As of 13/07/2020

-209.22

Lower Red Line

-213.18

Upper Red Line

-208.9

Black Line

-214.4



The Kinneret, Israel's major reservoir of fresh water, is drying up! Many years of below-average rainfall have led the water level to dip to the "black line," beyond which water cannot be pumped without causing severe damage to the entire water supply. Though there are plans in place to build more desalination plants, they will not be operation for several years, so it is incumbent upon us all to conserve water!

The general rule for saving water – never let clean water just run down the drain!

Some easy things you can do to save water:

  1. Fix that Leak! “Little” leaks in a sink or toilet can waste thousands of gallons a month -- if you notice a leak, get it fixed! One way to test for leaks is to check your water meter, wait an hour or two (without using water), and check it again – it shouldn't have moved. If it has, get that leak fixed!

  2. Take “Navy Showers.” This means get yourself and your washcloth wet, and turn the shower off. Soap yourself up, and then quickly rinse yourself. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower, this could save approximately 220 liters/57 gallons per shower, if your usual shower is 10 minutes long. If you shower every day, this comes to 80,000 liters a year!

  3. Flush less often, and use the “half tank” flush. Flushing uses a huge amount of water, none of which can be reclaimed. When I lived in a drought in California, the motto was “If it is yellow, let it mellow, if it is brown, flush it down.” A little gross, but the water savings can be tremendous – some estimates show that 40% of household water use literally gets flushed down the toilets!

  4. Don't let the water run (and save what you can when you must). There are many ways to cut down water that flows down the drain uselessly. The most important thing is to think about how to cut down, but some suggestions are:

    1. Turn the water off when brushing your teeth.

    2. Don't rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Leave them in the sink, and let them get rinsed while people wash their hands.

    3. If you are doing dishes by hand:

      • Wet the sponge, turn off the water, and then rinse all the dishes together, ideally in a tub of water (not running water).

      • Don't run water down the drain uselessly to warm it up -- work on the less-dirty dishes that can be cleaned with the cold water while the water is heating up.

    4. If you have a dishwasher:

      • Run only full loads

      • Minimize rinsing before loading – many new dishwashers don't need it at all. If you do need to rinse, try leaving the dishes in the sink, and letting them get rinsed while using the water for other things (washing hands, vegetables, etc.)

    5. If you need to warm up the water before a shower, capture the cold water in a bucket, and use it for something else – cooking, flushing, watering plants, anything useful that means you aren't wasting the water!

Other ways you can help:

Embed the graph in your web pages (see below for the embed code), and publicize this link!

If you can help me to translate this page into Hebrew, Russian, French, or Arabic, or can offer to spruce this page up a bit aesthetically, please contact me at jsegal@savethekinneret.com.



Some other more comprehensive sources of tips for saving water:



Kinneret level data from http://www.water.gov.il/water/console/kinnert_history.aspx Note that the data from 20/12/2008 to 22/02/2009 is estimated based on surrounding levels

To embed the graph in your own page, insert this into your web page:

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