Our Water Use: Good News, Bad News
We are now into our second year of being homeowners in Chico, and can start seeing how some of our sustainability efforts are panning out in terms of our water bills.
The Good News
Even though this year the garden has quadrupled in size and we are babying 27 young fruit trees that we planted over the winter, our water use was down 19% in April as compared with this time last year, and 12.5% in May. The biggest reasons for this difference has been the elimination of the front lawn, the partial neglect of the backyard lawn, and the use of drip irrigation for many of the vegetables which allows for more efficient watering.
The Bad News
My wife and I used an average of 424 gallons of water every day last year, enough to fill just over 7 wine barrels every 24 hours. A huge percentage of this was used on the lawn and veggies in the summer. For example, in June of 2007 we averaged 981 gallons per day (!!!), while this past February we averaged only 123 gallons per day. In a recent letter to the editor, Chico resident Gene Lucas writes that the average California home uses 471 gallons per day. Lucas goes on to recommend that Chicoans strive to achieve less than 300 gallons per day. I concur, but at our house, at least, we have a ways to go.
Our hope is that as the trees and landscaping mature and their roots deepen, the will be able to do a better job fending for themselves in the summer. Also, we plan to continue to add landscape features such as swales and build plant communities that shade the ground from the sun, thus enabling the ground to hold winter rainwater later into the summer.
I will also plant fewer water-sucking zucchini next year.