Raise your hand if you have been sprayed by the sprinklers this year walking to class or back from CShop at night. I have been sprayed by the sprinklers more than once, but my bigger concern is for my new white sneakers. Every time I go to take my trash out, walk to Kavanaugh, go to play frisbee or kick a soccer ball on the quad, and go to a school event to visit the many tables that are scattered across a more than moist quad, my shoes and socks get soaked. Forget about sitting on the grass to do homework or to play games, the sprinklers are on far too often. 

I see the sprinklers running on for hours not only on days where the sun is shining bright, but after a series of rainy days and on dewy nights. Seriously, the drains are working overtime collecting the water that the poor, over-saturated soil can’t even absorb. Could the grass be any greener? The drains also can’t collect the water fast enough on so many occasions. You have got to believe me; I can’t count the amount of times I have seen pools of water over the drain, creating mud and wasting water. Hey, maybe the sidewalk is thirsty?

As much as our white shoes can no longer take the muddy, squishy, wet walks that we must trudge through, the actual concern really is the amount of wasted water.

As us students know all too well, we are forced in Conversatio class to read this very long and boring book– that could have been maybe a ten page article, titled The Big Thirst. The Big Thirst talks about the effects that drought and wasted water has on the water crisis that is all over the world. In hot or dry places like Florida and Toowoomba, Australia, this kind of sprinkler usage would never fly. I remember reading about how water in Toowoomba was so scarce that not only were sprinklers absolutely not allowed, but the entire town was up in arms about whether or not they should recycle their water. They drank recycled water and used it for showering and cooking. Do we even think to utilize recycled water to water our grass? Nope! Even though we live in a very humid, fortunate part of the country where we do not have to feel the effects of drought when it is upon us, Massabesic Lake, the protected lake where Manchester’s protected lake, that provides us with clean drinking water, is very much still prone to drought. Anyone in our current student body who went to high school in Manchester probably remembers when Massabesic lost feet in depth.

Meanwhile, Manchester does actually use our tax dollars to prevent drought by filling bodies of water using their water recycling plan and legislation to preserve water, “The City of Manchester owns and operates a publicly owned treatment works (POTW), including a wastewater treatment facility (WWTF), that serves the City of Manchester and portions of Bedford, Londonderry, and Goffstown, New Hampshire and approximately 155,000 people. The wastewater collection system tributary to the treatment plant has six interceptors totaling over 23 miles in length, 11 pump stations, four inverted siphons, 13 miles of force mains, approximately 385 miles of sewer pipe (of which 45 percent are combined sewers), 15 combined sewer overflow (CSO) outfalls, and over 10,000 manholes.

Pursuant to the City’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, Manchester’s sewer collection system is authorized to convey wastewater to the WWTF for treatment and discharge to the Merrimack River, and, when capacity in the system is reached, to discharge through CSO outfalls into receiving waters including the Merrimack River, Piscataquog River, Ray Brook and Tannery Brook.” So, if the government cares about environmental health, why can’t we? By keeping the sprinklers running, we are wasting energy and resources by filtering the water that ends up in the sewer system. (https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/city-manchester-nh-clean-water-act-settlement-information-sheet)

Something that The Big Thirst talked about was how people take water for granted; we are not aware of the global water crisis because it just doesn’t seem to have an impact on our personal lives: “Perhaps the most unsettling attitude we’ve begun to develop about water is a kind of disdain for the era we’ve just lived through. The very universal access that has been the core of our water philosophy for the last hundred years—that provision of clean, dependable tap water that created the golden age of water—that very principle has turned on its head. The brilliant invisibility of our water system has become its most significant vulnerability. That invisibility makes it difficult for people to understand the effort and money required to sustain a system that has been in place for decades, but has in fact been quietly corroding from decades of neglect. Why should I pay higher taxes just to replace some old water pipes? I’ll just drink bottled water if I don’t like what comes out of the tap. It is almost as if tap water is regarded not with respect and appreciation but with a hint of condescension, even contempt” (Fishman, 2011, p. 24).

Can we give the sprinklers a break? Should we not be trying to help the environment by reducing water pollution, conserving water resources, reducing energy use, and lowering the water bills on campus?