Crunching Numbers: Just How Much Water Do You Use?

By: Bridget Fargen - Email

Updated: Mon 4:47 AM, Aug 06, 2012

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During this drought water is at a premium and conservation is key. So how much water flows from your faucet or spigot? You may be surprised to find out.

The City of Lincoln has a goal of 60 million gallons of water per day during the voluntary water conservation efforts.

With just over 262,000 people, that means each person gets roughly 228 gallons. Lets see how fast it adds up.

The Environmental Protection Agency says the bathroom is the largest consumer of indoor water.

Older toilets use between 3.5 and 7 gallons of water per flush, while energy or water efficient toilets use less.

A leaky toilet can waste about 200 gallons of water every day.

A bathroom faucet generally runs at 2 gallons of water per minute. By turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, shaving or washing your hands you can save more than 200 gallons of water per month.

In the laundry room, a traditional washer can use 27 to 54 gallons of water. But new energy and water conserving washing machines use less than 27 gallons per load.

In the kitchen, leaving the water running can use up to 20 gallons of water, while plugging the drain and filling the sink saves 10 gallons of water.

If you don't rinse the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher, you can save up to 10 gallons of water per load.

Heading outside, if you use a hose to water your lawn or wash your car 6-10 gallons of water is used each minutes. In ten minutes you've already used 60 to 100 gallons.

The total of all that--- a range of 148 to 244 gallons.

In talking about the voluntary water conservation efforts Mayor Chris Beutler said, "I believe the vast majority of our residents do realize that this is a serious situation and will do what they can to help us reach our water use goal."

While Andrew Campbell of Campbell's Nurseries added, "I think everybody needs to get on board, Lincoln has been very good at coming together in times of need and this is another time of need."

All the numbers are from the EPA website on water conservation. Of course if you have energy or water efficient appliances your numbers will fluctuate.

City officials say they're re-evaluate whether or not to impose mandatory water restrictions sometime this week, once data from the Ashland wells along the Platte River is compiled and assessed.