where's the water?

finally, it rained today...for about five minutes.  i was hoping it would last a while but as soon as i started this post, the clouds went from dark to light grey and the rain turned to mist.  not good considering the southeast is experiencing extreme drought conditions and here in the atlanta area, we're definitely worried about our water supply:

Lake Sidney Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, has about three months of storage left, according to state and federal officials.

That's three months before there's not enough water for more than 3 million metro Atlantans to take showers, flush their toilets and cook. Three months before there's not enough water in parts of the Chattahoochee River for power plants to make the steam necessary to generate electricity. Three months before part of the river runs dry.

(full article on ajc.com)

i hope people are doing their part to reduce water usage. 

seriously, do you really need to wash your car once a week?  no.  heck, i haven't washed my car in months.  do you need to water your grass?  no.  it's fall, a lot of plants are turning brown.  do you have to take 20 minute showers EVERY day?  no.  come on people, you can't possibly be that dirty.  on a good day, i can shower in 5 minutes; when i have to wash my hair, less than 10 minutes (and that's with the water off while i'm in lathering mode).

and to the army corp of engineers: do we really need to protect mussel species in florida?  no.  for the time being, we do not need to send 3 billion gallons of water from four lakes in georgia to a river in florida, every day.

i could go on and on but the point i'm trying to get across is that we have been wasting water for years and as a community, we should have made changes a long time ago instead of waiting for the government to tell us what to do.  by making a few adjustments in our daily activities, we can save a lot of water and conserve our resources.  if you need help getting started, wateruseitwisely.com has 100 water-saving tips and treehugger.com has pointers on how to green your water.

and even if water is abundant where you live, please, be a responsible consumer and use it wisely.