As we’ve sweated through day after day of 30+ weather and the Rideau Canal slides into a Stage 2 drought, water is at the forefront of my mind. I’m writing a house manual for friends who are staying here over the summer and the lead paragraphs focus on water conservation and energy use.
Until we moved to our rural property 14 years ago, I had little experience with a well and septic. I was raised in Vancouver where water is plentiful, where people still wash their cars regularly, hose off their driveways in lieu of using a broom, and insist on watering their lawns. I recall, as a child, periodic summer water restrictions when mom filled up the bathtub and religiously set the sprinklers out on odd-numbered days at 4:00am. Even then, it seemed to me to be an act of entitlement, an effort to acquire one’s fair share whether it was needed or not.
There was some magical mystery about where that water came from. Turn on any tap anywhere and the water appeared. It didn’t occur to us to ask about the source or whether there was a finite supply. It always came out, and that was something you could count on. While it was possible to take a trip to the edge of the suburbs and see the Capilano, Seymour or Coquitlam reservoirs – wild lakes bounded by high chain link fencing with signs that read Keep Out – we never did.
Here, we know every second of every day where our water comes from. While we are blessed with a decent water table – there are a number of natural springs around the neighbourhood – we are aware of the finite nature of our water supply. Every lawn in the neighbourhood is dormant, not out of high-mindedness, but of necessity. If the water is not falling from the sky, then the aquifers and pioneer wells are not refilling themselves and there is a substantial risk to spending what has not been earned.
We also know, for that matter, precisely where our poop goes. Our septic system was in death throes when we bought our house, so we installed a new system to avoid the legendary toilet volcanoes of spewing gunk. Because we live on the river, we needed a pricey and complex system that complied with the Rideau Conservation Authority guidelines. My point is this: it costs money to install and maintain a septic system, which has a finite lifespan and offers immediate consequences when it fails. There is a direct correlation between managing the system – no food down the drains, a ban on chemical dumping, a careful selection of cleaning supplies, no hygiene products, the correct sizing of the tank for occupancy, and awareness of water use – and how often it needs to be pumped, repaired and eventually replaced. Septic systems, along with wells, require a level of ownership and vigilance not demanded of those on city services.
Smart Meters, which track time-of-day electricity use, impose a higher degree of consumer vigilance beyond turning the lights off each night. I like the green, red and yellow pie chart that clings to my dryer defining the different rate periods in a day and season. I like the no-nonsense correlation between conservation and dollars saved, and the belief that altered consumer behaviour can curb brown-outs and delay the need to bring additional generation online. I like that it makes me stop and think.
I hate to believe that it takes government interventions that strike the pocketbook or full-blown droughts to move consumers to water and energy conservation. But like those frogs in a boiling pot of water, first-world city dwellers and suburbanites are wildly disconnected from the realities of their environments.