conserving water - suggestions? [View All]

Hello, I live in one of the communities affected by the floods here in the midwest. While the damage to houses was much less severe than in other places, we are having problems with our water treatment plant. Here is what the city is officially telling citizens:

"Please limit use of any water that “goes down the drain”. For example, this means do not do laundry, do not run the dishwasher, do not run bath water, and take extremely short showers to name a few ways people can cut down on their water usage.

A great deal of strategy and common sense helped the City avoid catastrophe at the initial stages of this flood event due to the efforts of the volunteers. Now it is critical that the entire community assist with this continued effort to prevent further catastrophe. The City’s sewage treatment plant is running at less than full capacity and it is over stressed with the floodwaters. If more lift stages fail, homes in other parts of the City that were not directly affected by the flood will experience sewage back up in their basements."

This is hard for my family, with two teenagers and a preteen, a husband that has to have clean clothes for work, etc. Since the river crested, I have done one load of laundry in my front-loader, gone over with the kids about get wet-shut off water-lather-rinse quickly showering, and the old "if it's yellow ..." rhyme about flushing. I don't have a dishwasher; usually I wash in a dishpan, and rinse in running water, so I know I can rinse in a second dishpan. We've also loaded up on paper plates and cups.

So I would like to pick your brains about other ways to use less water. My guess is this situation will last a week or more. Only four of eleven lift stations are operational now, and repairs, if needed, on the other seven, normally would be done in Cedar Rapids, which, if you've seen the pictures, is looking like an Iowa version of Katrina.

Thanks for any and all help.