Sad news from Western Texas, where the local water supply has become so depleted that local authorities have ordered the construction of a new $13 million water reclamation facility that will will treat local sewage and turn it into clean drinking water. The water is treated so thoroughly that it is expected to be cleaner and better tasting than what West Texans were used to getting from their local reservoirs, but many locals are still not terribly thrilled about the idea of drinking treated wastewater.

Previously, water for this part of Texas came from one of three large reservoirs, but all of them are drying up. One reservoir is actually at less than 1% of its capacity, and is expected to stop providing any water at all within the next six months. However, even with the 2 million gallons of water the water reclamation facility is expected to provide each day, the area still needs to enact some serious water conservation measures: the local water provider expects they will need to reduce the daily water supply by 20 million gallons if drought conditions continue next year.

To increase conservation, the local water authorities offer a wealth of information about saving water on crops and in landscaping, and the state offers a number of rebate programs for homeowners who purchase WaterSense-labeled products. Even though your household savings may seem like the proverbial drop in the bucket, they can really add up as more families adopt these changes. For example, if every household in the country replaced their old toilet with a high efficiency toilet that uses only 1.3 gallons of water per flush, 900 billion gallons of water would be saved every year.

Perhaps now that the urgency of the situation in Texas is so clear, water conservation will become more of a focus for local residents and businesses, so the future can be bright and BLUE.