Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 07:51:15 -0400
From: Tom West
Subject: Chatham Commissioners Want to Monitor How Long Citizens Spend in the Shower
Pittsboro, NC – After Chatham County Commissioners Jim Crawford, Karen Howard and Diana Hales zone ALL of the county, it won’t be a surprise if they plan to create a subcommittee that will recommend that the commissioners start to monitor how long Chatham County citizens spend in the shower.
The Chatham Commissioners hope to piggy back off an EPA effort that is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to “modify their behavior.”
“People consume a significant amount of water in the U.S. and around the world,†Chatham Commissioner Diana Hales observed. “Most counties do not monitor individual citizen water usage and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by people.
“The proposed work aims to develop a novel low cost wireless device for monitoring water use from citizens’ showers. This device will be designed to fit most new and existing shower fixtures and will wirelessly transmit citizen water usage data to a central county government system.”
Commissioner Karen Howard added that there would be exceptions made for the homes in her neighborhood, since she doesn’t live in a low-income neighborhood and rules for others don’t apply to her. She also informed everyome that anyone who disagreed with her didn’t know what they were talking about and they were just being racists.
The goal of the project is to change the behavior of Chatham County citizens when they shower.
“This technology will provide our citizens with the ability to monitor their daily water online or using a smartphone app and will assist citizens in modifying their behavior to help conserve water,” Mrs. Hales said.
The project was filed under “Water conservation,” “Urban water planning,” “government control,” and “Sustainable water management.”
The Chatham Commissioners also plan to utilize a WaterSense program that challenges citizens to track their water use and upgrade their restrooms with low-flow toilets and showerheads.
The program also encourages “linen and towel reuse programs” . One towel per person per household is the ultimate goal.
Diana Hales, Karen Howard and Jim Crawford are concerned that the average shower, which lasts just eight minutes, uses 18 gallons of water, and will be asking Chatham County citizens to reduce their shower length by at least one minute.
Diana Hales hopes these controls will be “adopted by all North Carolina Counties and used across the country.”
Commissioner Dr. James Crawford added, “What can I say? I’ll go along with what Karen and Diana say. After all, I’m not a medical doctor. But I can tell you where to put your prepositions.”
The control device seeks to get Chatham residents to limit their showers to seven minutes as a start.
An upcoming Chatham County news release will provide a link to Home Water Works, which recommends taking a five minute shower to reduce water use.
The website, which is a project of the Alliance for Water Efficiency, also suggests watering plants with discarded cold water from showers that take a long time to heat up, and taking “navy showers.”
“The method requires three steps: 1) turn on water to rinse body and hair; 2) turn off water while shampooing hair and washing body with soap and washcloth; 3) resume water flow and rinse off all shampoo and soap,” the group said. “Using this technique, the total duration of water flow can easily be reduced to 5 minutes or less.” ?