(Every state in the US has a USDA agricultural extension, in cooperation with one or more public universities in the state, and they have offices in each county in the state that provide hyperlocal horticultural information and experts. Like, there are volunteers staffing hotlines who can help you improve your yard and ideally make it prettier, more friendly to the planet, lower maintenance, etc.)
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
I'm high desert now and no one has lawns here. In the city people are switching to xeriscape and the city pays out for replacing lawns. Lawns are dinosaurs here. Maybe a small patch of grass, but that's it. My place in town had a small area of grass watered by my washing machine.
AliMcGraw@reddit
We just got a statewide law passed that municipalities can't ban native plantings, so we're starting to see more people switching. Lawns are really low-maintenance here because it rains, they're just not great for the environment. But the simple step of throwing 25 pounds of white clover over a traditional grass lawn instantly improves a lawn's environmental friendliness in Illinois. No more watering even in drought, no more fertilizing, much more pollinator friendly. When people don't know how to go full-on native planting or are hesitant to try, I try to sell them on clover because it's a super-easy beginning even for a 70-year-old man who only knows how to maintain a full-on 1950 lawn but would like to help the bees. :)
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
Yeah in the right place it's nice, I've just never seen anywhere is anything but difficult. It is definitely pretty
AliMcGraw@reddit
We're actually in a moderate drought, but it's the kind of thing that affects farmers. Still plenty of rain for lawns and parks and flowers and so on. Most of the Chicago metropolitan region is keeping a close eye on large old trees which may need drip irrigation during a moderate drought like this, but otherwise you're not going to notice.
SecretAccomplished25@reddit
“In the Grwat Lakes region” says the person living literally in a Great Lake! No one believes me when I talk about our Mormon king…
21schmoe@reddit
I'll second Great Lakes region. Never an issue in Chicago.
OTOH, in the Northeast, while definitely not at the scale of the Western US, there were some concerns in 2024 that New Jersey's and Southern New York's water reservoirs were a little low.
_badwithcomputer@reddit
While I'm just outside the great lakes watershed I live on top of a massive buried glacial 1.5 trillion gallon aquifer so water has never really been an issue here either.
https://gwconsortium.org/the-great-miami-buried-valley-aquifer/
AliMcGraw@reddit
Yeah, in the Great Lakes region my problem is way too much water (flooding my basement and local roads), whereas in the West the problem is more likely to be way too little water.
Our local water conservation issues are mostly about preventing more hardscape, like roads and houses, and preserving more greenscape and native plants that are able to suck up the torrential rains and prevent constant flooding of all our infrastructure.
The water itself is basically free, I'm paying for the pipes and the sewer and the water treatment plants. The water source is so clean I can drink it untreated, but fluoride is good, and pathogens are bad, and periodically there are pathogens in the water because you know fish and algae and things live there.
Nobody's particularly fussed if you spend too long in the shower, but they are extremely fussed if your driveway is too big and causing too much runoff. There are also a bunch of chemicals that used to be common in laundry detergent and dish detergent that are banned because we don't want them going back into the (still relatively pristine) watershed.
One thing that's sort of interesting is that I live in the tiny little bit of Illinois that drains into the Great lakes watershed instead of into the Mississippi River watershed. This means that my water use is governed by an international treaty with Canada that protects the Great lakes watershed, and they are hella fucking serious about certain things, like exporting water from the watershed is very illegal.
If I lived 4 mi west of where I live now, I would be in the Mississippi River basin, and under a totally different set of water laws. Same kind of water conservation issues -- flooding, too much runoff -- but it's funny because half my town has these incredibly strict restrictions about ensuring water returns to the Great Lakes basin after use because we are under the international treaty with Canada, and the other half of my town doesn't. Basically, if you build a water bottling plant in my half of town, the full might of the US and Canadian governments would come to smack you around and bulldoze your plant, whereas if you build it 4 miles west, nobody would care.
WFOMO@reddit
Corpus Christie, Texas is running out of water as we speak, and much of it is self inflicted as well as a prolonged drought.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/corpus-christi-faces-water-crisis-as-2027-shortage-looms/gm-GM58AEA790
Bootmacher@reddit
Houston never has this issue. The worse I've seen, they had suggested water rationing.
Patient-Ad-7939@reddit
Even in the south east is starting to say conserve water. Our reservoirs are getting low. But I don’t know how deep they are, they’re just like 10 feet lower than normal when they have to drain surplus. So our water utility and county are asking people to start conserving water.
MonteCristo85@reddit
Same. I live along the Mississippi, we have loads of water. Cant even have a basement the water table is so shallow.
Living-Pomegranate37@reddit
Same where I live in the coastal SE of the US. No basement and you can dig your own well if it comes to it.
AnthonyJackalTrades@reddit
Yep. Minnesota resident here, it matters and I try not to waste water, but we also set up sprinklers to run through on hot days. Minnesota is the source of three of the five largest waterways in America (depending on how you count it) and we have lakes and puddles up the wazoo.
My family in Arizona, meanwhile, is part of an acequia, only have water pumped to their house certain days a week, and have a bin in the kitchen sink so they can water plants with the excess dish water.
Lovemybee@reddit
Here in Phoenix? Major issue!
Battle_Intense@reddit
But no one really does anything about it except build more data centers...
SphericalCrawfish@reddit
Ya, I'll blow my nose with TP, throw it in the toilet, and flush.
Mr_Kittlesworth@reddit
Same in the MidAtlantic. We have plenty of water, and the water costs, effectively, nothing.
You could run your shower all day and have little impact.
Ghost-of-Black-47@reddit
We got so much water we have to spend billions keeping it out of our basements (see the Deep Tunnel Project)
Cerulean_IsFancyBlue@reddit
It depends upon infrastructure as well as climate and geography.
Seattle is facing a drought this summer. It’s not the first time. Although we have a very pleasant climate, and the summer doesn’t usually try to actively kill us, we also don’t have a tremendously large system of reservoirs. We have moderate reservoirs. Instead, we depend upon the snow pack in the mountains, which melts over the course of the summer, keeping the existing reservoirs topped off until August or so, at which point we can start to draw down those reserves.
It’ll feel different in Seattle for a couple of reasons. One, it’s already a temperate climate. We’re not trying to rehabilitated desert, like Los Angeles or Phoenix. Two, it’s a seasonal problem. There is literally no point in trying to save water in December. Contrast that with some of the great reservoirs in the southwest that have been drawn down over a decade or more and are at historically low levels. There’s a constant nagging pressure to use less water in those regions to build up something for the hard times to come. In Seattle, we know the reservoirs are going to get full every winter. What we likely should be doing is developing more capacity. But there’s actually no real incentive on an individual to be super water conscious year-round.
We also don’t necessarily have the same situation on the west side of the Cascade mountains as the folks do on the eastern side, although in this case of the snow pack, I think everybody’s been screwed by that. That’s why I said Seattle and not Washington as a whole.
smedema@reddit
We will in Wisconsin once they finish building all these damn data centers.
thomsenite256@reddit
Only about a quarter of the country consistently has water concerns (basically the SW quarter) because they are essentially deserts. Many places have abundant water and occasional drought. I've never in my life had to conserve water.
Ok_Jackfruit2612@reddit
I'm in Houston, Texas. We should practice more water conservation. I don't see it talked about very much in Houston but if you make it out to Austin or San Antonio, you'll see notices and such.
No-Carry4971@reddit
Not to me. Water is a 100% renewable resource. The earth has the same amount of water as it has millions of years ago. When you use it, it remains H2O. It isn't used up. It is still water. You have literally used nothing.
Human_Management8541@reddit
No water shortage in my area, in the Catskills in NY. The fire department will actually come and fill your pool for free if you ask.
Elivagara@reddit
Entirely depends on where you live. Southwest water conservation is important and there are frequent long droughts. Northeast not really a problem.
NCErin@reddit
I’m in the South (NC) and we occasionally have droughts where the municipality will restrict outdoor water usage. But it only applies to those located in that particular town and while generally adhered to, I’m not entirely sure how it’s enforced.
We are in a drought right now and the main city started doing a water your plants on x schedule but the town I live in did not yet enact their restrictions and then we got a week of rain so I don’t think it’s as bad.
Again, these restrictions apply to those on the city water system. Those on well water would be wise to conserve their water reserves because they’ll have a much larger issue if their well runs dry.
I think it would be hard to try to enforce indoor water use. How do you police that? I’m single and my house is going to use a lot less water than my neighbors with 2 kids. Same size house. Different size household.
only_because_I_can@reddit
I live in Florida. I can only water my yard (garden) on Wednesdays because we have restrictions right now. Rainy season will hopefully start soon.
Huntscunt@reddit
I grew up in New Mexico, and we used to have classes at school to teach us how to conserve water. We were supposed to go home and tell our parents.
My parents grew up in the Midwest, so they really didn't care. We had three lawns 😭
Ok_Listen1510@reddit
wait until the californians wake up, they’ll have some things to say
Travelsat150@reddit
Just woke up. If anyone in my house takes a shower longer than 5 minutes it’s hell to pay. My electric and water was $1200 last month. I do not water my lawn except once a week. It will be bad in the summer with 100F plus days. But we conserve. Officially can only water two days a week.
velociraptorfarmer@reddit
Water/sewer/trash combined was $98 last month, electric was $178.
Travelsat150@reddit
Where? I’m really quite envious. I timed my shower today at 4 minutes.
velociraptorfarmer@reddit
Southern AZ
CaptainPunisher@reddit
Where are you? I'm in Bakersfield, and it'll be 100 tomorrow. Time to start walking around naked.
Travelsat150@reddit
San Fernando Valley by Valley College. I was gone u til 5:00pm but it was very hot.
CaptainPunisher@reddit
I wasn't doubting you. I was just curious how close you were to me.
norfolkgarden@reddit
Electric $140, Water/trash/sewer $120 winter, $200 summer (big garden)
Where on earth do you live?
Travelsat150@reddit
Wow. Thats fantastic. Yeah my sister lives in NJ and saw my bill - which includes sewer - and was blown away. I can’t even verbalize how pissed iff I am that the rates have gone up so much. Everyone is complaining. It’s such BS. And has was $6.75/gallon this morning in San Diego at Shell!
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
I've been watering my lawn from my washing machine for decades. It drains into a blue barrel and i run a hose from there. Only a small lawn, of course. I do get little piles of lint, but they don't last long.
Travelsat150@reddit
We were taking one of those buckets from Home Depot into the shower and after 4 people shower it’s full and I take it out to the rose bushes. But it’s heavy.
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
I'm on septic, so when i wash my husky i put a big tub inside my bathtub and wash her in that. I got a 20 ft clear tubeing and run that to the back yard. Fortunately it's not too far.
LynnSeattle@reddit
Where is this?
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Considering the first line is “just woke up” and it’s directly in reply to “just wait til the Californians wake up”, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess California.
norfolkgarden@reddit
I'm in Virginia. 4 moderate seasons and plenty of water in the east side.
TheMuffler42069@reddit
By “wake up” do you mean come to their senses ?
ThatArtNerd@reddit
It’s 6:55 AM on Sunday morning on the west coast of the US. They mean literally wake up
TheMuffler42069@reddit
So they’re saying that California is not woke ?
GenericAccount13579@reddit
You’re trying too hard
TheMuffler42069@reddit
Or am I trying too hard ?
LoetherS@reddit
It's not 7am yet in Cali. I think he expects them to come in hot with some stories after their first cup of coffee kicks in.
Ok_Listen1510@reddit
*she but yes
Mittens-Romney@reddit
Can confirm, it hasn’t been terrible the past few years and overall it’s improving but water reservoir status is something a lot of us watch casually.
terrymorse@reddit
Also the snowpack, where much of our water is stored.
tamster0111@reddit
Gen x here...in the 70s during the extreme drought in CA we: took baths after our parents in the same water and THEN pumped that water outside to water the garden. They monitored water usage like crazy.
Now I live in VA and some years we are asked to conserve and are monitored, but not nearly as badly as when I was a kid...
Kaurifish@reddit
Grew up in SoCal. Have been taking Navy showers my whole life.
Celtachor@reddit
Like 1/3 of Californias time as a state has been draughts. I still say "there's a draught!" every time I see someone waste water, even if there isn't one at the moment.
whatdoidonowdamnit@reddit
The word is drought. Draught is pronounced as draft and is entirely separate. I figure it makes sense you spelled it wrong as it’s a word you probably usually say instead of type.
Travelsat150@reddit
We are getting notifications
ChameleonCoder117@reddit
I'm here
Answer: yes
RikkiLostMyNumber@reddit
Just run a pipeline from my basement in New England to LA and their problems are solved.
Zvenigora@reddit
People have actually proposed aqueducts from the Great Lakes to the southwest.
kah43@reddit
Which is why its good to have Canada involved in how the Lakes are used to stop crazy shit like that.
FoggyGoodwin@reddit
I thought you meant Louisiana and was 🤔. Could you divert to Texas, please.
Alarmed_Drop7162@reddit
Louisiana has swamps and NO is a bowl so you get partial credit.
WeirdRip2834@reddit
Just posted.
IconoclastExplosive@reddit
I smelled this before I opened my eyes. I am opinionated.
Figgler@reddit
And they're the one state that refuses to revisit the Colorado River Interstate Compact. The "use it or lose it" system of rights that leads to millions of gallons of water wasted could be addressed, and every other state in the watershed is on board to try to fix it.
Matthew-ii@reddit
=> Me as a child so confused why we had "lawn watering days"
My2026GV70@reddit
In southern Nevada
MuchDevelopment7084@reddit
It depends on where you live. Out West, they had actual water wars in the 1800's. In the Midwest, none that I'm aware of...
onehalflightspeed@reddit
What frustrates me is that when there are water conservation efforts, they focus on personal responsibility from the individual, like shorter showers, lowering water levels in toilets, etc. Also bans on watering lawns, but I am fine with that. Your front yard in Arizona should not have grass in the first place
There is very little pressure put on agricultural and industrial overuse of water. Our booming data center industry is a great example. Farming used to be a big culprit too, but that has gotten better this century
tyoma@reddit
There are certainly reasons for people to not like data centers, but the water thing just doesn’t add up. Sure the headline numbers are big (millions of gallons!) but there is no context. Like in Arizona, the state’s golf courses use something like 30x as much water as all the state’s data centers, and produce much less economic value.
onehalflightspeed@reddit
Depends on where you live. It is a big problem here
But also I agree, golf courses in the desert is a completely ridiculous idea as well
DEATHROW__DC@reddit
It’s obviously still terrible water usage in a vacuum, but I think the golf courses in Arizona aren’t actually as bad as you’d probably think since the climate pretty much allows them to operate year round.
Courses in northern states need to deal with dormancy/recovery and just being functional dead zones for half the year.
StarWars_Girl_@reddit
Also, a good portion of the water data centers use is non-potable.
I love people who are protesting the data centers though as if we weren't already contributing by being on social media...
apleasantpeninsula@reddit
i'm suddenly for public golf courses that can be used as a park the vast majority of the time in which no stupid golf is being played. i just saw the cutest one in milwaukee and decided that supporting those is better than hating the others
PerfectlyCalmDude@reddit
The trick will be keeping people off the green.
brzantium@reddit
One of the big stories here in TX right now is that Corpus Christi is going to run out of water very soon, but zero restrictions have been placed on the local water guzzling refineries.
onehalflightspeed@reddit
But make sure to keep your showers under five minutes 😄 what really bothers me is how many southwestern states are eyeing the great lakes so they can pump them dry. The Soviet Union did exactly this to the Aral Sea, where you have those famous photos of rusted out tankers sitting in a desert
Infinite_Art_99@reddit
Living in Colorado - I DO NOT understand why our city allows lawn watering all summer. Record low snow this winter. Everything will burn this summer.
melodic-abalone-69@reddit
Our local reservoir was in drought state for nearly a decade. We got so much rain last year, it was officially back to normal, non-drought depths. Yet, That is precisely when our local government decided to implement water conservation efforts. And you're right, the watering days apply to individual homeowners, but not to local businesses.
Does the corner gas station Really need pristine thirsty-ass green grass watered every day? No.
They also keep trying to build those data centers around here. Why these places are not being charged for the water and electricity they use, I do Not understand.
AliMcGraw@reddit
It's because they're negotiating against unsophisticated local governments who believe them that the data centers will be massive job creators and pay tons of taxes into the local economy, so they give them brakes on water and electricity, and jack up the costs on the rest of us.
Your local town council likely does not understand that that data center is going to have like five guys working at it. The jobs are a mirage.
Data centers are also hugely secure facilities, so most people have never visited one, and only know what they've seen on TV. They don't understand that they have giant industrial backup generators in case of power outages, and they're noisy as fuck, and they're surprisingly dirty. People just think of the clean pristine racks of servers they see on TV, and don't realize that it's going to be a lot more like an army base with barbed wires and gates and guards and 24/7 surveillance, except it's going to be a really bad neighbor that provides no value to the local community.
LeGrandePoobah@reddit
There is a major fight on this front. The land owners have water rights and if the data center owns the land, they can choose to use the water however they wish. Electricity, however. Is very different. They are requiring the centers to provide their own electricity. Because of the need to generate electricity, and because they are use air cooled systems instead of water ones, in one example, when a data center goes in, they expect that valley to see a net 18F degree increase in ambient air temperature. If that really happens, that is catastrophically bad- regardless of water use. Simply unsustainable.
onehalflightspeed@reddit
I live in the most data center dense region of the USA. It is even worse than not being required to pay for excessive water and electricity use, they actually get subsidies to encourage them to build here. In the counties where they are doing it, local residents love it because their property tax values go down with the taxes these mega centers pay. Meanwhile, electricity and water costs have doubled because resources are being squeezed. It is all a shell game
TheBotchedLobotomy@reddit
Im in utah and it pisses me off all the restrictions we have to conserve water but then you have all these alfalfa farmers watering their shit in the middle of a storm, watering the pavement for days on end because a sprinkler faced the wrong direction etc. All to just export that alfalfa out of the country anyway
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
I'm ok with ag use. People can live elsewhere but California is the perfect climate for so much ag. The foreign alfalfa is annoying, but i keep in mind that we invited them here
digawina@reddit
Exactly! I'm in MA and every year we're banned from using "unnecessary" water from May - Sep between 9am and 5pm or something. But the city sports fields? Sprinkle away! Golf courses, gotta keep em green. The onus is on the individuals and not the actual large water users.
SkiingAway@reddit
Alright, so....
MA's quite different in that the state/region as a whole is not too that water-stressed, but the complicated topography means that some areas (mostly near the coast) are very isolated in terms of water supplies.
So in town A, their local river is small and short, and only has a very small + local catchment area (how large an area of land drains into that river). That river is extremely sensitive to how much rain has fallen in this exact area, and runs dry quickly when it hasn't rained in a while.
But just a couple miles away town B is on a river with a catchment area dozens or hundreds of times larger, possibly stretching into another state. This is much less sensitive to "how much has it rained in this exact place", and also usually far less water-strained in general.
This can make for frustrating phenomena where town A is warning you that they're about to run out of water and please conserve as much as possible, and 10miles away they have no restrictions at all. Both can be true at once, and not impacting the other.
This is a map of New England River Basins: https://i.imgur.com/ULIqSPw.jpeg
Those really tiny ones in Eastern MA, especially where that's a highly populated area, are usually the places with the most problems if they're not on the MWRA system (Quabbin reservoir, etc) that redirects water from central MA to metro Boston.
https://i.imgur.com/ULIqSPw.jpeg
To pick an example - the towns that draw from the Ipswich River are an example of those that are often struggling in that sense. (small pink line north of Boston).
Towns to the S/SW are on the MWRA system and get their water from redirected from a large area of Central MA. Towns further N/NW have the far vaster and longer Merrimack River to pull from.
boarhowl@reddit
Don't get me started on golf courses and vineyards. I feel like both are a blight on our ecosystems. Rampant use of chemicals, drying up aquifers, and straight up clear-cutting forests, all to attract fucking drunken yuppies. No, I don't have any winery recommendations for you!!
umlaut@reddit
Meanwhile, half of Colorado River water is used just to grow feed for cattle. Instead of one steer for beef, we could have have water for 10 people for a whole year.
BatterUp1600@reddit
And some part of the country where there’s a drought, it will be important. But usually it’s not.
anotherdamnscorpio@reddit
Some parts of the country care a lot. Other places have a lot of water and no one gives a shit.
yyythoo@reddit
The entire state of Florida is in a severe drought right now. We are just getting into the rainy season though, so hopefully it will work itself out
cmcglinchy@reddit
It is to some of us.
Snoo_16677@reddit
I'm in Pittsburgh, the city with three rivers and lots of precipitation. We don't worry much around here.
DepressoExpresso98@reddit
Not as much as it should be. People in my area are aware of the importance all the time because we’re told to conserve water, but nothing is done about it beyond telling us. No restrictions in place, no incentives, and no visible changes to back it up. As far as people know, we keep hearing about droughts but have never experienced the effects of one
arcticmischief@reddit
I grew up in California and had water conservation instilled in me at a very young age.
Whenever I travel to Florida and see ponds in fancy subdivisions and office parts with fountains in the middle, I have a visceral reaction before I remind myself that they have more water than they know what to do with there, and it’s ok to have a fountain (plus, they keep the water moving and cut down on insects breeding in the standing water).
However, I did spend enough of my formative years in Anchorage, where the local water utility charged a flat rate and did not have a meter, so I’ve gotten bad about taking longer showers and leaving the sink running while brushing my teeth. I have to make an effort to not do that when I visit family in California.
I currently live in Missouri, where we get a lot of big thunderstorms, and it always amuses me when the local weather forecasters talk about drought conditions. I understand the technical meaning of that term, but these people here have no idea what a real drought is. A little bit of brown grass from lower than usual rains is not the same as literally running out of drinking water.
Oh, and since the OP is from Australia, it’s also probably worth pointing out that there are legal restrictions on certain things here that are common in Australia, such as rainwater catchment systems. Believe it or not, it is illegal in I believe most of the western states (the arid ones where water is scarce) to capture your own rainwater off of your own roof, because legally, that water belongs to people who bought up water rights hundreds of years ago. The whole system is pretty ridiculous—some farmer whose great grandpa bought 1000 acres of land 100 years ago can legally slurp down all of your water to feed their thirsty almond trees, and meanwhile, you can get a fine if you accidentally turn your sprinkler system on for 15 minutes on the wrong day.
Like many other posters, though, I will say that the push for individual water conservation is a bit silly when the vast, vast majority of water usage comes from industrial sources. Like, California putting legal restrictions on offering glasses of water in restaurants is ridiculous when almond farmers in the Central Valley are consuming billions of gallons. That said, I’m glad to see more and more of a movement away from the American ideal of green lawns in suburbia and towards more native lawns or rock yards. Promoting denser housing and walkable communities would be even better for the environment in terms of water usage and HVAC efficiency, not to mention housing costs in a part of the country where housing costs are utterly and completely out of control. I would love to live back in my home state, but the same size apartment I have here in Missouri literally cost three times as much in my hometown in California.
mkp666@reddit
You can legally catch rainwater in most western states, although there are restrictions and/or permits required in some. It is completely legal (and encouraged) in California for instance.
arcticmischief@reddit
Ah. Looks like laws about rainwater collection have been updated in the last decade.
aftersox@reddit
We have a serious drought in Colorado. There are strict watering restrictions. If i see someone with a bright green lawn, I judge them.
Infinite_Art_99@reddit
I just wanna say....we're renting. The front yard has sprinklers because the owners require it. Told the sprinkler dudes to not bother with the back yard.
I totally judge the neighbor who's having the yard redone WITH LAWNS AND SH!T!!!!
Disastrous_Eagle9187@reddit
Someone with a bright green lawn probably has a drought resistant grass mix. Lawn watering is a drop in the bucket of where water is being wasted
tesseractjane@reddit
Not only are we super aware of water in Colorado, we're judging every golf course in the Colorado River Compact.
Keelera2@reddit
I grew up in Las Vegas, which is considered the gold standard of places for water conservation. It is heavily pushed there. Shorter showers, rock gardens for yards, covers for your pools, etc. Living right next to Lake Mead where it’s so obvious how much water its lost really helps southern Nevadans remember to conserve.
Now I live in the Southeast US where it rains all the freaking time. I seldom hear anything about water conservation.
front_torch@reddit
A 20 minute shower is insane
megamanx4321@reddit
In parts of Colorado, it is illegal to collect and store your own rainwater, because farmers rely on the runoff water for their crops and livestock.
Most places in the US don't have problems like this.
AnybodySeeMyKeys@reddit
A lot depends on the part of the country. For example, I'm in a city in the American South that is surrounded by lakes and rivers, getting 55+ inches of rain a year. So while it's important to not waste water, it's not a screaming priority either.
squirrelyoakley@reddit
Same here, but I'm from Seattle. We are built on a wetland, get tons of rain, and have many rivers. We have so much fresh water that most of our energy comes from dammed rivers
squirrelyoakley@reddit
I'm from Seattle, and no. We get melt off from the mountains and we live in a literal wetland with abundant rivers and streams.
DesertWanderlust@reddit
It's a constant thought in Arizona. Most of us just have water conservation built into our daily habits. That said, Tucson (where I live) is more conscious of it it seems since we're at the effective "end of the pipe".
kmoonster@reddit
Depends on the region. In some areas it's a massive issue. In others, it's not.
nighthawkndemontron@reddit
Data centers are thirsty
scarlettohara1936@reddit
I live in Arizona. Water conversation is crucial.
FruityLegume@reddit
I'm in the central part of California where it is very dry. I've lived here almost all of my life and most of that time we've been in drought.
We have similar measures, like only being able to water outdoor plants on specific days of the week. Long ago I feel like there was much more emphasis on conservation, but I feel like most people know to do things like to turn off the water while you brush your teeth.
There was a really bad drought when I was a kid in the 80s and I remember them drilling conservation methods in to us. Maybe that's why I feel like it's normal now, but I bet kids now don't learn it the same way.
LeGrandePoobah@reddit
I live in the second driest state in the U.S. water conservation is a huge deal. Virginia, on our east coast, I would be surprised if they ever have drought conditions for longer than an afternoon.
Young_Bu11@reddit
Not around my locale but in some areas, the US is large and has many different environments.
Parking_Champion_740@reddit
Remember it’s a huge country. In the west we have a lot of water issues. My son goes to college in the Midwest and when he’s home I have to remind him to cut back on his showers
Dynablade_Savior@reddit
In dry/desert areas, or places with high elevation, I can see it becoming a problem. It already has in some places.
...I don't have this problem, because I live in Wisconsin. Lots of lakes here, lots of water to go around
AtheneSchmidt@reddit
I'm from Colorado, the Metro Denver area to be specific. In the 40 years I have lived here we have been under water restrictions pretty much every summer of my life. "If it's brown, flush it down, if it's yellow let it mello." Was legit a campaign on our TV and radio.
The West has water issues. The East and Midwest have so much water that the concept of only watering 2x a week, or literally not flushing when you just pee would seem insane.
LetterheadClassic306@reddit
you nailed it - it's super regional. out west like california and arizona, water conservation is a huge deal with restrictions and heavy messaging. back east near the great lakes, people worry less because supply is abundant. still, high efficiency showerheads are becoming standard nationwide. smart irrigation controllers are popular in drier states for watering lawns on schedule. rain barrels catch runoff for gardens too. climate change is making it more of a national conversation each year though.
lfxlPassionz@reddit
Depends on where in the US but here in Michigan water is very plentiful. We still try to respect it though
JanuriStar@reddit
It depends on the climate. I live in Florida, where it gets plenty of rain. We do have certain days that we water the lawn.
Once, we were were told to avoid long showers, and not to do laundry, for 3 days after a particularly heavy rain because sewers and drainage systems were over-saturated. So, we were told to conserve water because of a lack of it, but because of an over abundance.
Shop-S-Marts@reddit
We have entire cfrs full of water conservation regulations and each state maintains its own environmental protection service to engorve those regulations.
TDFPH@reddit
We absolutely have this problem. However, it’s not talked about a ton unless you’re already in climate / drought conscious groups. Most people I encounter would never think twice about a long shower or multiple showers a day and this is in LA
RhinoPillMan@reddit
It should be. Most of the nation is in a severe drought. But it’s not, and personal choices like shorter showers don’t make much of a difference. Most water is being used by governments and industries, same with every other environmentally destructive activity.
riktigtmaxat@reddit
This isn't actually true.
The biggest consumption is by a wide margin agriculture which accounts for 80-90%.
Industry only accounts for around 5%.
Hydrothermal power (in other words gas and coal) account for 49% of the draw but most of that coolant water is returned.
RhinoPillMan@reddit
Agriculture is an industry….
riktigtmaxat@reddit
My bad. Never get into an argument with an idiot...
AskAnAmerican-ModTeam@reddit
Your comment was removed as it violates Rule 9 which is “Treat the person you are replying to with respect and civility.” It means that your comment either contained an insult aimed at another user or it showed signs of causing incivility in the comments.
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RhinoPillMan@reddit
Mocking my intelligence while saying ridiculous shit lol. “Argument”? Sure, Hoss.
funklab@reddit
We need to take shorter showers and skip washing the car so that data centers can consume massive amounts of water and almonds can be grown in desert climates.
Zvenigora@reddit
And so they can grow alfalfa in the desert to export to Saudi Arabia!
FLOHTX@reddit
You forgot the Chinese alfalfa fields in Arizona too.
IthurielSpear@reddit
Data centers popping up everywhere in the South are using a lot of water and raising everyone’s water bills.
RhinoPillMan@reddit
They’re trying to build one near property I own.. in the high desert in New Mexico. Where people’s wells are already going dry and they’re having to drop $30k+ to drill new ones to survive. Data centers are helping lead us into an apocalypse, and it’s not just because of their high water usage.
tangledbysnow@reddit
They are after this in Nebraska too because of the aquifer. And my state is too dang red that they will just roll over and do it. It’s already started happening. This is going to be very very bad as without that Nebraska has zero water. We are in a massive drought right now and that aquifer has not been replenishing itself adequately for a long time.
seanymphcalypso@reddit
They keep trying here in Michigan too. While we do have the resources for this right now we absolutely do not want them. We’re listening to everyone else who has them and showing up to meetings and having votes that show the majority of us do not want them here. I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to hold out but I’m hoping we can outlive them.
taranathesmurf@reddit
I live in the rainy Pacific Northwest. Most of the time our problem is too much water. However our water provider does urge us to not let water run. Also if the snow pack is low, we get watering restrictions
notyourmama827@reddit
In Nevada it is going to be very important. Vegas has already been saving water for years. Northern Nevada has the agricultural areas and the farmers are most likely not going to like what comes from the Colorado River compact .
AntOnADogLog@reddit
Theyre trying to truck water out of east texas which has already depleating resources so even though theres no push for conservation i am someone my husband lowkey eyerolls at because i insist on doing things as efficiently as possible within reason. Im not a saint, but i do my best to line everything up and have a plan for things like dishes, showers, reusable water (eg watering plants with extra coffee water once its colled back down instead of dumping it down the drain) and garden care.
AshDenver@reddit
I’m in Colorado and there are water conservation efforts and restrictions.
When I was in Oregon for 5 years (precipitation pretty much daily except July) and when I was growing up in Michigan (plus the unfortunate 5 years in Illinois), there were no such efforts or measures.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
In my state, we currently have water restrictions in place after a dry winter.
MongooseDog001@reddit
The US town I live in is about to run out of water.
show_me_your_secrets@reddit
I live in the second driest state. The governor will ask the people to pray for rain while his family farms one of the most water intensive crops for export.
We have limited watering schedules with enforcement for our lawns, and the great salt lake is drying up and threatening our health with toxic dust storms — but the governor and his buddies are fast-tracking a 62 square mile data center project.
TheBotchedLobotomy@reddit
FUCK MIKE LEE
samelaaaa@reddit
Hello neighbor. Just joining to say Fuck Mike Lee and also Spencer Cox
show_me_your_secrets@reddit
Amen 🙏
PaintsWithSmegma@reddit
62 square miles?! Holy shit. If their so dead set on having these data centers there has to be a better way of going about it. Closed loop cooling systems with solar or something.
ColumbiaWahoo@reddit
At least most of those things are still in Ashburn VA which has enough water. They do seem to be expanding elsewhere though.
vwsslr200@reddit
Data centers do use closed loop cooling systems. The water freakout is actually pretty silly, they don't actually use that much in the scheme of things. Agriculture is a far bigger issue, especially beef production.
MechanicalGodzilla@reddit
Yeah, the only water consumption at a data center is if it has cooling towers. They have an evaporation rate, but it’s nothat crazy. Having very firm opinions on the The closed loop vs. open loop system argument is weird, because the tradeoffs are water conservation for energy efficiency.
WhyOhWhyOhWhy333@reddit
I saw one on Friday, and it apparently did not have cooling towers. Closed system?
MechanicalGodzilla@reddit
Different systems work better in different areas. The data center may have entirely air-cooled condensing units, or maybe the towers are behind enclosures so you can’t see them from the ground.
WhyOhWhyOhWhy333@reddit
Did not see any evaporation plumes
MechanicalGodzilla@reddit
Tower plumes are not constantly visible, they depend on the air temp and dewpoint. Typically it would need to be a colder damper day for them to be visible, and this occurs probably les than 10% of the tower’s run-hours. Seeing a plume can verify the presence of cooling towers, but absence of plumes doesn’t prove they are not there.
Hexakkord@reddit
We need to eat, we don’t need AI data centers. That said, I agree that we need to eat less beef, it’s really wasteful.
New_Chapter7365@reddit
Just from the comments already you can tell part of the country doesn’t struggle with water 😂 I do live in the western part of the states, Idaho - and it’s been one of the worst years for water. I believe the driest in over 100+ years. We are in for an awful wildfire season. We see parts of our state catch fire every year, it’s just a debate of how bad it will be.
ThatArtNerd@reddit
The snowpack in the cascades was so bad this winter 😫 the huge bald spots near Rainier’s peak the last several summers have been hard to see
TheBotchedLobotomy@reddit
Same with the Wasatch here in utah. Worst snowpack in a century and that's where ALL our water comes from. Its gonna be a bad year
And I still see people on my local subs asking about how to renovate their yards and people planting high water plants. Iike fuck your yard dude wait til next year this is not the time to get your perfect green grass
New_Chapter7365@reddit
Exactly, we have a ranch at the base of the Tetons and they have been looking…. BARE for a few years now. Not to mention we are dry farmers so if it keeps on this way, it’s going to be a rough year!
ThatArtNerd@reddit
Oh man, that’s going to be a tough summer.
Separate from the point but if you’re at the base of the Tetons I imagine where you live is pretty damn gorgeous 🤩 we’re so spoiled with natural beauty in the PNW! Speaking of your area I’m reading this bonkers book about an exploring party in the 1810s trying to blindly make their way to the Columbia River via the Snake River (with the Tetons as their major guiding landmark) so they could establish a trading empire in the west, and it was predictably a huge disaster. Apparently the French Canadian voyageurs on this journey gave the Tetons their current name. Astoria by Peter Stark, if you’re interested :)
New_Chapter7365@reddit
That’s super interesting I’ll have to check it out! I bet you know what they say they are named for also 🤣
It’s amazing, we aren’t lucky enough to live there all the time. It’s a family property that we’ve had since 1916 and continue to run and use as our vacation/family gathering space. It gets closed down during the winter due to its proximity to the mountains/forest. Many of my family members have even gotten married there, me included.
ThatArtNerd@reddit
That sounds lovely! I bet the summers out there are absolutely incredible.
The book is super interesting, it’s written more like a frontier adventure novel than a dry history. There’s also an ill-fated party that tries to get to the Columbia by sea (which is still today notoriously challenging and dangerous) it’s a whole thing. As for the overland party, that they looked very hard but couldn’t find even one indigenous guide who knew much about the route they wanted to take should have been a sign to…NOT, Haha. If it had been a viable route west people would have been paddling it for hundreds or thousands of years already
New_Chapter7365@reddit
Absolutely! I put it in my Libby 🤣
Zelda_Galadriel@reddit
We don’t normally struggle with water, but Florida has been in an extreme drought with wildfires this year
The12th_secret_spice@reddit
I grew up in CA we were always taught about water conservation. Currently living in drought country, gov has been pushing water saving measures/fees
EaglesFanGirl@reddit
Depends on where u are. I'm in the Northeast. We don't have this issue, though we try to conserve it during droughts.
oops_im_not_wrong@reddit
My house runs off a well, I take as long of a shower as I want to. We were in a drought a couple of weeks ago so I did cut back just in case, but after 4 days of rain in the past week I’m in the clear. It was the first real drought in years
Unusual_Entrance7354@reddit
Have you seen the way the treat the people living in the southern states by letting them drink brown water from the pipes?
Multidream@reddit
It’s a concern in drier areas of the country, but most individuals do not conserve water without special instructions.
Federal-Membership-1@reddit
We have a well and septic system. The only big concern is the energy cost. I don't irrigate my lawn. I don't have an automatic sprinkler either.
Ok_Buy_9703@reddit
In our part of Colorado our water district allows watering M,W,& F odd numbered addresses, T,T&S even numbered... in the summer our water bill can easily climb over $500/mo. So the financial reason is enough to keep showers short...
belisle34@reddit
I live in GA USA. I fill my garden tub full of water every night and use all the hot water. LOL! I wait until everyone else showers and for the hot water to heat back up.
mando_ad@reddit
Texan here. I can always tell the transplants 'cuz they'll have their sprinklers on in the middle of the day when it's 105°.
Anyone who grew up here has seen approximately 8 million PSAs reminding them not to do that.
5uper5kunk@reddit
As everyone is saying it very much depends on where you live and what your actual water supply is. I live maybe 40 minutes from the center of Washington DC but it’s on a weird little rural property that draws its water from a well and instead of having hook up to a government sewer system, our house has an old septic field. So basically any water that runs down a drain at our house eventually makes it back into the aquifer so it’s somewhat a closed system compared to a lot of places.
GrimSpirit42@reddit
I live on the Gulf Coast in the city that, 4 out of 5 years, receives more rainfall than any other city in the continental US.
Water is not an issue. The municipal water supply is a huge lake that is fed by several rivers and rain watershed.
We can take as long a shower as I can afford.
mostlygray@reddit
I'm in MN. We have occasional water restrictions in the summer, but only for watering your lawn.
Of course, those restrictions occur when temps are over 90 degrees and your grass is dormant anyway. People love to water brown grass as if that does something. It's dormant asshole. You're just wasting water. Once it gets below 80, go ahead and water.
jawshoeaw@reddit
Pacific Northwest. Please take away some of our water
Mysterious-Web-8788@reddit
Yes but most of us aren't facing imminent threats.
Most of hte country has large aquifers. However pulling lots of water out of these aquifers fast means that the aquifer is sucking new water down into it very rapidly. This means less filtering and it's sucking things like nitrogen into it. Which is a carcinogen situation. So pick a locality, they're having some kind of issue now with the water being less "pure" than it was 20+ years ago. It just hasn't become a noticeable problem in most places. I think water treatment will be an expensive proposition in our children's generation.
ophaus@reddit
The Southwest parts of the country have to, for sure.
SheepherderAware4766@reddit
My area has an overabundance of water. Generally water conservation is treated as a money saving rather than climate savings. Our rivers are clean and full enough to pipe directly into treatment plants, so we're not fighting any water table issues. We actually have a giant issue in our rivers are too full and are trying to divert. The Mississippi River is trying to divert itself into Atchafalaya Basin, and is only held back by yearly waterworks projects.
We are taught about runoff management, fertilizer and other farming whatnot that gets flushed out of yards and causes issues in the Gulf. The biggest ones are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. These make algae bloom, which suck the oxygen out of the water.
PuzzleheadedLemon353@reddit
I try and be conservative as I can...if water tables are low, no car washes, I naturalized the yard, so no sprinklers, I run the dishwasher 2 times per week, I rehang clean clothing that's only been worn a short while instead of throwing it into the dirty clothes basket and fairly quick showers. I do flush the toilet everytime it's used though...some people don't. And I always turn water off after I have wet my toothbrush instead of letting it run. Pretty commen sense stuff.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
It's not a general thing, no, because lots of our country gets lots of rain. Out west is notably dry in most places and it can be a big problem. Even there there are exceptions. In the East there's a lot more regular rainfall.
Where I live every, two or three or four years we get a period where we don't get a lot of rain in the summer and then they start issuing warnings about drought and lowered lake levels and things like that. But that's the exception and not the rule.
DrBlankslate@reddit
It depends where you are. In Southern California, it's extremely important. When I've traveled to the Midwest I'm shocked at the wasteful use of water in the toilets and the lack of aerators in sink faucets. That would never be tolerated here in SoCal.
I remember watching a "Rock the Block" HGTV show a couple of years back. It was set in SoCal that year - in the desert. (The show brings together several designers and they compete to renovate and improve four pre-built, identical tract houses. Whichever house gets the highest assessed value at the end of the show is the winner.)
Each week, the contest is a different room or area - the kitchen, or the main bedroom suite, or the living room, or whatever. And that year, one of the designers I like (from Minneapolis) created the most water-wasteful main bathroom I've ever seen in my life. Her shower design had not just two shower heads and two rain shower heads, but twelve embedded spigots all along the walls for a "full-body luxury shower experience."
I remember saying "Does she not CARE what the water bill will be???" In SoCal, that bathroom would probably create a water bill that was higher than the mortgage payment.
So, yeah, in SoCal, water conservation is drilled into us from childhood.
microbial_comedy@reddit
Depends on the area for sure, but in many areas we don’t think about it! I live in Florida right now and we are in a drought in my area, so we’re conserving water a little more (avoiding watering lawns, etc) but that’s fairly unusual to be honest. Normally we get more than enough rain to not worry about it.
CroweBird5@reddit
It really depends on the geographic area of the country you mean.
Southwest? Absolutely!
Midwest and East? Not so much
supermuncher60@reddit
Depends on part of the USA.
In the Northeast and great lakes region, not really ever a concern.
Southern California, definitely
spandexcatsuit@reddit
So…. This is a vast country. Where I am there is zero concern about water. I have drilled well and it’s fine. In the cities near me it’s also plentiful. You can take long showers do whatever you want. Where there are droughts, things are different. But no one around me worries about water except the few old properties with hand dug wells. Those are prone to drying out because they’re not deep enough.
Living_Molasses4719@reddit
I think it’s more acutely felt in the West where drought is common. Some cities restrict when people are allowed to water their lawns/gardens
HeimLauf@reddit
It’s very important in California.
Adorable_Dust3799@reddit
I'm in so-cal and for those of us born and raised here it's drilled in throughout out lives. Public ads saying 'if it's yellow it's mellow, if it's brown flush it down', suggestions to not flush pee, especially at night, ' save water, shower with a friend', don't let the water run while brushing, and programs promoting ripping out the lawn and planting xeriscape, and rain barrel rebates.
Weird_Squirrel_8382@reddit
I feel like the emphasis I've seen is more about keeping water supplies clean. As a kid we did field trips and projects about the water system and learned that if we let roundup or motor oil run off our driveways we'd eventually kill some innocent fish.
Dreamweaver5823@reddit
Depends who you ask. There is a political contingent in this country that is actively hostile to any consideration of environmental concerns in guiding their actions.
At the other end of the spectrum is a group for whom environmental concerns are paramount.
I think the group in the middle is probably the majority. They try to recycle and conserve when they can, but are content with much less than perfection.
It's also influenced by geography; California has been dealing with water shortages off and on for decades, for instance, so it's definitely more on people's minds there than in some other places.
Overall, I think fewer Americans are aware of the need for water conservation than, for example, toxic waste and recycling issues. It just hasn't gotten as much attention for as many years.
msbshow@reddit
Depends on where you are. I grew up in the Midwest. When I was little, I thought that droughts just weren’t a problem in the U.S. If the Midwest is having a drought, others have been dead for ages.
But I also went to college in the Southwest and geez Louise, I don’t understand how people feel it’s safe to live there in the next couple of decades.
Cyber_Punk_87@reddit
It’s very region-specific. I’m in New England. Even when we have prolonged droughts, widespread access to water isn’t really an issue (individual wells do sometimes run dry, but it’s often because they weren’t drilled deep enough to begin with). But in parts of the west, it’s definitely an issue. It’ll be a huge issue this year due to the lack of snow pack in the Rockies this winter…
SkiingAway@reddit
Not really. Most of the country is not particularly water-strained.
In the more arid parts of the West it's a little more important....but at the same time the population has largely been gaslit into thinking that it's the humans living out there that are the problem, when in reality they're barely using any of the water.
The actual problem is that like 80% of the water use out there is being used for agriculture and much of that goes to absolutely fucking idiotic things like growing one of the most water-intensive luxury crops on the planet in the desert. (almonds).
Ban almonds, ban growing/raising anything that can be cost-effectively done elsewhere in the country, and that sort of thing and the West wouldn't have the slightest bit of a water problem and the difference in prices/availability on your grocery shelves would be almost zero.
94grampaw@reddit
In some places very hard yes is other places absolutely not at all.
Where im from watering a lawn was basically like punching puppys, where i am now the idea of conserving water is only for people pinching Penny's, but zero people care about it on a moral level, it rains so often people got worried about a drought because it didn't rain for 2 weeks once in the middle of summer.
shelwood46@reddit
I worry more about wildfire risk in this area (PA/NJ) than running out of water.
94grampaw@reddit
Yeah were Hella watery, we do have fire risk, but no where near the level of the west coast.
Hairy_Debate6448@reddit
Nah not really, some people on here and saying it depends on the region but even so the idea of “water conservation” isn’t pushed as much as it is in other countries. Most of the people here who talk about it are just environmentalists/climate activists.
Empty-Cycle2731@reddit
In certain parts of the country, yes. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest it rains most of the year, so it's not really an issue.
BeneficialShame8408@reddit
we had ricky the raindrop teaching us about water conservation in socal in the 90s. XD not sure if kids still do units on that, but droughts are definitely a thing in some states (but not others)
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
Depends on where. Here in Oregon, not really. In Las Vegas or Phoenix? Absolutely.
Accomplished_Mix7827@reddit
It varies regionally. Absolutely in the desert in the Southwest (Nevada, Arizona, much of California, etc). A bit in the Great Plains (Montana, Wyoming, etc) Not really in the Northeast, South, or on the prairie (Ohio, Kansas, etc). In the Great Lakes region and in the Northwestern rainforests, they are in no danger of running out of water whatsoever, they've got plenty.
Aware-Owl4346@reddit
It's highly regional, and also seasonal. Here in the Northeast, without drought warnings nobody worries that much. Right now the watershed in my area (New York City) is 100% full and spring rains have hardly started; all that excess water is just flowing into the sea.
Whenever someone gives me grief about using water, I'll say "Yeah! Clean fresh water doesn't just fall from the sky you know!"
Cathode335@reddit
There is huge variation depending on where you are in the country. I literally live in a county called Lake County. You can barely throw a rock without hitting a body of water here. I worry much more about my kids drowning in a retention pond than I do about water conservation. Incidentally, the biggest problem in my life right now is that my basement keeps flooding because we had above average rainfall this year. There are areas in my town where the road routinely floods, and my friend actually totaled her car by driving through a "puddle" that was too deep.
So yeah, water conservation is a thing we hear about that is important for the earth as a whole. And there are certain times in summer where we have droughts (as a gardener, I definitely notice these). But conserving water is not a major concern in my region on a daily basis. Like if someone starts rationing my bath water, I'll just go wash up in the creek that's currently flowing through my basement.
Crafty_Ish1973@reddit
It should be, especially with all the AI data centers being built. Unfortunately, the American government is perfectly happy to poison the water supply for profit.
Traditional_Trust418@reddit
No, none at all really. Most people use personal well water
jvc1011@reddit
In California, it’s huge.
When I moved to the East Coast, I was shocked by the waste. But I was also surprised that it rained all summer long.
ColumbiaWahoo@reddit
Depends on where you live. If you’re in the southwest, it’s SUPER important.
No_Satisfaction_7431@reddit
This isn't really a thing in the Midwest but I suspect in the West where theres lots of droughts it is. But I've never lived in the West so idk. But local governments do warn about water usage during storms with floods or flooding potential. Don't shower, wash clothes, flush etc during big storms but its more about flooding than conservation efforts.
DivaJanelle@reddit
When in kindergarten back in the ‘70s a teacher told us water is an important resource and to shut the water off when brushing your teeth is a start. I still shut off the water.
I try to not be wasteful. I’m not perfect about it
BecauseImBatmanFilms@reddit
In certain areas where there is a desert (Southern Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada) or horrendous management (California) or both, but most of America doesn't really have this issue.
La_noche_azul@reddit
Horrendous management? Or California had a drought for over 20 years
HermioneMarch@reddit
In the west where there is a lot of desert. But most of us very much take water for granted. It makes me crazy how much some of my neighbors water their lawns ( and the street) almost constantly. But I am bad for taking long, hot showers, so I cannot throw stones.
Whybaby16154@reddit
Lived in a Great Lakes town most of my life. It rains - it’s Free- and there’s a whole lot of it everywhere if it doesn’t rain.
Friends from Phoenix Arizona desert area - well they worry about water.
ReactionAble7945@reddit
East of the Mississippi it isnt a problem rarely comes up unless there is a drought.
West of the Mississippi it is a constant thing. Same with forest fires.
theoldman-1313@reddit
It's very important, so we have to work extra hard at ignoring it.
whipla5her@reddit
Here in Central California we are very water conscious. We just don't get much water. We're constantly in a drought situation (even though the past several years have been good). So we have to limit when we water lawns, have low flow fixtures, etc.
famousanonamos@reddit
It depends entirely on location. I live in California where the drought is always an issue, so it's probably more similar to what you are used to. We were taught ways to conserve water in elementary school. We are prone to fires because everything gets so dry. We produce a lot of food and are supposed to conserve water at home so the farmers don't run out, though there's also a whole political mess when it comes to diverting water to other parts of the state, as well as fighting about water storage/dam building.
Some years there are legal restrictions and you can get citations for watering your lawn (though this doesn't seem to apply to businesses as I've seen many places running sprinklers in the middle of the day with water run off trailing down the street) or be penalized by the water company for using too much.
But then I visit other states and there are no issues because they get so much rain and have high humidity. Things tend to stay green on their own and they have rain storms during the summer. They can water, play in sprinklers, wash their cars, etc.
Original_Ant7013@reddit
Definitely very dependent of where and sometimes season or time of year (current drought conditions).
I’m in Florida and while we are technically in a drought (which is normal this time of year) we are still literally tripping over water every where you go.
One of the longer term concerns in Florida is salt water intrusion. Meaning that as we pump out fresh groundwater that doesn’t get replenished with surface water because it’s being pumped as well and/or rainfall that’s below average, the ocean starts to encroach. Many coastal area wells are no longer usable because of the salt levels. That can move further inland.
Is there a big push to conserve? Unfortunately, no. But there are conservation efforts at city and county levels. My county is currently under restrictions and we can only water gardens once a week. The next county over (inland) has no such restrictions.
davidm2232@reddit
Not in many areas. In my area, we have more water than we know what to do with
shammy_dammy@reddit
Depends on the area
mtcwby@reddit
Depends one where. Born and raised in northern California and I remember well the drought in the middle 70s and several since then. Limits on washing cars, watering lawns and very early on low flow everything.
Used to irritate the hell out of us going down to Southern California where it's generally been lip service. The reality is that agriculture uses most of the water and all the optimization by residential users doesn't have nearly as much effect as cutting back on growing alfalfa for export.
Dapper-Presence4975@reddit
I live in New England. The only drought restrictions we ever have are that occasionally in the summertime the town might restrict outdoor water use like watering lawns, gardens, or filling pools.
We live in a relatively wet part of the country. We also “bank” a lot of water when it snows.
angelalj8607@reddit
My area is in extreme drought. Last time it was this bad was 2008. We have not had a lot of rain, which spring is usually a very rainy season. I usually don’t hope for a hurricane (season starts June 1) but this year I hope we get one to help put even just a little dent on the drought.
We_R_the_Penguins@reddit
Just an anecdote, really, but we were once asked to use more water. As I understand it, our sewage treatment system was setup before low flush toilets on the assumption that there would be a certain water:poop ratio. When people started using less water per flush, it threw off the chemistry.
Fireguy9641@reddit
It varies a lot by region. The Southwest region is a lot more water sensitive than, say, the Great Lakes region.
That said, framing water conversation as a financial issue is a way you can connect the issue to people and make them care about it.
ChapterOk4000@reddit
I'm in San Diego. We've had drought restrictions in the past where they suggest take shorter showers, but they don't require it. They have required watering outside only on certain days. We haven't been under that restriction for a few years. We are educated here about water conservation.
Water is expensive though, so I do think about water use and have drip irrigation outside. And no lawn, only native plants that are drought tolerant. The city (it's municipal water) offered rebates a few years ago to take out lawns and put in drip irrigation rather than regular.
PerennialGeranium@reddit
An important point in a conversation about San Diego's water conservation is that we're in the middle of maybe the area's largest infrastructure project ever—a potable water reuse project that will provide either a third or half of the area's potable water once complete.
It's been very disruptive! But there hasn't been nearly the pushback you'd expect from something so expensive and annoying, probably because it's just such a tremendous quantity of reliable water that it's worth putting up with a lot.
AdamoMeFecit@reddit
East of (generally) the Mississippi River, water tends to be quite plentiful, so people don’t think much about conservation unless drought conditions occur.
I have lived in the desert Southwest portion of the country, where water is not plentiful, population density is higher than it should be, and water rights are a chronically disputed thing. People there tend to pay very close attention to water conservation, both at home and in the judicial courts.
ThePickleConnoisseur@reddit
In California and Arizona it is. CA was in a drought until very recently. You couldn’t even water the lawn whenever you wanted
One_Significance5354@reddit
Las vegas is in the middle of the desert and has one of the best water reclaiming efforts in the world. Reclaiming 99% of indoor water use. Grass may not be used for decorative purposes anywhere. Only native desert plants and watering is limited to certain days and during certain times. We also post publicly which houses are using the most water yearly to sorta public shame.
So yes. Some areas care.
CockroachNo2540@reddit
West of the “dry line” it is.
Meshakhad@reddit
Water conservation is a major political topic here in Arizona, but I haven't seen much rhetoric about personal consumption. The emphasis has been on bigger users. Phoenix has eliminated most lawns, for example, and now uses treated wastewater to water public parks. Lately, the big issue has been data centers. In Tucson, a Project Blue data center being built outside the city seems to have gotten their hands on a shitload of municipal water they weren't supposed to, and now the city wants that water back. Personally, I think we should harvest the water from the bodies of Project Blue shareholders and executives.
Broadly, I think Arizona needs to do more to cut our water usage, but I doubt my policies would get adopted. The obvious one is banning natural grass on golf courses (they consume more water than the data centers), but the real hard sell is that we need to scrap the existing water rights system entirely, place it under state control, and take a hatchet to our state's agriculture sector. Agriculture consumes 75% of the state's water and much of that goes to water-thirsty crops because the water rights work on a use-it-or-lose-it basis.
awfulcrowded117@reddit
Depends on where. In the North East, not so much. In the great plains, the rockies, and especially parts of California, it's very important.
Duque_de_Osuna@reddit
It depends on where you are. Southern California has water issues.
Foxy_locksy1704@reddit
The western plains region Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas etc are looking at major water conservation projects and water restrictions this year because there was such a mild winter. Granted Colorado has always had a focus on conservation across multiple areas (water, wildlife, protection of forest lands and natural habitats of native species)
I live in Colorado, we had very little moisture in general over the winter, so we don’t have the normal amount of snow pack that turns in to spring runoff. That runoff provides not just local water needs but also feeds the Colorado River and Platte Rivers which carries water to other states in the region.
WeirdRip2834@reddit
There are places on the West Coast where towns are literally out of water. The Colorado River is in trouble. And this river supplies four states with water.
Water conservation has always been important to me as a Californian of 30 years.
There will be crisis after crisis with water.
Realistic_Tutor_9770@reddit
we had a drought in the late 90s in NY and ppl werent allowed to water their yards (either at all or on certain days....dont remember). other than than i cant remember ever having to conserve water. NY gets a lot of rain that is evenly distributed throughout the year and there are lots of lakes and reservoirs.
salty_new_england@reddit
Depends where you live. In California there is a huge emphasis on it. East of the Mississippi not so much other than drought situations that occur every so often.
P00PooKitty@reddit
The dry part it is. The wet part doesn’t.
Like the southwest and southern california will have water rationing; the great lakes and new england will have two years of “drought” and have our reservoirs drop 2%.
Murderhornet212@reddit
In parts of the country, but not where I am.
Particular_Bet_5466@reddit
A shower is so minuscule and that water is recycled back into the system because it goes down the drain. Growing cattle feed is like 60% of the water used in the Colorado river watershed. Showers are not making much a difference.
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
In the southeast, it depends heavily on medium-term water supply vs. usage. For example, there are no natural lakes/ponds in Georgia, so diminished rainfall can lead to drawing down reservoirs significantly. It's a regular (but not frequent) occurrence to have water bans/restrictions where you cannot wash your car or water your grass.
ReferenceCreative510@reddit
East of the Mississippi River, no. West of it, yes.
ElijahNSRose@reddit
We have deserts.
We have marshes.
It varies.
Newmillstream@reddit
There was some weaksauce water conservation for customers efforts where I live, but because it’s Great Lakes region, the stuff I remember hearing from official sources is more like "Consider turning off the tap while brushing your teeth." than "Lets make sure agricultural run off doesn’t make the water in western lake erie undrinkable with algae blooms.” If anything, the messaging I often see is more like "Its ok to drink the water now, we fixed the problem."
There are some non governmental advocacy groups that push the "Let’s modernize agricultural run off so it’s not as bad" and "Check your well water if you live near the decommissioned beryllium plant, there is cobalt-60 in it for some reason."
FormerAd952@reddit
It's important but not taken seriously enough.
Dethents@reddit
I live in western wa, where it rains for 8 months of the year but for 3 months in the summer it is very dry.
This year there wasn't as much snowpack in the mountains in the winter so they declared a drought, so it is a thing even in wet climates
But generally the ground water levels are pretty stable due to the rain from the rest of the year and conservation on the household level isn't something that's very much of a concern for most people I think
MrHandsRadDay@reddit
Some western states, every now and then. Vast majority? No fucks are given.
MindInTheClouds@reddit
I think you mean, “Most states west of the Mississippi, most of the time, and likely at an increasing rate with climate change.”
ritchie70@reddit
Are you putting the line in the right place? Are Iowa and Missouri having droughts?
MindInTheClouds@reddit
No, but Arkansas and Louisiana are. Next year it will shift and will probably include some other states directly adjacent to the river.
MrHandsRadDay@reddit
Hmmm. Noooo. No I don’t. It Should be a higher priority, but in day to day life of average citizens, it is not. Even in high exposure areas.
yodellingllama_@reddit
For "has a need to conserve water," yes, most of the West fits this bill. For "the government forces, or even encourages, people to conserve water," I don't see this happening nearly as often or in nearly as widespread a fashion.
Asparagus9000@reddit
Only in some areas. Most areas it's not a big deal.
Happy_Confection90@reddit
And in some areas it's only a big deal some of the time. New Hampshire and Maine, for example have had a few droughts over the past decade, but most years do not, so we mostly hear about our duty to conserve water during the drought years like now.
Thelonius16@reddit
When I was a kid in the 80s they tried to stress this in New York.
But it was kind of silly given the ample supply and general wetness of the area.
Outlaw_Josie_Snails@reddit
Yes, but it depends on the state. Some states have periods of extreme drought, and water conservation is extremely important and enforced. In other states, the water is more plentiful.
Porcupine-in-a-tree@reddit
It’s an extreme concern here, especially after the bad winter we just had. We as a region get the majority of our water from the mountains. Our home water directly comes from the mountains above our house. When we don’t have a good snow year, it puts a strain on our water reserves. The decades long drought has put crazy pressure on those reserves. So yeah, it’s a big concern here.
Total-Improvement535@reddit
It depends on where you live.
In the Southwest and California, it absolutely is. In the Deep South and Gulf states, it’s not.
OneleggedPeter@reddit
South central New Mexico (15 miles north of El Paso, Tx) joins the chat. We have been in a serious to severe drought for over a decade now. Our primary source of water is the Rio Grande (Big River - Haha!). About 95 miles (150km) north of us, almost in the center of the state, the Rio Grande is dammed up by the Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico’s largest body of water. As recently as the mid to late 1990s, it was at 100% of capacity. It currently stands at just over 12% of capacity. The agency that manages it closes off all output during the “non-irrigation season”. They used to let water flow for eight to nine months a year, starting around March and ending in late November. Now they only let water flow from about June 1 through late July.
My property is on a shallow water well (\~24 feet deep/ 8 meters deep). We are always concerned about it running out of water. We rarely water our yard, maybe twice a year at most, and that’s only to keep it from being nothing more than blowing dirt. We shut off the shower flow when we are not actively wetting or rinsing. We have diverted the shower grey water to water the trees. We have diverted the grey water from a sink to water other trees.
So I guess that you can say yeah, we take water conservation pretty seriously.
RexOHerlihan@reddit
In Utah we are designated 2 days a week to water lawn. Never between 10am and 6pm. Xeriscaping is encouraged in many cities. Water districts sometimes pay you to remove grass.
All that being said, agriculture uses nearly 80% of our water and produces 0.2% of GDP. Governor is an alfalfa farmer. Yet the onus to save is out on the households that use a relatively small amount.
hobokobo1028@reddit
Water is basically free where I live. Climate change will bring more water to my region, so there’s really no long-term water conservation concern either.
In the western states, however, water conservation is critical.
Boogerchair@reddit
It’s obviously because of your climate
LakeWorldly6568@reddit
Depends where you are. Parts of the country have more than adequate water and others not so much.
Ozone220@reddit
Not normally where I live, but my state NC has been in drought for months now along with much of the rest of the South so they actually have enforced some basic measures like only having sprinklers on on certain days
Anxious-Salamander49@reddit
Not as important as it should be
riktigtmaxat@reddit
The amount of Americans that don't understand the link between water usage and energy is too damn high.
epicenter69@reddit
We’re in a “drought” right now in Florida. It’s not so much the lack of water. It’s the high potential for wildfires that is concerning.
Ill-Veterinarian4208@reddit
Florida should watch its water useage more than it does.
When we built this house and put a well in when I was a kid, the water from the hose shot out thirty feet without a pump. Now it is a slow flow and a thumb over the hose end will cut it off.
alady12@reddit
Florida needs to stop building into the water filtration areas. I keep telling everyone. Don't tell your city council that "you are ruining nature. You are taking away habitat from the panthers and other endemic life." They don't care about that. Tell them "if this continues you won't be able to flush your toilets." They care about that.
BC999R@reddit
I’m in California. I’m awake now. Yes, some of us instinctively conserve water. As in, “If it’s brown, flush it down. But if it’s yellow, it’s mellow” for toilet flushing. We have effective water consumption limits, based on an allocation per household with much higher rates per gallon if exceeded. And hosing down pavement, leaving a hose running while washing a car etc is illegal, plumbing fixtures have water restrictors, toilets have maximum 1.5 gallon or 5-6 liter flushes, and more.
de_matrix55@reddit
I never understood water conservation. We're not running out of water. It's not like one ocean is designated as the used water, never to be touched again. Unless you're using well water, there's no need to worry about not having access to the most abundant resource on the face of the planet.
Ok_Gas5386@reddit
I live in a region that generally receives plentiful rainfall and has minimal agriculture. The Boston Metro area receives water from two major reservoirs in central Massachusetts, the Quabbin (Swift River) and the Wachusett (South Branch Nashua River). Water impounded in these reservoirs is carried east by a network of aqueducts large enough to drive an 18 wheeler through, before being treated and distributed to individual communities. The state’s second largest city, Worcester, has its own network of reservoirs in the hills to the north and west of the city.
The worst water discipline I’ve ever seen is a ban on use of water for lawns, due to low levels in the reservoir. For the record, in this climate your lawn will be fine if you don’t water it.
Other parts of the country have little rainfall and intensive agriculture. Groundwater sources are crucial in these places, and many are being overused. The Ogallala aquifer under our breadbasket in the prairie, and the Central Valley in California are two critical water resources being used faster than they are recharged, resulting in land subsidence. In both cases the major use is agriculture, not domestic consumption.
Persimmon_and_mango@reddit
Together, the Great Lakes make up the largest freshwater system on the planet. The Great Lakes are so big that they support salmon fisheries, cargo ships, and have riptides that kill people every year. It pretty much just looks like an ocean without salt. People who live near the Great Lakes aren't always particularly concerned with conservation because it is hard to believe that water is a thing that can actually run out.
Outside of that region, anyone who has a well is very aware of water usage and conserving water. Western states are also often concerned about water levels. Californians are especially vulnerable to water shortages due to the ecosystem and amount of people that live there. They are usually a lot more conscious about water than someone in a city on the East Coast, who lives near or above a massive water table.
Heraghty07@reddit
Live in New Mexico. Always worry about water.
FemboyEngineer@reddit
Imagine if Australia's green, humid subtropical zone covered the entire eastern half of the country's landmass, and that's America. Most of us live in a relatively hot, humid, wet climate which gets 1-2 meters of rainfall a year, where crops getting too much water is often more of an issue than them getting not enough. But if you live in say, California or Arizona, water conservation is treated as a huge deal & there are public initiatives all the time around it.
Youcants1tw1thus@reddit
Not in New England, we have the cleanest water on the planet bubbling out of the ground. I’m actually annoyed at all the water efficient fixture and appliance legislation…I have endless water from a shallow well in the middle of a drought. I don’t need my toilet to flush with a teaspoon of water or my shower head to mist instead of drench.
Swimming-Book-1296@reddit
You know all those things have almost no effect, and is mostly conservation theater? like 90% of water is used industrially or agriculturally.
LopsidedGrapefruit11@reddit
I am from Southern California, so yes it’s always been a big deal, here.
We have a short rainy season and a long dry season and mandated conservation such as which days, what times and for how long we can irrigate plants and we aren’t supposed to wash cars at home. There have been years when it’s a big deal and years when it isn’t really monitored or enforced.
Locksley_1989@reddit
It depends on the area, and on drought conditions.
ritchie70@reddit
There are federal standards for water usage on plumbing fixtures, like toilets, showers, and faucets. Aside from the toilet there typically pretty easily defeated.
ilovjedi@reddit
Maine has at least two lakes that are so clean they can provide essentially unfiltered drinking water.
https://www.pwd.org/sebago-lake/
https://awsd.org/frequently-asked-questions/
We have technically been in drought conditions for a while now. But I think we’re still in better shape than the Southwest since we’re not a desert
.
Adjective-Noun123456@reddit
I've only ever heard people from out west talk about it.
AcadiaRemarkable6992@reddit
Only if the reservoir levels are low or if you live in the Southwest US where land is very arid
AmericanHistoryXX@reddit
It is in Colorado, but then we get transplants who don't fully understand how that works. My friend's mom was telling me that it was so dry out she was going to have to start watering her lawn, and I died a little inside.
Alarmed_Drop7162@reddit
For people, a bit. For nestle/et al, no.
Sledgehammer925@reddit
I live in the arid southwest. There’s a lot of water conservation talk.
MotherofPuppos@reddit
On the east coast, not really. Hell, you can tell just by the popularity of having green grass lawns. We do need to shift the attitude, though, as we are starting to have droughts now as well.
I always feel self-conscious about the shower thing 😂 my hair is incredibly thick and takes forever to wet. I’ve only just started to be able to do a 20 minute shower after getting a sideshave and an undercut on bobbed hair.
Howie_Dictor@reddit
We don’t need to conserve water where I’m from. Long showers, car washes and lawn watering are normal things. I live next to the largest system of freshwater in the world. But if you go to other regions it’s completely different.
EffectSubject2676@reddit
West of 97 degrees W, nearly all parts of the US are in a drought, and communities should be conserving water.
lokland@reddit
Most of America lives on the east coast where it isn’t a problem.
67442@reddit
Michigan here. What’s water conservation?
donuttrackme@reddit
It's very dependent on the region for sure. I grew up around a bunch of lakes where it rained and snowed all the time and water conservation wasn't ever a thing discussed. Water pollution was for sure. But never conservation. Then I moved to the west coast to a city where it rarely rains.
I_am_photo@reddit
While I was in North Texas restrictions depended on how severe the drought was at the time. There are no aquifers in my area so whether we used it or not evaporation was going to take what it wanted from the lakes.
We even had a 50/50 split of recycled water that went back into the system. Only trees were allowed to be watered with drip hoses on some days. Otherwise you had to use gray water if you had the equipment or have water shipped in.
We got down to 10% water left in the lakes when a huge storm came and filled everything back up over a weekend. Still had restrictions.
Then I moved to Maryland and it was so green. I was driving around exploring and saw a man with the greenest lawn ever watering his lawn. It rained the day before. I cringe everytime I see automatic sprinklers watering the road. It's so wasteful and they say Maryland is currently in a drought. They don't act like it.
MortimerDongle@reddit
Depends. Where I live, we have plenty of water and the water we use comes directly out of the ground. At least at the household level, water conservation isn't a big deal except during severe droughts, and even then it's more "don't water your grass" than "don't take a long shower".
UTtransplant@reddit
In arid parts of the US, water conservation is a big deal. It is not a big deal in other areas. We spend the winter in Arizona and California deserts, and if a faucet has a tiny drip, it is considered a big deal. We routinely take “navy showers” where you get wet, turn off the water, soap and shampoo, then turn the water back on to rinse. Gardens are watered with soaker hoses or point irrigation systems, not massive sprinklers, and a lawn of grass of considered gauche. But where my house is in the upper Midwest (Iowa), water is plentiful. We have a large irrigation system and lots of grass. We actually sit between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, the largest in the country. So it is definitely location-specific.
ThatArtNerd@reddit
I was raised in drought conditions in coastal California, so we had a lot of emphasis on it when I was growing up (including significant periods of water rationing). In my adult life in western Washington State there hasn’t been much talk of it (it rains a lot here), but we’ve had a couple of unseasonably warm winters with far less snowpack than usual up in the Cascades and the water situation is looking like it’s going to be pretty bad this coming summer. We’re planning on setting up rain barrels in the future to save water for our garden because things will likely get worse in the coming years
The_Ref17@reddit
It should be, but for most of the country it isn't.
Given that potable water is decreasing across the globe, this will soon make water much more of an issue than oil and electricity
Comfortable-Panda967@reddit
Australia is one of the driest countries in the world, a fact that Australians need to take into account when visiting the United States. There was once an article on the internet by an Australian woman visiting Los Angeles, and all she talked about was how much water there was in the toilets in the Los Angeles Airport.
The United States has 2.8 trillion cubic meters of renewable fresh water, and in most places any kind of serious water shortage is rare. Where I live, a drought caused our local government to tell residents to stop watering their lawns, but car washes stayed open, and restaurants kept serving glasses of water on demand (never a charge for water).
yiotaturtle@reddit
Arizona can get pretty crazy. Though it's very NIMBY. We don't want those water guzzlers here. Unlike us with our green lawns.
juan_humano@reddit
Im in New Mexico and every year the local newspaper publishes a list of the top 10 consumers of municipal in town. Kinda a show and shame thing. Its generally not private citizens but buisnesses and government properties. Which is to say, there is a culture of water conservation here. Frankly I find a lot of it performative/virtue signaling but at the same time water is a real issue here. Im on a well and we try to regulate our water usage for our own sake, if the well were to dry up it would be a big problem.
Kossyra@reddit
Florida is in an extended drought right now which is insane for how wet it feels outside all the time
But yeah they don't want us watering our yards more than once a week, be mindful about leaky taps, etc. They haven't really started pushing for shorter showers, just using a hose with a closing nozzle when you wash your car in the driveway.
RE1392@reddit
I went to school in New England in the late 90s to early 2000s and we were taught water conservation habits. Turn off the water when brushing teeth, 5 minute showers, etc. We don’t have droughts in New England but we are typically more progressive. I think a lot of it is unfortunately political in the US, which is ridiculous. Conserving resources should be a universal concern.
Char_siu_for_you@reddit
Should we be conserving water? Absolutely. Are we? Nope, we’re building data centers in deserts.
chtmarc@reddit
Southern California here, suburb of LA. We are on well water here and it is a constant awareness for us. I’m not sure I would call it a alert but we are constantly aware. We have specific days for watering. We have offers to get rid of grass and replace it with either Astroturf or native plants. I keep my showers under five minutes. I don’t let the tapwater in my sink run. Brushing my teeth I wet my toothbrush turn off the water brush my teeth turn the water back on. But I grew up in the 70s in Southern California when we had the worst water crisis we’ve ever Had. Although there’s another one looming
FionaTheFierce@reddit
I live near DC and we have had years of drought conditions and there is almost zero talk of water conservation.
Use of grey water for landscaping is largely prohibited- so shower water, rinse cycle water, etc. goes into sewage rather than being recaptured.
No emphasis on planting/landscaping to conserve water.
Skipp_To_My_Lou@reddit
In January we had an apocalyptic ice storm, more than half the city lost power, followed by a week of record low temperatures (we're talking daytime highs in the single digits to low teens). A lot of people left their faucets to drip so the pipes wouldn't freeze, enough that the water utility asked people to please stop once their power was restored. That's the only time I can remember water conservation being a thing here in the South.
notthegoatseguy@reddit
The financial cost of water is not large in the US and most of us don't have a shortage of it.
I think short showers is also a privilege of those of us who have shorter, more managable hair. Those who have longer and curly hair it just takes longer.
EstablishmentSea7661@reddit
I'm on the largest freshwater watershed in the world, but we still have water restrictions.
DEADFLY6@reddit
Ive taken 15-20 minute showers all my life. Never once considered conserving water. But then again, I've never paid a water bill either.
rawbface@reddit
Only out west.
In the Northeast we don't really have that problem.
MrLongWalk@reddit
In some parts yes, in other parts, no.
Smart_Engine_3331@reddit
It largely depends on location and how many resources are available. Where im from we have plenty of water and it's not a big deal, but in some areas it's a major concern.
Upper_Extreme9461@reddit
Sadly not, at least not on the East Coast. It might be more prioritized in the West though.
No_Cartographer5955@reddit
You’re right that it’s pretty much a regional thing. Some places always have water restrictions, others only put them in place during certain times of the year when there are droughts and things are really dry (like now), and some never have restrictions. However, many people who are concerned about water wastage restrict their usage themselves year round. I don’t take extreme measures, but I do try to take quick showers, turn the tap off while brushing my teeth, etc. to help.
Littleboypurple@reddit
Location dependant. Grew up in California so I'm used to hearing about droughts or potential droughts happening in XYZ County in the southern parts. However, I live in Wisconsin, next to the Great Lakes. Absolutely nothing about that here
arcteryx17@reddit
I am surrounded by natural lakes. My state has the most amount of lakes in the US. Water is just everywhere and well kept. It isnt even a thought where we live.
I live in the states largest city and I have about 30 lakes within 15 minutes large enough for boating.
jeon2595@reddit
Only the parts of the country that shouldn’t have millions of people living there because they naturally do not have enough water to support millions of people living there.
enzo-di-rienzi@reddit
We have a saying: on the east coast wasting water is letting your tap run. Out west wasting water is letting it run into the ocean…
clairew88@reddit
I don't quite get it, what does that mean?
NateInEC@reddit
I'm from the desert, Phoenix .... a lot of talk, but little action.
N64Andysaurus92@reddit
Even when there is a water ban on due to low levels, you still see plenty of people watering their lawn 😂
IthurielSpear@reddit
In Northern California (Bay Area), water conservation is a very big topic and the “lose your lawn” initiative even had programs that would pay people to replace their lawns with native drought tolerant plants.
Southern California, not so much, you could walk down streets and see housing developments all with green lawns and non native trees while across the street, it was undeveloped desert.
OkTop9308@reddit
There are currently watering restrictions in Naples and Largo, Florida where my brother and Mom own homes. My sister in Colorado Springs is also in a drought and very concerned about water.
I live in Wisconsin near Lake Michigan and in a county with at least 9 fresh water lakes. We currently have flooding and too much rain. I live on a small lake, and the water level is way higher than normal.
BoopleSnoot921@reddit
In my area, it is not a problem.
In the southwest and west though, it’s a big concern.
Remarkable_Table_279@reddit
Depends on the area. But unless it’s in a drought it’s more the water bill not environment when people conserve water
Starfoxmarioidiot@reddit
It’s so important. There are about 90 gallons of drinkable water per person per day if everything is going perfect. Nothing is ever perfect, though, is it?
There’s always a natural disaster, a tanker truck or train that tips over, a treatment plant loses power, a disgruntled former employee for a water district attacks the control system remotely (that happened not too long ago).
It’s really important to conserve water, but most people don’t care.
m1kemahoney@reddit
In the Southwest, the Colorado River is about to become dead pool at Lake Mead. Vegas will have water but Arizona will not. The day of recognition is here.
Where I live now in Michigan, there is more fresh water here than just about anywhere else, so water conservation is not ever considered. This state has a lot of data centers lusting to build here.
BeastyBaiter@reddit
Only in some areas. If you live the in desert, then absolutely. The USA has extensive deserts with large cities in them. On the other hand, in my hometown of Houston, having too much water is generally a bigger concern than too little.
RogueCoon@reddit
Not where I live
the_real_JFK_killer@reddit
Depends on the region. Im my part of texas it was very big. If you had a green lawn in the middle of summer, the rest of the neighborhood hated you because you were wasting water.
Now, up in upstate ny, its not nearly as big of an issue. Probably because of how many lakes (including 2 great lakes) there are here.
sneezhousing@reddit
It is in California and other areas with droughts
I'm in ohio zero conversations about that here
Worth-Caramel-8580@reddit
Like others have said it's largely region specific but it is often conditional too. Droughts happen in all regions (although their frequency & significance/severity varies widely) and when they do there's some extra emphasis on water usage
OldRaj@reddit
Indiana: we have more water than we will ever need.
Rickyjo1974@reddit
It depends on if that area is in a drought or is having issues with access to clean water. I know California can be strict on water use because they’re always in drought and need it for fires. I’ve never lived somewhere that’s a concern- I think the main worry behind “long showers” is more our personal water bill.
Professional-Pungo@reddit
There are usually talks about it, but no like hard rules for most of the states, no one cares and it's left up to personal decision.
MountainTomato9292@reddit
Depends on the state. Where I am in the SE US no one really cares. We also have a massive aquifer in my city so (for now, unless xAi destroys it) our water is plentiful and delicious.
Penguin_Life_Now@reddit
It really depends on the region, there has been long standing water supply issues in the southwestern US, including much of California which tends to shape the national conversation on such issues, even though there is ample fresh water supply in much of the eastern and central US.
sparklyspooky@reddit
Depends on location and how much month is at the end of the money.
RingGiver@reddit
It's a big country.
If you live in the desert (and a lot of people do live in the desert), water is a big deal.