We have a wonderful cycling and walkway that encircles most of Napier, some tracks wander along the beach and some meander through the countryside. Along the water front, there are strategically placed water fountains from which fresh, clean water gushes at the push of a button. And we never question its availability.
18 months ago, our family moved out of town. We now have a 15 minute drive to reach civilisation, and we have to collect and store our own water. This shouldn’t be a problem – we have three large water tanks and 2011/2012 we had a wet summer and a decently wet winter. But it has been a problem.
Unbeknown to us, the two larger tanks had a plumbing issue: no matter how much it rained they were either maintaining the same level of water or the water level was reducing. Eventually, when we realized the neighbours had a lovely green patch of grass just near one of our troughs, we found the leak. That discovery happened in October last year, around the same time the drought began.
There has been no decent rainfall in our region of Hawke’s Bay since October and for some farms since July. We are now facing the biggest drought since the summer of 1961-62. Farmers have sold off most of their stock due to lack of feed and unless we get some rainfall soon the autumn grass growth they need to get animals through the winter won’t happen.
For us personally, stock is not such a big issue. We have six sheep and six chickens and they don’t demand a lot of pasture. We are lucky to have one water tank that is still pretty full. As this feeds the kitchen and shower, we are at least clean and have drinking water! The other tanks feed the laundry, the toilet and the water-troughs. The animals take priority, so we ensure they get the remaining water stores as they need it.
We take our laundry to town and use the washing-machines of friends and family, it’s inconvenient but we have this option. Our boys “pee on a tree and poo in the loo” and this means the toilet isn’t draining water unnecessarily. We don’t have the tap running while we brush our teeth. The boys couldn’t use their waterslide and we couldn’t fill up the paddling-pool. There have been no water fights and any spare water from drinking cups is used to water the fruit trees. We collect grey-water from the shower and kitchen sink for the same purpose. Water in town is still readily available, although our neighbouring city of Hastings has water restrictions in place Napier has not.
All this does make me wonder though: what will life be like if fresh water becomes a rare resource, even in the urban west?
How would your life change if you didn’t have clean water on, ummm, tap?
Karyn Van Der Zwet is a mother of three boys. She has had articles printed in the US parenting magazine: ‘Pathways to family wellness” and the journal of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy – Children and Young People. She also writes for her own blog: http://kloppenmum.wordpress.com and can be found at http://facebook.com/kloppenmum. Her book “All About Tantrums” is due out in June this year.
Photo credit to the author.
Last Friday I woke up to discover that we had no water supply to our house due to a burst water main. Luckily I had a couple of 5l bottles of water on hand (as this happens fairly often) but, still, it was MOST inconvenient not to have it “on tap”!
That was a temporary problem, but the idea of us running out of water altogether is extremely frightening!
Luckily the property I’m moving to soon has its own borehole water … at least for the foreseeable future! 🙂
We can manage at the moment, Simona and we’re lucky to have all the support in town, but it would be scary if the regular ‘civilised’ options suddenly became unavailable. Great that you’re going to have a bore where you’re going. It would cost us $10,000 to put in a borehole and get everything connected to the house, which is currently out of the question.
We have a pond and filtering devices to use in an emergency, although I can’t imagine it would last us and our livestock through an extended water shortage after seeing how perilously low the water dropped last years. In some ways, finding solutions that work for each one of our families in the short term may actually keep us from seeing the larger picture.
Fresh water is right up there with clean air as the most essential resource on our beautiful blue-green planet. But water stress (an imbalance between water use and water resources) is fast becoming an alarming global issue. When water is withdrawn from natural sources for drinking, irrigation, and other uses it normally finds its way back into the global water supply. Forgive me for seeing this through the lens of an issue we’re fighting here right now. When water is used for hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, each fracking operation takes 1.2 million gallons to 5 million gallons of water, sometimes more. Each additional time a site is fracked more water is required. A substantial portion (15 to 40 percent) of the water used in fracking operations is left deep in the ground. What does come back up (called “flowback” as well as “produced water” which naturally occurs in shale) is often put in deep injection wells for permanent storage. This method not only edges up the potential for earthquakes, it also takes much-needed water out of planetary circulation. This greedy, short-sighted grab for energy is rapidly escalating the water imbalance on our planet.
Completely agree, Laura – water is so, so important. It will be interesting, but scary, to see what happens to world peace and the world economy when water becomes more expensive than oil!
We had a large water main break last summer, and our town had no to little water. Residents had to boil water for at least a week. A hurricane the previous year had disturbed the main, and then finally, it broke.
I have to admit…my family happened to be out of town the week it occurred. In these situations, it is very common to depend on bottled water.
Karyn — I love hearing about how your family is living in rural New Zealand. Great post!
Jen 🙂
Pleased you enjoyed the post, Jen. Bottled water is an option here too, but it isn’t cheap and I resent paying for something so fundamental to our health. It’s a human right to have access to clean water, isn’t it?
Life would be very uncomfortable without running water! Fortunately, I live in a very, very wet part of the world (Pac NW), and we joke that we have 2 season: Rain and the 2 months in the summer when it might stop 😉 Also, my husband’s love for backpacking means we have several human powered water filters on hand in case we needed to tap into a lake or stream.
While I’m sorry you are in a drought, I found your story fascinating and will take a closer look at my own wasteful water ways.
It amazes me how much our ways have changed since we’ve *had* to watch our water, Tara. In town, we were just like everyone else. Water filters for stream or lake water are a great idea. Yay for tramping and having all the gear!
Karyn, I too love reading about your life in rural New Zealand, and it is frightening to face a drought. We tend to take water for granted when it is available but I would argue that it is the most precious resource on earth, we lived without modern day energy sources for thousands of years, but a human can not survive without water for more than a week.
So good to hear that you enjoy my stories of every day life, Elizabeth! It is easy to take things for granted and water is a prime example. I agree, without water we would be dead and that option doesn’t appeal to me at all!
I love water, I love long showers, and I have to admit I use to much water while showering, but I am petty strict with using water during brushing teeth, doing the dishes.
Anyway, I did experience situation like yours simply not because of drought but because years back rural places in Poland simply didn’t have running water. I would spent months visiting my family that lived like that. For years, and let me tell you something, I do recall those months as most amazing and fun times in my entire life.
yes, it was challenging but it was fun and adventerous, and looking back it tought me not to take water or any other natural resources for granted. I bet your boys will learn that lesson as well, if they already haven’t!!!
Ewa, I love long showers too – but now I tend to take them when I’m staying in town or at the pools after my swim. I agree that the tough and simple times can give us the warmest and most wonderful memories – I certainly get the impression our boys are growing up with a real sense of what the world is about.