Governments and charitable groups install water pumps, wells and other village water systems around the world, but pay insufficient attention to keeping them running.  Check this NYTimes article by Tina Rosenberg

Water4, an Oklahoma-based group, makes a drilling kit in a duffel bag.  The bag has everything needed for hand-drilling down to 150 feet and installing a low-tech pump, no power tools needed.  (Cement and PVC are bought locally.)

Happy World Toilet Day!   November 19, 2011

Today we give thanks for:  The Can, the Oval Office, the Loo, the Throne, the Potty, the Library, the Long Drop, the John, the Latrine, the Smart Phone Game Lounge…

Speaking of holidays, did you know that plumbers get 60% more calls the day after Thanksgiving than any other day?

Let’s raise a lid for the almighty toilet! Don’t forget to send an E-card today and share World Toilet Day with Everyone!

World Toilet Day is one of our favorite holidays.  With 2.6 Billion people in the world lacking a toilet, World Toilet Day helps to raise awareness and also gets us all thinking about innovative ways to tackle the problem.

Consider donating to Water For People this year.

Hey Mr. Green,

My dad is an environmental scold and refuses to let my mother have a halogen lamp in her study because he claims it would waste energy and thereby contribute to climate change. Is he right, or just light years from the truth, as is often the case?

—Anna, in Berkeley, California

Ask Mr. Green:

If you have problems with high heating bills, ice dams or rooms that are too hot or too cold, a Home Performance with ENERGY STAR®  evaluation would be a good investment for you.

• Check out a new program from the City of Madison for homes to help offset the cost of making energy improvements. (GREEN MADISON) 

• Get an evaluation, testing and written recommendations from Focus on Energy’s trained professionals. (Cost $400. Get $100 back from Green Madison for completing the process.)

How to QUALIFY?

Homeowners:
All City of Madison single family, duplex, and triplex owner-occupied residences and condominiums are eligible.

Business Owners:
Most City of Madison businesses are eligible.

For more information and to sign up

Call Green Madison at 877-399-1204, or visit www.cityofmadison.com/greenmadison

Call Focus on Energy at 1-800-762-7077 or visit www.focusonenergy.com.

If your bathroom fixtures come in retro colors like “Pepto^®” pink and avocado green—or were installed before 1994, after plumbing standards became more efficient—they could be sending money and water down the drain. Advances in plumbing technology and design have led to faucets, showers, and toilets that use significantly less water than standard models while still delivering the rinse, spray, and flushing power you need.

Upgrading your main bathroom with WaterSense labeled fixtures can save enough water annually to wash six months’ worth of laundry, reduce your energy use enough to run your refrigerator for two months, and decrease a household’s utility bills by $80 per year, allowing the fixtures to pay for themselves in as little as two years.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has begun a“Reinvent the Toilet” competition and awarded $3 million to researchers at eight universities, challenging them to use recent technology to create models that needn’t be connected to sewers, or to water and electricity lines, and that cost less than pennies per person a day to use.

The University of Wisconsin devised an ingenious calculator for WI residents to examine water usage. If you click on this you will also find great tips for water conservation that are applicable everywhere, such as, “Installing a more efficient showerhead could save your family hundreds of dollars per year in water and energy costs!”

The project, called the East Water Supply Project, is an 18-month study focused on meeting the east side’s future water demands with an ample, quality supply of water that uses an efficient system of clean and safe wells.

East Side Water Supply project – The Madison Water Utility (MWU) and CitizensAdvisory Panel (CAP) members invite you to attend a  Listening and Learning Event to learn about the East Side Water Supply (ESWS) project and share with us your ideas for ensuring that the east side has safe, reliable and sufficient water. The meeting will be an open house, so stop by whenever you have time and stay as long as you’d like.

Drop in anytime :  Monday, June 27, 2011   4:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m.Madison East High  OR  Thursday, June 30, 2011   4:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m.Warner Park Community Recreation Center, 1625 Northport Drive