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Editorial: Cape Town provides cautionary tale on World Water Day

Are you prepared? Do you know what you will do to conserve?
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Still in the clutches of weather more suited to January than March, we should nonetheless be starting to think about water.

If past years are any indication, we’ll be facing another drought this summer. Are you prepared? Do you know what you will do to conserve?

There are still far too many people in this area who take water for granted. You turn on the tap and the water comes out, right? Municipal water systems in particular have lulled us all into a sense of security (those on private wells are likely a bit more conscious of how much water is available to them). It’s a bit of a false sense of security.

While when we look at our annual rainfall tallies it seems crazy to be concerned about water, the distribution of our precipitation throughout the year is far from even, which is creating some serious worries in recent years. What we need are strategies to collect some of the water when there’s plenty to save for when there is not.

World Water Day was March 22, and this year there is certainly a cautionary tale for all of those who think we could never run out.

Cape Town, South Africa, a modern city, is nearing the day when they will have no water left. Zip. Nothing coming from the taps. Even though the warnings there are dire, some continue to flout the rules as if water will appear by magic. City leaders have openly lamented how many citizens ignored the pleas to reduce usage, which helped to lead to today’s dire predicament. People are already lining up for water from public taps.

In Canada we have one of the highest per person usage rates in the world at about 250 litres a day in 2013. We habitually leave our taps on as we brush our teeth, do the dishes and wash our hair. We power wash the driveway and the siding on the house and the fence. We have to think about these habits. Times are changing and we have to change with them.