What Drought? Just Don’t Tread on Our Green Grass

by Ross Ramsey

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell: In Texas there’s a serious drought in progress, but the lawns and the golf courses are still green,  There may soon be legal battles  over the right to keep thirsty St. Augustine grass, which many feel is guaranteed us by I’ve forgotten which amendment. 

 

In big Texas cities, the state’s water shortage can seem like someone else’s problem.

Drought has been in the news a long time, but rates haven’t gone up. Water still comes out when you turn on the tap. The golf courses are still green, and so are the lawns.

Some places do have restrictions; the state keeps a long list of them. El Paso residents pay fines if the sprinklers in their front yards accidentally water the streets. Austin restricts watering to one or two days per week, depending on the level of concern over water at any given time. West Texas towns and cities operate at high levels of alert, and one medium-size city, Wichita Falls, is on a list of cities that could run out of water this year.

In the suburbs, where a lot of voters live in houses encircled by grass, and where that grass is sometimes a measure of how well or how poorly the Joneses are doing, water restrictions are a touchy subject.

Which brings us to the Battle of St. Augustine.

At some point, the realities of water in Texas will reach a point where it is impossible to lay all of the drought’s harm on someone else. Lawns — and whether to keep them in the face of a protracted water shortage — come into the argument.

Wichita Falls, home to more than 100,000 people, is on the state’s list of communities that could be without water in 180 days. Watering is restricted to once a week, and it could be tightened if things don’t improve quickly. The next level, Stage 4, would be a ban on outside watering, on filling pools and, perhaps, on industrial uses of water.

Lawns surround voters, some of whom believe the lush patches of St. Augustine grass around their noble homesteads are a God-given right, or at least an unassailable perk of owning homes in the blessed state of Texas. Threatening those lawns could make a populist issue — a loud and unstable political problem — out of the state’s water shortage.

West Texans live in the brown part of the state, where the vegetation is thin and the expectations for green landscaping are modest. But the water trouble has reached the suburbs, as have the politics.

The Texas Senate has started work on legislation that would allow a homeowner to switch to native grasses without legal retribution from their homeowners’ association.

Those associations, baked into real estate covenants when people buy homes in some areas, are set up to protect everyone’s interests against neighbors who let their properties go.

All sorts of things are prohibited, depending on the contract: weeds and overgrown plants, cracked paint, chickens, metal roofs, perpetual garage sales and, in some cases, lawns that are anything but green, well-trimmed carpets of grass.

Native grasses are tough. They use less water. They have smaller blades. They can handle summer heat. They are, in other words, adapted to Texas.

Also, they are not as socially acceptable as popular grasses, like the St. Augustine used in yards throughout the state. That grass is pretty, green, soft and thirsty.

New development is part of the problem. While new homes get more energy-efficient every year, they get less and less water-efficient, according to Luke Metzger of the advocacy organization Environment Texas. “They actually use more water,” he said.

Mr. Metzger’s group wants some of the focus that is currently on building reservoirs shifted to conservation.

Lawns aren’t the only problem with water, or even the biggest one. They are politically interesting, though, and hazardous for the average legislator or policy maker.

Lawns are at the bottom of what Tom Harrison, who is in the water business and is a director of the Central Texas Water Coalition, compares to a drug addiction, linking the Colorado River in the Texas Hill Country — where people are being asked to conserve water — to downriver on the Texas Gulf Coast — where grass for their lawns is grown.

“The sod and turf farms down there pull the same water the rice farmers use,” Mr. Harrison said. “They grow the grass there with free Colorado River water and sell it to us, and then tell us not to water it. Things like that just don’t make sense.”

Source: NY Times. 

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 Moving Beyond Basic Water Advocacy

Water News in a Nutshell.

 by Ned Breslin

In a Nutshell: The message for World Water Day is that we must move beyond the notion that sending $25 to buy a village water pump isn’t going to solve the world’s water problems of the billion inhabitants of  the planet who lack access to adequate water.

March 22nd is a noisy day across the water and sanitation sector. It’s World Water Day, and agencies working to end the global water crisis use this day to overwhelm the public, funders, and policymakers with messages related to water. The goals of this advocacy push are to raise awareness, convince people that water is essential for broad social and economic development, and ideally drive people, policymakers, and funders to engage with the water crisis.

The tactics often used on March 22nd (and throughout the year) walk a fine line and highlight real marketing and fundraising tensions among water sector professionals. Unfortunately, it is these tactics that may eventually undermine the cause we all desperately want to address.

Let’s start with the basic “water crisis story” you have inevitably heard many times and will undoubtedly hear again this World Water Day. The story goes something like this: A girl in torn, dirty clothes walks miles and miles to fetch water from a disgustingly polluted water source, treks back with a huge bucket of water on her head, and misses school. Some will add that the girl is under threat from robbers and rapists on this journey, and others will

Women Carrying Water from a Community Tap in Cherrapunji.

use this foundational story to talk about the health problems the family will face because they drink polluted water.We all know this story and in truth, many aspects are accurate. I have taken this walk with girls for close to three decades, and it’s a miserable trek. Good friends of my daughters (who were born and raised in rural Africa) do in fact miss a considerable amount of school doing chores such as fetching water. The impact of this tragedy on girls, on families, and on societies as a whole is significant.

This story is generally followed by facts and data that try to bring the wider global crisis into view through the lens of the girl fetching water. You’ve likely heard organizations estimate that 780 million people worldwide lack access to water. Interestingly, there is a debate about this number, with new reports estimating that the figure is closer to 1.8 billion people without access to water. Others look toward the economic case, and point to losses in GDP and productivity directly correlated to poor water supply. Still others will rightly point to the deaths directly attributed to poor water supplies, effecting mostly children.

The story ends, and that’s when we as a sector get lazy. The solution to the water crisis is presented as uncomplicated and cheap. We still peddle simple “projects” as the solution. The equation here is simple:

Girl does not have water + polluted water is bad for health and development = Fund a water pump and her whole life will be changed forever.

It is literally presented that simply by both large and small agencies.

Then we say it will be cheap. The math here is equally straightforward:

Girl does not have water + water is key for economic development and health + project is needed = You pay $25 for a solution.

Claims that “$25 saves a life” ring far and wide despite the clear evidence from annual reports and financial records that $25 does not even remotely cover an organization’s costs to deliver water to a girl, let alone ensure that it lasts for a lifetime.

It’s here that marketing and fundraising cross the barrier from advocacy and education to borderline dishonesty, making it incredibly challenging to communicate and market both the crisis and the real solutions.

The saddest part of each walk I take with a girl collecting water is when we pass not only the school she is not attending, but also a broken water pump. The system was indubitably installed with the best intentions but not the impact promised by the organizations promoting cheap solutions. Getting water supply “right” is a long-term process requiring engagement well beyond laying pipes, installing taps, and taking photos of happy children. These things are important, but there is much more work to do from that point.

Everyone in the sector knows it’s more costly than commonly sold, takes more time than a simple project cycle and a bit of training, and requires a more nuanced yet compelling tale that moves us from the simplistic notion that solving the global water crisis is cheap and easy. Because the one thing we as a sector know is that while this sales pitch is compelling and has kept money flowing to support water supply, it has sadly not kept water flowing. And that is no longer good enough.

The real story for World Water Day is this: If we truly want to get girls in school and give them a chance in life, then we must create an environment where water always flows—not just temporarily, but forever. Water can’t be seen as exceptional; it must be expected. To succeed and ensure that water flows, we must focus not only on infrastructure such as water pumps, but also on ongoing monitoring and regulation, finance, water resources, supply chains, good governance, replacement equipment, and services to expand systems as the need grows.

And, as we all know, $25 can’t cover it.

Ned Breslin is chief executive officer of Water For People, an international nonprofit that supports the development of locally sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene education programs in developing countries. He received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2011.

Reference: Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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Sixty-Five Dams Were Removed from American Rivers in 2012

Water News in a Nutshell.

 In a Nutshell: America’s rivers are cluttered with obsolete dams.  Programs led by American Rivers in partnership with other non-profit and government agencies are steadily working to get them removed.  In 2012 65 more old dams were taken down.

In line with a strong trend away from dams,  communities in 19 states, working in partnership with non-profit organizations and state and federal agencies, removed 65 US dams in 2012.

Dams were removed from rivers in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin  In total, the dam removal project restored 400 miles of streams for the benefit of fish, wildlife and people across the country.

Nearly 1,100 dams that have been removed across the country since 1912. Nearly 800 were removed in the past 20 years. American Rivers is the only organization maintaining a record of dam removals in the United States and uses the information to communicate the benefits of dam removal, which include restoring river health and clean water, revitalizing fish and wildlife, improving public safety and recreation, and enhancing local economies.

Removing a dam from a creek in North Carolina.

American Rivers is the leading organization working to protect and restore the nation’s rivers and streams. “The river restoration movement in our country is stronger than ever. Communities nationwide are removing outdated dams because they recognize that a healthy, free-flowing river is a tremendous asset,” said Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers.The top three states for river restoration through dam removal in 2012 are:1. Pennsylvania – 13 dams removed

2. Massachusetts – 9 dams removed

3. Oregon – 8 dams removed

The complete list of dam removals in 2012 is available at http://www.americanrivers.org/2012damremovals.

 

Source Reference: Water Efficiency

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Unseen Connections

by Janice Kaspersen,  Editor,  Stormwater

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In a Nutshell:  The strange, frightening and sometimes tragic phenomena called sinkholes, aka sinks, snake holes, swallow holes, dolines, and more, are natural depressions or holes in the Earth’s surface whose causes are shadowy and  whose occurrence is usually unexpected. They are closely related to water and its mysterious ways.

Sinkholes are in the news these days, both for their sudden and frightening appearances and for the implications they have for surface- and groundwater quality.   This article from the New Yorker has a detailed and fascinating history of how and where they occur. It recounts, among other events, the 1999 disappearance of Florida’s Lake Jackson; the 4,000-acre lake emptied “like a bathtub emptying into a drain,” although the drain in this case was an 8-foot-wide sinkhole. Sometimes the lake would partially refill as water cam back up through the hole.

Where did the water go? And where was it returning from when it refilled the lakebed? The vast underground limestone caverns that underlie Florida and parts of several other states.

A famous sinkhole in Belize.

A sinkhole is what happens when a breach occurs between the underground realm and the surface—as it did in Lake Jackson, as it did several weeks ago underneath a house in a Tampa suburb, and as it does in hundreds of other cases, large and small, wherever such karst topography exists. The occurrence of sinkholes can be exacerbated by too much water—they tend to open more frequently during tropical storms, for example—as well as by too little water. In 2010, heavy irrigation (actually, the constant spraying of water on strawberry crops to keep them from freezing during a cold snap) lowered the water table in an area near Tampa by 60 feet in a week, and 140 sinkholes appeared.The porosity of the underground terrain, and the free movement of water through it, has some serious implications for water quality. Something that infiltrates the ground in one place can show up miles away.  This article from Stormwater describes how the process works in West Virginia and how the Department of Agriculture monitors water quality there, in part to gauge what effect farming operations and crop fertilization are having on the water supply.) Urban pollutants in stormwater runoff are entering the aquifer, too. The New Yorker article says that Tallahassee used to recycle its treated wastewater by using it for farm irrigation, until it discovered several years ago that doing so was causing elevated nitrogen levels far to the south, in the Wakulla River, where no one had expected the irrigation to have an effect. The nutrients reach the river through the ground. Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection has taken to injecting dye into some sinkholes—much the same procedure, on a larger scale, that we use to detect illicit storm sewer connections—and seeing where it shows up downstream.

Source:  Stormwater

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Sprite Shower Filters.  You’ll Sing Better.

A Common Sense Look at Bacteria and Water Filters

by Gene Franks,  Pure Water Products

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In A Nutshell: An unqualified fringe of the water treatment industry has spread the myth that carbon water filters are breeding places for dangerous bacteria.  Not so.

Bacteria are everywhere.  A high percentage of your own body consists of the bacteria that live within you.  When you eat a fresh salad, it is literally teeming with bacteria.

Most bacteria are not only “friendly;”  they are essential to our well-being.  As  with most other areas of our world, however, it is the occasional bad actor that gets all the attention. The discovery of E. coli in a sausage factory is the lead story on the TV news, but news reports that sing the praises of the bacteria that live in your large intestine and make the digestion of food possible are scarce.

For each of the few disease producing bacteria that can live in the human body, hundreds of others are necessary for our existence.

Bacteria help us digest our food, for example–otherwise, we’d starve.

— Nature Bulletin from the Argonne National Laboratory.

The bacteria that do harm are called  pathogenic.  Pathogenic, or disease-causing bacteria are responsible for such diseases as cholera, typhoid fever, infectious hepatitis, dysentery, and gastroenteritis. Modern water treatment methods have done an excellent job of keeping pathogenic bacteria under control in most advanced societies.

The bacteria we hear most about is E. coli (which stands for Escherichia coli). E. coli is found in the intestines and in

Rod-shaped E. coli usually measure about 2 microns long and half a micron across. This makes them big enough to be caught by a tight water filter.

the fecal matter of humans and animals, so when E. coli  is found in water, it usually indicates that the water supply has been contaminated from sewage. E. coli might get into the water supply, for example, through a broken well casing, a ruptured supply line, or runoff from a septic system or dumped sewage. E. coli is of significance mainly as an indicator bacteria. E. coli itself is most often non-pathogenic, but its presence indicates that more dangerous fecal bacteria are probably around. E. coli is always present in humans, and normally a newborn baby’s intestines are inhabited by E. coli within the first 40 hours of life.

Modern water treatment has had great success in the control of pathogenic bacteria.  The leading strategies are chlorine (or chloramine) to treat public water supplies, plus ultraviolet, ozone, very tight filtration,  and other chemicals like hydrogen peroxide or potassium permanganate in other venues.

Harmless and usually helpful bacteria outnumber the pathogenic.  These can be found everywhere, and one of their favorite places to live is in the moist, dark recesses of the carbon inside a water filter.

The bacteria that grow in carbon filters, usually called heterotrophic bacteria (or HPC), are naturally occurring bacteria which usually have no consequence for human health. Numerous studies have shown them to be harmless to humans.  HPC are found also in trace amounts in public and bottled water as well as on fresh fruits and vegetables.

HCP can grow in carbon beds,  and they may be found in reverse osmosis units downstream of the initial dechlorinating filter. Although their presence can be something of an aesthetic nuisance, forming a slickness on the surface of filter cartridges, for example, they pose no threat to health.  They may, in fact, inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria and be useful in other ways.

Why, then, the persistent myth that water filters are writhing nests of dangerous bacteria waiting to strike us down? In my opinion, the bacteria issue that troubles many water filter owners is a lingering result mainly of marketing misinformation that was spread by overzealous amateurs bent on selling “bacteriostatic” water filters.  Multi-level marketers of the 1980s and 1990s  were sent into the world  preaching the virtues of silver-impregnated carbon in “bacteriostatic” water filters; their main message was that the standard carbon carbon filters being sold by everyone else were dangerous breeding beds for bacteria.  More recently, sellers of mixed bed carbon and KDF (also a “bacteriostatic” agent) filters have kept the myth alive in a more subdued way.  (Bacteriostatic, by the way, does not mean that the filter kills dangerous pathogens in the water, making unsafe water safe, but simply that it inhibits the growth of bacteria within the carbon bed.)

Common Sense

Let’s be reasonable.

When did you last hear a news report about a disease epidemic that was spread by pathogens growing inside  water filters?

The water treatment systems that are used in homes to remove disinfectants, chemical contaminants, and heavy metals while improving the aesthetics of the water are not designed for use on non-potable water.  They are used on water that is pathogen free.  It is unreasonable to fear that pathogen-free chlorinated city water will somehow introduce dangerous microbes into a water filter where they will grow and flourish.

If the presence of bacteria is a concern, or if you have strong reasons to protect yourself from all bacteria, good or bad, it’s easy to install a ceramic filter as the final stage of your drinking water filter or reverse osmosis unit.

Pa.  pushes drillers to frack with coal mine water

By Michael Rubinkam

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

In A Nutshell:  Each day Pennsylvania coal mines dump 300 million gallons of polluted water into the state’s streams and rivers.  At the same time, oil companies use up to 5 million gallons of fresh water for each gas well they frack. It only makes sense to divert the coal mine waste to fracking.

Each day, 300 million gallons of polluted mine water enters Pennsylvania streams and rivers, turning many of them into dead zones unable to support aquatic life. At the same time, drilling companies use up to 5 million gallons of fresh water for every natural-gas well they frack.

State environmental officials and coal region lawmakers are hoping that the state’s newest extractive industry can help clean up a giant mess left by the last one. They are encouraging drillers to use tainted coal mine water to hydraulically fracture gas wells in the Marcellus Shale formation, with the twin goals of diverting pollution from streams and rivers that now run orange with mine drainage and reducing the drillers’ reliance on fresh sources of water.

Drainage from abandoned mines is one of the state’s worst environmental headaches, impairing 5,500 miles of waterways.

“It’s a problem (the drillers) didn’t create, but hopefully a problem they can help solve,” said Sen. Richard Kasunic, a southwestern Pennsylvania Democrat who’s co-sponsoring legislation to spur the use of mine water in fracking.

While not all mine water is chemically suitable for fracking — and a mine discharge has to be close enough to a well pad to make transport via truck or pipeline economical — experts believe Pennsylvania has more than enough polluted mine water to meet the needs of the drilling industry.

More than 10 drillers have already received Department of Environmental Protection permission to use mine discharges for fracking, a technique in which millions of gallons of water, along with chemical additives and sand, are pumped down a well to break apart gas-bearing shale deposits.

“There’s a lot of potential here,” said Doug Kepler, vice president of environmental engineering at Seneca Resources Corp. “People are looking for the right place to do it, the right commitment to do it, and it has to make sense for your operation.”

Seneca has been withdrawing polluted water from the Arnot No. 5 coal mine in Tioga County since late 2010 and piping it some 6 miles to the well pad. DEP considers the mine, which discharges water at an average rate of 2,000 gallons a minute, one of the top contributors of pollution to the upper Tioga River watershed. Seneca’s permit allows it to take up to 500,000 gallons per day from the Arnot discharge.

“We’re not doing this to save money, and it’s not really costing us any more money,” said Kepler, a former environmental consultant. “It’s just an alternative that we choose to do to try to minimize our impact.”

The idea enjoys broad bipartisan support in Harrisburg. A bill that would encourage drillers to frack their wells with polluted water from abandoned mines cleared the state Senate by a unanimous vote last year, but passage came late in the legislative session, and the measure died in the House.

Kasunic’s revised bill had been making its way through the Senate when it was tabled abruptly last week after environmental groups complained it would give drillers too much protection from liability.

The legislation would remove what had been seen as a barrier for drillers wanting to use coal mine water: the state’s Clean Streams Law. The law’s strict liability provisions could be interpreted as requiring drillers to treat a mine discharge in perpetuity once they begin withdrawing water from it, even though they had no role in creating it. The Senate bill would shield gas companies from that liability.But PennEnvironment and other environmental activists claimed the bill also would give drillers immunity from responsibility for spills and other accidents at a well pad, too.

Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration supports the bill and contends it was fine as written.

It “does not provide blanket immunity for the act of hydraulic fracturing, and any assertion to the contrary would be false,” John Stefanko, deputy DEP secretary, wrote to Kasunic and another of the legislation’s co-sponsors, Republican Sen. Gene Yaw.

He said it does not “provide any protection to the transporter or user of the treated water when it is used for fracking or other well development purposes.”

Lawmakers say they’re willing to make adjustments and are hopeful it will win passage.

 

Source: Bloomberg News.

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 More People Drown Than You Think: Ten Per Day in the US

Ten people die every day from unintentional drowning in the United States, making it the fifth-leading cause of unintentional injury death.  About 20% are under the age of 14. Nearly 80% are male.

Only about 35% of Americans know how to swim, and only 2% to 7% swim well.  Teens are particularly susceptible to peer pressure and often go past their limits. Exhaustion or disorientation under water could cause a weak swimmer to panic.

In this case, the swimmer would go through the stages of what lifeguards call an “active drowning.”  The word “active” may be misleading, as active drowning is nothing like what you usually see on TV.

In an active drowning, a swimmer is at or below eye level at the surface of the water for about 10 to 20 seconds. The head is tilted back to get air. The eyes are either wide open or tightly shut. The mouth is often in an “O” shape from shock.  If you can call for help, you aren’t drowning.

After about 20 seconds, the victim will start to sink and will hold his breath underwater for anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds. If rescued during this time, the swimmer usually will be fine.

After 90 seconds,  a swimmer will black out. At this point, the outcome is hard to predict.  If a swimmer is resuscitated after the four-minute mark, there’s a high risk of brain damage.

Typically, a person holding his breath will be triggered to breathe when his CO2 levels get high. But if a swimmer is holding his breath for a long time while exhaling underwater, or is going underwater repeatedly, his CO2 levels are lowered. When that happens, the brain’s built-in alarm to breathe doesn’t go off, despite a lack of oxygen.

More than half of drowning deaths in people older than 15 occur outside of pools, according to the CDC. And alcohol is involved in 70% of cases.

More information from CNN Health.

 In Rural India, Where Rains Pour Down in Buckets,  Water Is Scarce

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bee Sharper Indexes the Numbers that Harper’s Misses

by Bee Sharper

Portion of the water supply in rural India (where 70% of the people live)  that is routinely contaminated with dangerous bacteria — 1/2.

Approximate number of Indian children who die each year of diarrhea or pneumonia caused by toxic water — 600,000.

Year by which it is predicted that India will need to double its current water supply — 2030.

Number of Indians who currently scrounge for water from unproven sources — 100,000,000.

Percentage of the world’s population that lives in India — 16%.

Percentage of the world’s fresh water supply that is available to India — 4%.

Annual rainfall in the small northern Indian town of  Cherrapunji — 4 feet.

Occasional daily rainfall amount during the rainy season — 1 foot.

Factor by which this rainfall exceeds the annual rainfall in Seattle — 12 times.

Number of miles many Cherrapunji women have to walk to bring water to their homes during the dry season — 1+

Number of trips per day required to bring water to the home — 4 to 5.

Number of hours per day that residents have tap water in the city of New Delhi — 2 to 3.

Percentage of New Delhi’s total water output that is lost to leaky pipes and theft — 30% to 70%.

Women Carrying Water from a Community Tap in Cherrapunji.

Reference: New York Times

Land and Ocean

by Janet Kaspersen,  Stormwater Editor

 

Water News in a Nutshell.

 

Gazette’s Nutshell View:  The problem of plastics in the ocean is getting worse all the time.  Two years after the Japanese tsunami, Hawaii is catching the debris.

The problem of plastic in the ocean—where it lasts for decades and gets eaten by birds, fish, and other animals—is nothing new; in fact, it’s getting worse. Now, two years after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Hawaiian islands are receiving an extra share of plastics and other debris.

By some estimates, about a million and a half tons of debris was washed out to sea during the tsunami; some has landed in North America. Hawaii, though, which is sometimes described as the “comb” of the Pacific because it catches debris as it swirls westward across the ocean, is getting much of the material now. Items with Japanese text and logos, ranging in size from tiny shards to whole appliances, have been prevalent for months. Although big items like refrigerators are more dramatic, it’s the smaller and more plentiful ones—bottle caps, bits of plastic bags—that are of greater concern to wildlife specialists.

Earlier studies by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that 9% of ocean fish had ingested plastics. As this article details, recent NOAA studies have shown that 12% of fish—and as much as 45% in some species—have done so. And one oceanographer studying albatross in Hawaii says that every single bird he examined recently had eaten some sort of plastic debris. It’s a reminder, another NOAA researcher says, that “the land and the oceans are incredibly connected.”

Source:  Stormwater

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 The Comeback of Water as America’s Drink

Gazette Numerical Wizard Bee Sharper Indexes the Numbers that Harper’s Misses

by Bea Sharper

Percentage increase in the amount of water consumed by the average American vs. 15 years ago — 38%.

Per capita US consumption of of soda in 1998 — 54 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 1998 — 42 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of  soda in 2013 –44 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 — 58 gallons.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 in ounces — 7,242.

Per capita US consumption of water in 2013 in cups — 2.5.

Year in which soft drinks peaked in popularity in the US — 1998.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in gallons — 180.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in kegs — 11.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in bathtubs-full — 4.

Estimated total annual American consumption of all liquids, in large aquariums-full — 1.

Percentage increase in American bottled water consumption since 2001 — 50 %.

Percentage of US bottled water market now held by Coca Cola — 13%.

Percentage of US bottled water market now held by PepsiCo – 10%.

Percent increase in wine consumption in the US during the past decade — 20%.

Percent decrease in beer consumption in the US during the past decade – 12%.

Cups of light yellow or colorless urine that you should produce each day if you are drinking enough water, according to the Mayo Clinic — 6.3.

Ms. Sharper’s Sources:

Beverage Digest.

The Atlantic.