Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Let's just stop taking showers...

We should go back to the days of the old-West where the downtown mattered (that was for our PARD friends) and where people showered once a year.

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The city of Seattle announced Thursday that it will seek sanctions against manufacturers of water-guzzling shower heads, armed with lab results showing that the products tested far exceeded the federal "maximum water flow rate requirement" standard.

"The people of Seattle have a very strong environmental ethic, and I think most people would be appalled at others who are wasting energy or water," said Dietemann, water conservation lead for Seattle Public Utilities.


Way to lead the way Seattle! Yet again, we are in awe of your awesomeness!

Coombs acknowledged that many of today's shower head products, such as Zoe's "rainhead" and multiple shower heads, provide what customers want: more water.
He added that individual customers often remove the restrictors themselves.

"Most people want to know how to take them out," Coombs said. "Generally, they don't like the water savers; the flow of water is too weak and they feel as though they haven't gotten a shower."

The thing I like about low-flow shower heads is that I spend about four to five times longer in the shower getting soaped up and rinsed off. Actually if the government would add a law on the books that makes illegal for shampoo companies to have the directions for use include the directive to "repeat", that would equate to less shower time for everyone. That could save minutes a day. Wow, anyone want to vote for me for State Senate?

Dietemann and other city officials said such behavior is worrisome and
counterproductive, recalling when consumers years ago tried to remove anti-pollution devices on new car engines.

"Our real concern is if even 3 percent of our customers adopt these shower heads, it could negate all the achievements of the programs we've been running for decades," Dietemann said.


This last statement made me scratch my head. You're telling me that for decades people have been conserving water and it can be wiped out over night by 3% of the population?

4 comments:

Victoria Dehlbom said...

Scotty it's the new math.

Ray Lindquist said...

I have found that lots of motels use these "low volume" shower heads. So we have a shower head we take with us when we travel so we can swap out the low volume head for one you can get wet under. The others take a week to shampoo your hair and the like.

Ray Lindquist said...

Digger -- You be good with those words. Now we need to start to talk about LOW volume flush toilets. It ALWAYS seems that you need 2 or 3 flushes with those to get the job done. In the long run you end up using more water.

April E. Coggins said...

How are we all going to be vegetarian organic gardeners if we can't use water? Please don't tell me that I have a non PC vegetable garden.