posted 3/22/12 by Kathy Whitlow, Operations Manager
What is World Water Day?
The Nature Conservancy has spent the last month raising awareness of just how much water we really use in our daily lives, culminating in a celebration on World Water Day on March 22. Their 20 Days of H20 Campaign highlights the “hidden” water used to produce the food we eat and the items we consume. For instance it takes 37 gallons of water to make a cup of coffee… 49 gallons of water to make a bag of chips… 400 gallons of water to grow cotton for a t-shirt.
Why should you care?
World Water Day is a great time to remember how incredibly important conservation of water and protection of our watershed is. Most of us know that billions of people in the world lack access to clean water. As Jeff Opperman writes in his Nature Conservancy blog, healthy water comes from healthy nature. Water must first fall as rain or snow and then move across land and through soil before arriving at a place where people can access it: a well, a river, or a reservoir. One of the best ways to ensure that water is clean and safe is to make sure it follows a path through a watershed that is healthy. The Truckee River Watershed Council has partnered with The Nature Conservancy most recently on retoration projects at Independence Lake.
What can you do?
There are many ways to conserve water and protect/restore our watershed. Here are just a few of the action steps you can take in our area:
- Implement River-Friendly Landscaping to reduce erosion and lessen its negative impact on our watershed. Contact us for a free site evaluation of your Truckee-area property to learn more about reducing or preventing soil erosion. Implement by July 1, 2012 and you may qualify for a $1000 rebate!
- Report a weed! Become a Truckee River Weed Warrior and help us spot and track weed infestations so we can help manage the invasive weeds that out-compete our native vegetation and destroy natural ecosystems.
- Volunteer – Help us get a snapshot of the health of the Truckee River on Snapshot Day… participate in a restoration project on Truckee River Day… take a Weed Walk or volunteer for a Weed Pull… Adopt-a-Stream… there are so many things you can do, large and small, that make a big difference in our local area! Take a look at our events calendar or program pages for ideas about how you can get involved.
- Donate – There are almost a hundred restoration and water quality projects here in this seemingly pristine place that need to be completed to ensure our watershed is functioning and beautiful. We gratefully accept contributions to the Truckee River Watershed Council to help tackle these projects.
Happy World Water Day, everyone!