Water way to be!

Bangaloreans pushed to the brink by acute water shortage could learn a thing or two from A R Shivakumar, who has not received a water bill in the last 16 years

Rain Water Harvesting

He has not been given a water bill in the last 16 years, and the BWSSB doesn’t mind a bit. A R Shivakumar, principal researcher of Rain Water Harvesting, KSCST, and his family of four, have been meeting their daily needs with rain water for the last sixteen summers.

Shivakumar offered to take us on a tour of his eco-friendly house Sourabha, in Vijayanagar, to display his advanced rain water harvesting system that makes him completely independent of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB).
Shivakumar’s wife Suma is used to his eccentricities as a scientist.

But when he suggested that they forego a BWSSB line completely, in the new house they were building in 1997, she thought it was extreme. He convinced her then that she would not have to depend on neighbours for water, and eventually ended up building the house without depending on BWSSB.

“I created a shallow reservoir at the lowest slope of my site for the water to collect and we used just that to build our house,” he says. Today, Suma says, “We have never had a dry day and neither have we depended on tankers to help us out.”
Shivakumar has a two-level roof with two overhead tanks on each level. The roof acts as a catchment area connected to the second floor tank which is in turn connected to the linked underground pumps.

“During a full season, I have 45,000 litres of water in my house which can be used for 110 days. And in the last 100 years, the time gap between two showers in Bangalore has never exceeded three months. In Bangalore, we get about 40 inches of rain and with my surface areas, that translates to about 2.3 lakh litres of water every year. As a family of four, we use about 1.8 lakh litres of water. Where is the question of shortage?” he says.

But he does have a back-up for a (non) rainy day. The excess 50,000 litres of water that is not stored by the family in any of the tanks is directed to a shallow borewell which has water within the first 30 feet.

For clean drinking water, he uses a silver sheet that is immersed in a 10 litre tank. Put it in the water for six hours and what you have is zero-bacteria drinking water available, he says.

Water supply system
* Number of over head tanks – Two of 5,000 litre capacity
* Number of underground tanks – Two of 25,000 litres and 10,000 litres capacity
* Number of  motor pumps – 3
* Number of borewells – one

Manasi Paresh Kumar – From Times Group – Bangalore Mirror

NCC cadets take out rally to save Cauvery

For a cause: Air Wing cadets taking out a rally in Tiruchi - Photo: M. Moorthy

TIRUCHI: NCC Air Wing cadets from various city schools and colleges took out a rally here on Wednesday as a campaign to save river Cauvery from pollution.

The ‘Save Cauvery River Rally’ was flagged off by R. Chandrasekaran, Headmaster, Srirangam Boys Higher Secondary School at the Amma Mandapam bathing ghat in Srirangam.

Around 100 Junior Division and Senior Division NCC cadets participated in the rally that was taken out via Gandhi Road to the Srirangam Boys Higher Secondary School.

Pamphlets distributed

The cadets distributed pamphlets to the public containing messages to save the river.Earlier, they undertook a cleaning operation at the Amma Mandapam bathing ghat area and appealed to the public to keep the river free from pollution.

Wing Commander M.S. Rao, Commanding Officer, 3 TN Air Squadron (Tech) NCC, Tiruchi and Associate NCC officers of schools and colleges participated.

From THE HINDU

3 Tips to Water Saving in Your Kitchen

Implementing some water saving techniques into your kitchen can help you save a significant amount of money over the course of a year. Here are a few tips that you can use to save water in your kitchen.

1. Run the Dishwasher Less

Most families today utilize a dishwasher to clean the dishes. This makes things very convenient and helps save time. However, they can also use up a lot of water. Try not to run the dishwasher unless it is completely full. Cutting back on the number of time that you run your dishwasher can save significant amounts of water.

2. Water Alarm

You might want to consider installing a water alarm behind your refrigerator. A water alarm will alert you if any leaks occur in the area. This way, you can get the water shut off immediately and prevent water from being wasted.

3. Turn the Sink Off

You might also want to make a conscious effort to turn the sink off as much is possible. Many people turn the sink on and do not think about how much water they are wasting at one time. For example, if you are going to wash your hands in the sink, consider turning the water off while you are lathering.

From FinWeb

Green Energy Globe: How to Save Water in Your Home

Unless you live in a cavern you have listened about the need to preserve earth’s healthy resources. This includes all from H2O to appetite (coal, oil). We have been creation good strides in renewable appetite sources identical to solar and wind. Greater strides need to be done in safeguarding an additional of earth’s resources, freshwater.

Due to rainfall or layer H2O can be cruise a renewable apparatus however flood amounts have been never certain. We can never envision how most belligerent H2O or stream and lake H2O we will have to pull out the freshwater supplies. Right right away you have been meditative earth is 70% H2O there is copiousness or H2O for everybody. Only 3% of which 70% is from freshwater source and a little of which 3% is trapped in glaciers. From wickedness to droughts freshwater is a apparatus everybody should essay to protect.

Here have been a little elementary tips to saving H2O inside your own home.

1) Turn off the H2O whilst brushing your teeth.This could save twenty-five gallons a month. If you think things by there should be no reason because penetrate H2O should be regulating if you have been not actively regulating the sink.

2) Take shorter showersThere have been most people which have problems with a tip to take shorter showers. No one is asking any one to take 5 notation showers only try tying your showering to the rinse and rinse. By slicing your showering by a notation or dual you can save up to 150 gallons per month. To save even some-more H2O try branch the H2O off whilst you rinse your hair. You can work out the H2O assets in your own shower. Take a gallon bucket and hang it underneath the showering faucet. Next time how prolonged it takes to fill the bucket.

3) Install water-saving showering heads and low-flow faucet aeratorsFor both showering heads and faucets you should demeanour for a upsurge rating of reduction than 2.5 gallons per notation (gpm). The pattern of water-saving showering heads mixes air in to the H2O and most appropriate of all allows for H2O vigour to sojourn similar.

4) Only run your dishwasher or soaking appurtenance with full loads

From Green Energy Globe

Call to preserve water tanks in Kanyakumari

Nagercoil: A seminar on the status of tanks was convened here by environmentalists attached to various non-governmental organisations on Saturday.

Most of the tanks of Kanyakumari district were full of weeds which reduced their capacity and promoted evaporation of water resources of Kanyakumari district intended for irrigation and drinking water purposes.

Further, many tanks were encroached upon and land filled by real estate groups. The hills of the district were exploited for the sand which was dumped in to the tanks, paddy fields and wetlands, said former principal scientist, CMFRI, R.S.Lal Mohan.

Presiding over the seminar, he said that the tanks of Kanyakumari were located on a steep gradient which paved the way for the rain water to mingle with sea at a faster rate.

The constituted the natural rainwater harvesting system which made the district fertile. But due to the lack of understanding the geomorphology of the district, the tanks were allowed to be filled with aquatic vegetation belonging to various species of weeds like water hyacinth, ipomoea, grass, etc.

e tanks also recharge groundwater sources. Nowadays, the residents get drinking water once in five days in some places and once in 8 days in other areas. The district was unique in its ecology and wetlands and no unplanned developments should be allowed to turn the district into a desert, cautiond Mr. Mohan.

Environmentalist Jasmine Asir said that the water scarcity had a great impact on women. She stressed that the hardship of the rural women would increase manifold due to the land filling of the tanks and destruction of water resources.

From THE HINDU