Whenever

water becomes scarce and there are outdoor watering bans

(and threats of more severe restrictions on water use),

such as now, I'm reminded of a feature columnist I used

to work with, Lois Clendenen.

Lois had

some interesting stories to tell, having been a WAC

during World War II and stationed in postwar Germany.

She had

seen some hard times in her life, and that gave her a

perspective that we who have had it a little easier

sometimes don't appreciate.

Lois didn't

wait for a drought to come along to alert her to conserve

water. When they've done without, conservation becomes a

way of life for some people.

Waste was a

sin in Lois's eyes. She didn't have a good place for a

compost pile in her landscape, so she simply dug holes

among her flowers and bushes and buried whatever

leftovers didn't get eaten. It wasn't because she needed

the fertilizer, but because she couldn't bear the thought

of filling the landfill with perfectly useful compost.

She would

occasionally write columns listing some of the ways to

conserve water. For instance, instead of letting water

run down the drain while waiting for the hot water to

work its way from the water heater to the faucet, she

would catch that warm-up water in a bucket or empty milk

jug and use it to water the plants.

She also

filtered and captured the gray water from her washing

machine and used it for outdoor watering. There were

dozens of other ideas that were habit with her.

I'm not as

frugal as Lois. I let the water run down the drain while

I wait for it to heat up. Having known Lois, I feel

guilty about it, but I let it run.

But we all

may have to take a lesson from Lois one of these days.

In the long

run, a little three-year drought is no big deal. We've

had `em before and we'll have `em again.

But it

seems to my admittedly layman's mind that if we keep

growing like we have been, somewhere along the road

there's going to be a maximum amount of water that we can

take from our rivers and lakes and aquifers.

And that

maximum seems to be shrinking. The folks downstream are

hollering for their share, and state and federal agencies

seem inclined to increase the amount of water we have to

release back into the rivers and streams so they can have

a shot at it farther south.

We can

build some more reservoirs and drill some more deep

wells, but the supply is not unlimited.

More and

more, water experts are getting together and forming

semi-organized coalitions and think tanks, looking for

ways to squeeze a few more drops out of the environment.

I hope

they're also planning for the inevitable - trying to

put their fingers on just how many people we can invite

to the table.

I hope the

long-term planners will use that information to come up

with some build-out projections, and put some policies in

place that will stop the flow of people before the people

stop the flow of water. Otherwise, we'll be taking sponge

baths instead of showers, maybe even saving our brown

water in addition to our gray water.

And I hope

they'll put some serious thought into how we fuel our

economy once the building boom stops.

Here in

Fayette County, we're having to abide by watering

restrictions even though our leaders have done a good job

of planning and we have plenty of water.

It would be

nice if the rest of the region would learn from that and

do a little better planning now, while there's still

time.