In a town built on bedrock surrounded by ocean, every drop of fresh water counts. Fortunately, there are simple steps any Harpswell resident can take to reduce water waste.
The Harpswell Conservation Commission delivered a splash course in water conservation methods recently as part of an ongoing series of talks focusing on the town’s limited groundwater supply.
For the second installment of its “Fractured Bedrock” series, the commission hosted a public workshop titled “Be Water Wiser: Preserving Harpswell’s Water Supply” on Oct. 30 at Harpswell Community School.
Presenters covered topics such as rainwater harvesting, identifying household leaks, and how to reduce water usage by toilets, showers, faucets and appliances.
Conservation Commission Chair Mary Ann Nahf said Harpswell has a long history of residents employing various strategies to conserve water for household and agricultural use.
“We know it’s not unlimited, so tonight we’re going to talk about how to conserve what we have,” she told the audience.
Commission member Wendy Batson led a discussion focused on identifying and stopping household leaks. Batson said leaks account for an estimated 12% of all household water consumption, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“The first rule of conserving water is: Don’t lose it in the first place,” she told the audience.
Batson advised attendees to conduct periodic checks of their home’s interior and exterior to look for common sources of leaks. She said the usual suspects are gaskets and valves.
“Dripping faucets, dripping hoses, worn toilet flappers — that’s generally what’s causing the leak,” Batson said.
Even a slow leak can waste large amounts of water. A showerhead that drips 10 times per minute wastes about 500 gallons per year, she said, and a leaky faucet that drips once per second wastes 3,000 gallons per year.
But the most serious and often silent leaks come from worn toilet flush valves, Batson said. They can waste as much as 950 gallons in a single week.
Leaky garden hoses are another common source of wasted water, Batson added. A dripping hose can sometimes fill a 5-gallon bucket in just 15 minutes, she said.
Such leaks can usually be fixed using simple and inexpensive hardware and tools, she said. A webpage for an EPA program called WaterSense, at epa.gov/watersense, offers useful how-to videos.
The WaterSense webpage also maintains a list of currently available appliances that shows how much water each model uses.
“If you have to install a new appliance, it’s a good first (stop) to see what you might want to purchase,” Batson said.
Commission member Nancy West said a good way to check for silent toilet leaks is to place a few drops of food coloring in the tank, wait about 15 minutes, and then check if any of the color has leaked into the bowl. She added that a new flapper valve costs less than $20.
West said most modern fixtures, including toilets and showerheads, have a stamp on them indicating how much water they use.
Modern toilets typically use about 1.6 gallons per flush, and there are WaterSense-certified units that only use about 1.3 gallons.
For older toilets, there are devices that reduce water use per flush, West said, such as a “toilet tank bank,” a filled bag of water that sits inside the tank, and an “overflow fill cycle diverter,” which diverts excess water from the tank into the bowl.
West suggested doing a YouTube search for “retrofit your toilet” to find videos demonstrating how such devices work and how to install them. Both items are inexpensive.
Less flushing also helps to conserve water, West said. She reminded attendees of an old saying: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
A typical modern showerhead has a flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute, West said. However, there are WaterSense-endorsed heads that cut the flow rate to 2 gallons per minute.
Residents also can save water by taking shorter showers or taking “Navy showers,” in which the water is turned off while lathering.
“Some people suggest that if you like to sing in the shower, find a short song, then sing that song and be out by the end of the song,” West said.
The first installment in the lecture series covered the origins of Harpswell’s water supply and ways to help the Maine Geological Survey collect better data on local water availability and usage.
The next installment, titled “The Water Witches,” will cover methods of rainwater collection and storage to help residents prepare for periods of low rainfall and high water demand. The date, time and location are yet to be determined.
