Just how much can one person do to save water in a drought?
An Oakland woman is showing there’s plenty more than you might think.
Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty’s journey to conserving water started with a thirsty tree.
“This tree I planted from a flower arrangement, it was a stock in an arrangement, last flower arrangement my mom gave me before she died. So I stuck it in the ground because I’m a propagator,” she told KCBS Radio.
Dougherty, executive director of Wholly H2O, a water conservation and reuse arts and education nonprofit in Oakland, watched the tree shoot up year over year, amazingly all without being watered.
In effort to understand this phenomenon, she did some research on the history of her property and found that she lives right over Derby Creek.
“That’s how I found out this willow, which is a water loving tree, grew to 65 feet in 15 years,” Dougherty said. “And I never watered it.”
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This remarkable feat solidified her commitment to save water in her Oakland home, even beyond placing a bucket in the shower to clean water - although she said that’s the perfect first step which anybody can take.
Even if you don’t have plants or a water filter, Dougherty said simply dumping that unused shower water on the ground outside can help as it least won’t go to an sewage plant.
Dougherty has gone on to architect even more creative ways to conserve water.
She’s developed an at-home irrigation system which uses her washing machine to divert grey water back into the earth outside, which feeds half of her garden.
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“This is like the simplest form of grey water,” she explained. “They call it grey water even though it’s water that’s never even hit the ground.”
In addition, she lined the outside of her home with several large cisterns that hold captured rain water.
What does she say to people who think it doesn’t rain enough in the Bay Area to yield a sufficient supply of H20?
“One inch of rain, that’s 500 to 600 gallons of water. So don’t tell me it doesn’t rain enough to capture rain water” she said.
Dougherty now uses only 17 gallons of water each day, whereas the average person uses 80 to 100 according to the USGS.
For more ideas on how you can save the planet, visit 1Thing.
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