Wasting water can have far-reaching effects

By Angela O'Callaghan

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 | 4:07 p.m.

Every once in a while, people ask me why we need to worry about conserving water here in Southern Nevada, in the Mojave Desert. This is not as wild a question as it may at first seem. It comes as a response to our efficient water recycling system.

According to this curious logic, we have a very efficient method for recapturing the water we use, cleaning it up and replenishing Lake Mead. The bulk of our water actually comes from the Colorado River, hence, with that big supply, and our excellent recycling system, what difference could it possibly make whether we take care of our water quantity?

It makes a huge difference.

I saw several homes in one neighborhood where popped sprinkler heads were creating geysers pouring hundreds of gallons of water down the street.

When we use water wastefully, it does not get cleaned up and put back in our supply. Recycling only happens when the cleaned water gets put back into the system.

If it is allowed to pour out into the street it really can be wasted. Some of it evaporates and raises our humidity.

Remember when you first moved to the desert and told all your friends – "Yes, the temperature is 115 degrees but it's a dry heat"? Wasting water means that the relative humidity can go from the comfortably dry 5 or 10 percent up to 30 percent or even higher.

While this is not as humid as Milwaukee or Portland, it is not normal for the Mojave Desert.

When we let water drain from sprinklers, when we use a hose to wash the car in the driveway, we are not replenishing our water stocks. We are draining them, and creating more environmental problems. Have you ever noticed the sign on some of our storm drains stating that the water from those drains goes untreated into the lake? Street pollutants wind up in the place we can least afford it, the precious water that sustains us. The problems relate not only to quantity, but to quality as well.

As if all this were not enough, plants can suffer. I have spent a lot of time looking at plant diseases. Part of my job is to help people determine the problem when their plants start showing different kinds of distress. One of the terrific things about living in the desert has been being able to rule out many, if not most, diseases because the desert climate is so dry that a large number of common disease organisms simply cannot survive here.

When the humidity increases, the atmosphere becomes more hospitable to the fungi and bacteria that cause problems to our landscape plants.

Wasting water means that our precious water supply diminishes faster — less for us to drink and use. Higher humidity means that it is not so much a comfortable "dry heat." Plant diseases flourish when we provide the conditions where they can thrive.

We have so many good reasons to be careful with our water.

Angela O’Callaghan is the area specialist in social horticulture for the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. She can be reached c/o the Home News, 2360 Corporate Circle, Third Floor, Henderson, NV 89074, or [email protected].