Shower with a friend -- or not at all

"Save water -- shower with a friend" was a 60s or 70s slogan/bumpersticker.

MMSD, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, hasn't gone that far. But it does suggest a quick shower instead of a bath, along with some other water conservation ideas.

It's all in the name of trying to reduce the flow to the sewage treatment plants during the anticipated heavy rainfall of the next two days. Other ideas:

Do the laundry tomorrow if there’s heavy rain today. Always wash full loads.

Take a short shower instead of a bath.

Turn off the water while brushing your teeth or shaving.

Fix leaks. A leaky toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day.

Cut indoor water use by 1/3 or more by installing low-flow faucets, showerheads and toilets

The Journal Sentinel bought into the idea in its top line weather story this morning, in a rare instance of MMSD and the JS working together to try to prevent a problem.

It may all sound a little goofy to the uninitiated who haven't attended one of the Sewer School sessions MMSD offers. But the district is trying to get out in front of the storm.

One of the things the public, and the media, seem to have trouble grasping is that the much-discussed Deep Tunnel System is nothing more than a giant storage pipe, 19 miles long. It holds 405 million gallons.

But when it's full, it's full. That's when overflows -- what the newspaper likes to call "dumping" -- occurs. If the treatment plants are operating at full capacity and the tunnel (and some other smaller storage facilities) is full, there is no where else for the untreated sewage to go -- except to back up into people's basements. That's not a good option, so the district allows some sewage -- usually partially-treated -- to go into Lake Michigan.

MMSD is working to expand its storage capacity during storms, but the capacity will never be enough to prevent all overflows regardless of how much rain falls.

Can water conservation make a difference?

If everyone used 10 gallons less today -- reducing your use by about one-sixth -- there would be room for another 10 millon gallons of sewage in the system. Or 10 million gallons left that ends up in the lake, without being fully treated.

That seems worth the effort. I may give up showers altogether.