As the piles of snow melt away and waves of rain assault the Palouse, it’s easy to assume there is an abundance of water in Moscow.
Tyler Palmer, vice chair of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee, said this is only a mirage.
“Living in the Northwest, sometimes there is this misconception that there is all the water that we could ever use, and it’s just not the case,” Palmer said.
Both the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee and the University of Idaho Sustainability Center are enabling people to conserve water on campus and across the community.
In previous years, the Grande Ronde aquifer, one of two Moscow relies on, lowered .9 feet every year, Palmer said. Now the aquifer only lowers about half a foot annually. While it is good news the decline has decreased, Palmer said the decline still needs to continue declining.
Moscow residents are consuming almost the same amount of water they did in 1955, said Eugene Gussenhoven, director of utilities and engineering at UI. Relying on aquifers as the only water source becomes difficult. There is not a surface water source that is able to provide the Latah and Whitman Counties with the water they might eventually need.
“If you think about how human civilization develops, water is what drives location,” Palmer said. “Because availability of water is the first and fundamental key to being able to live somewhere.”
Moscow residents learned of the dwindling aquifer in the 1970s. In 1978, Moscow’s Wastewater Treatment Plant was built in hopes of reclaiming some of the used water.
Over the years, the treatment plant has reclaimed more than two billion gallons of water, said Elmer Johnson, the UI water systems manager. That equals 100 of the large “University of Idaho” water tanks resting on the hill above the Kibbie Dome. One tank holds two million gallons of water.
If that sounds like a lot of water — it is. The EPA states the average four-person family in the U.S. uses 400 gallons of water per day. For places like Moscow that rely solely on water from aquifers, it is imperative to use water conservation methods.
Moscow residents used 255 million gallons of water in 2015. Of the water taken from the aquifers, the treatment plant reclaimed 86 to 105 million gallons of the water used last year, Gussenhoven said.
Before the water is reclaimed, the category black water goes through rigorous treatment. The reclaimed water is used on almost all of the green areas on the UI campus, Gussenhoven said.
UI students also do their part to conserve water in Moscow.
Jamie Matheison, the Sustainability Center manager, said the center gives reusable water bottles to freshmen volunteering at Serving Your New Community (SYNC) each year. In addition, the Sustainability Center dedicated their semester around water last spring.
The center not only provides easier ways for students to conserve water, but also holds events like the Haul Your Water Challenge, an obstacle course on the tower lawn with one catch — a heavy amount of water is carried in both hands.
“It’s to bring awareness to the fact that we have an incredible privilege in the United States and here in Idaho to be able to turn on the tap and not have to do anything to get to it, whereas other places have to haul their water,” said Kelly Painter, the student director of the center.
The use of water impacts every aspect of life, Painter said. If plants are not native to an area, more water is consumed in the process of keeping them alive. If farms are grown in naturally dry climates, more water is needed to produce food.
Moscow residents understand the benefits of switching to native plants. There has been a great effort both on and off campus to plant native species. Since 2009, the center’s event, Get Rooted, received help from more than 5,000 students in planting more than 5,000 native species of plants, Matheison said.
This spring, students and volunteers will also participate in the Paradise Creek water quality planting project. Matheison said grasses “will be planted along Perimeter Drive to absorb livestock nutrients from surface water runoff before reaching Paradise Creek.”
Paradise Creek is home to different wildlife, and fertilizers and chemicals can harm these creatures. That is why silver medallions and paintings are placed near storm drains throughout Moscow, Matheison said.
What a lot of these conservation methods come down to is being aware of personal water consumption and considering where the water ends up.
Being a “conscious consumer” as Painter said, goes beyond what an individual can do to use less water on campus. It is also thinking consciously about where products are coming from and how much water they require. Painter is a vegan. It is the biggest effort she said she has made in conserving water.
“Every dime we spend wastefully is a dime we can’t spend on fun things that we want to do as a community,” Palmer said.