Ground water: Why and How We Use and Protect It

1. Ground water: Why and How We Use and Protect It Classroom Presentation – Middle School

2. What Is Ground Water?

3. Earth’s Fresh Water

4. Distribution of Earth’s Water

5. All Water On Earth Unusable 99% Rivers 0.02 % Groundwater 99% Lakes 0.86 %

6. Ground water is an important part of our lives every day • The average person uses 50 to 120 gallons of water every day, for drinking, bathing, cooking, washing clothes • If you live in a home that uses its own well, you are also using ground water • In Louisiana, there are 11 principle freshwater aquifers of which hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day are withdrawn from each

7. Using Water In Louisiana • In Louisiana, we use 1.6 billion gallons of ground water every day • About 770 million gallons a day of that goes to home wells and public water supply • Ground Water Aquifers are permeable, saturated zones or rock or sand that contain water • For example, the Lafayette area draws ground water from the Chicot Aquifer • The Chicot and Mississippi River Alluvial aquifers account for about 80 percent of ground water use in Louisiana, more than 1 billion gallons a day

8. Our Concerns About Ground Water • Conservation • Contamination

9. Conservation • We do not want to take water from an aquifer at such a rate that we exceed its ability to “recharge” • “Recharge” is the term used in describing how an aquifer soaks in more water to replace what is leaving due to wells or the natural water cycle • If that balance is lost, the “water table” falls

10. What you can do conserve water • Turn water off while you are brushing your teeth • Don’t run the water constantly when washing dishes • Or, if you have a dishwasher, only run it when full • Take less time in the shower • If you see a leaking faucet, let someone know to get it fixed • Remember that your toilet is not a trash can, don’t use it to flush what can be thrown away

11. Contamination • Household cleaners can contribute to ground water contamination • Chemicals you use outside can contribute to ground water contamination • Litter can contribute to ground water contamination • Spills of oil or gasoline outside can contribute to ground water contamination

12. What You Can Do To Protect Against Contamination • Don’t litter, and pick up litter when you see it • Reuse and recycle when you can • Don’t pour household chemicals down drains or onto ground • When working outside, try to minimize the use of chemicals on lawns • If handling chemicals outside, be careful not to spill onto ground

13. Worldwide Concern, Not Just Louisiana • 1.5 billion people in world depend on ground water for drinking water • Of all the water in the world humans can drink, 98 percent is stored in aquifers as ground water.

14. Protect Our Natural Resources