Twenty Ways to Leave More Water

1. Put bricks or a filled gallon milk container inside the back of your toilet.

2. Don’t shave if it requires water to do so. Those of us who shave in sink or shower, let’s all agree not to shave until the drought is over! How about a united “body hair is good” declaration. Eventually we’ll go back to normal.

3. If you have two toilets, have a “pee pot” and a “poop pot.” The pee pot can be flushed once or twice a day. the other you may want to flush more often.

4. Don’t run the water whole you’re brushing your teeth. In fact, do a dry brushing until the rinse stage. You can even get used to the no rinse effect if you try.

5. Just let the car be dirty. Even if you normally take it in to the car wash, that uses a lot of water. Make a game out of how many dumb things you can write in the dust on your car while you wait for rain. Just don't write "wash this car please;" that is lame.

6. Wear jeans and other heavier clothes that can be worn for a week or so without washing. If we all smell like Europeans for a while, so what?

7. Have some of those important work clothes dry cleaned instead of laundered. You won’t get starch that way but it still beats cleaning at home, and uses no water.

8. Buy drinking water that is bottled somewhere not in the south.

9. Take shorter showers. Period. You can do it. Your teenage daughter can do it. Your teenage son can do it. Give the teen age kids a timer, and if it goes off before they're done, turn off the water (or at least the hot water :-). That will teach them to hurry.

10. Just let the grass die. We have to re-seed it anyway so who cares really.

11. Collect the water that runs while you wait for it to heat up for use on your plants. For that matter, use some of that mildly dirty water from the shower or bath or sink to water your plants as well. They can handle it.

12. Make sure you have a low flow shower head and a low flow toilet – you may as well do this now since it’s a good idea for the long haul anyway.

13. "Just say no" to the garbage disposal – throw the food bits in the trash can or put them in a compost heap. It takes a lot of water to use a disposal.

14. It will rain eventually. Get a rain barrel for capturing water from your down pipes for when that happens. That may seem extreme, but it's kind if cool. Use the water as soon as possible on your plants to avoid mosquitos from laying eggs in your rain barrel.

15. If you have the money, buy water saving appliances, as in low flow dishwashers, front end washing machines, etc.

16. Drain the pool. Just do it. You can survive a season without your heated pool.

17. If you have a just a few dishes to wash, wash them in the sink with just a tad of water, running the faucet only to rinse.

18. Some landscape plants are worth saving. Use water as gathered above, or, if you must, use a drip hose, and add lots of mulch around the most important plants.

19. Don’t hose off anything. Brooms and wipe cloths work pretty well.

20. Whatever boneheaded local officials managed to leave us with a lake full of water with no way to treat it, vote them out of office.