Water Conservation Urged

North Carolinians have a set goal of how much water they should save to try to mitigate the effects of the worst drought in state history. By Halloween, all state residents should reduce their water consumption by 50 percent, Gov. Mike Easley said yesterday. The call to action was the latest in a series of increasingly urgent appeals from him.
Last week, he asked communities to conserve water and urged people to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars. Yesterday was the first time, however, that he told people exactly how much water they should try to save. “If you usually take a 10-minute shower, take a five-minute shower,” said Easley, who was in Greensboro to make an economic-development announcement. “If you usually run the water when you shave, just run a little pool - you can cut almost 95, 98 percent out of the water you use when you shave or brush your teeth.

He again stopped short of using his emergency powers as governor to declare mandatory-water restrictions. And similar to his previous announcements, he focused on residential water users while saying little about industrial users, which often make up the bulk of water consumption.

He said that the state will begin monitoring detailed information about the daily water consumption of all the state’s public water systems. After Oct. 31, armed with that information, he may revise his target of a 50 percent reduction, he said.

In Wilkesboro, town officials are encouraging residents to take their cars to the local car wash rather than use a hose and sponge in the driveway. “We’re not requiring anything at this point, but we all need to be good stewards of the resources we have,” said Ken Noland, the town manager. Tyson Foods is the town’s largest water user, Noland said. It uses half of all water produced in the town, which uses between 2 and 2.5 million gallons a day. Residents use about 25 percent of all water produced, he said.