Getting Down to the Basics of Conservation

We’re going through drought conditions in many areas here on Maui. In fact, a lack of rain all around the State of Hawaii has the various county governments asking folks to conserve water. As they say, it’s in all the papers.

Strangely – although I will explain – that reminded me of a wonderful trip we took to France a dozen or so years back. We stopped for a week in the very small town of Breel. It’s about 30 miles south of Falaise, the closest city of any size. We had rented a small stone cottage and I remember being fascinated by the simplicity of the appliances in the place, including a hand-cranked wooden coffee grinder.

And there was no water heater … at least, not the kind we’re used to in the U.S. Cold water flowed into a metal box mounted on the wall where it entered a labyrinth of copper tubing surrounded by gas jets which ignited like a barbeque grill the moment the hot water tap was opened anywhere in the house. That instantly heated the copper tubing and by the time the water passed through the maze of pipe and came out the tap, it was also hot.

We take a different approach in he U.S. We have 40 gallon tanks hidden in closets or down in our basements and we use electricity or gas to keep all that water hot 24 hours a day. That’s in case we want to take a shower at 3:00 a.m.

The owner of the cottage, Madame Grandorge – a pleasant woman in her 50s – gave us detailed instructions for operating the water heater and the other appliances. It took a while because it was all delivered in French and my facility with the language is marginal. She recognized that early on and slowed down and spoke very carefully when she got to the part about asking us to be careful not to waste water. She said her most recent water bill had been very high … no doubt the fault of previous tenants.

I don’t remember the actual cost she was complaining about, but I was startled to learn that the minimum unit used to compute her water bill was one liter.

By comparison, in most of this country, the minimum unit we use to compute our water bills is a thousand gallons.

That says a lot about this society’s approach to the conservation of our natural resources, doesn’t it.