Celebrate Protect Your Groundwater Day
The National Ground Water Association reminded me that today is Protect Your Groundwater Day. The group invites individuals to visit their website to find out ways to help out.
“There is something every person can do to protect groundwater through conservation or protection from contamination,” said Cliff Treyens, NGWA public awareness director. “Learn what you can do.”
Now, many of my readers are groundwater people: drillers, contractors, suppliers. You already know what the best practices are. But Treyens adds a few facts to pepper into your conversations with non-driller types (we all know some). For instance, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, about 99 percent of available freshwater comes from underground aquifers. Protecting the resource reduces the cost of water treatment. For those who rely on wells to support a family, farm or business, groundwater management in especially critical.
It just makes sense to make groundwater a priority.
“Do not let Protect Your Groundwater Day pass without considering what you can do to protect this critically important resource,” Treyens said.
Other fun groundwater facts, courtesy of USGS:
- According to hydrologists’ estimates, the average contribution of groundwater to stream flows is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent in small and medium-sized streams.
- Groundwater flow is fairly slow: one foot per day is considered fast, and groundwater can flow as slowly as one foot per year or even one foot per decade.
- Of all known freshwater on Earth, scientists estimate about 75 percent is locked in polar ice and glaciers and the remaining 25 percent is stored as groundwater.
- So, now you can look smart out on the jobsite, just be dropping a couple of facts. Or, you can get puzzled looks and a subtle nudge to get back to work, smarty-pants.
In other news
I just finished interviewing Eric Corey Freed, an architect who is “on a mission to make every building a living, regenerative building.” Geothermal is part of that mission, and he expects it to be a big part of the U.S. energy mix for buildings in the future. The International Ground Source Heat Pump Association invited him to deliver the keynote at this year’s Technical Conference and Expo, held Oct. 9-10 in Las Vegas. The first part of my interview will be in this month’s National Driller eNewsletter (sign up here if you’re not already), which should hit inboxes on Sept. 17. Find out more about Freed, and see pictures of many of the projects he’s designed, at www.organicarchitect.com.
Stay safe out there, drillers.
