Hold Your Water!: 68 Things You Need to Know to Keep Our Planet Blue

(From the Lakeland Ledger newspaper, Lakeland, FL) Book Tells of Everyday Impacts on the World's Water Supplies By Tom Palmer Oct. 24, 2006 If you're concerned about water, but don't want to do a lot of heavy reading, there's a recently published book that could fit your needs. It is "Hold Your Water! 68 Things You Need to Know to Keep Our Planet Blue" by Environmental Artist Wyland and Steve Creech (Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, Mo., $9.95 185 pages ISBN 040756826). This book is a collection of short narratives. The topics of the narratives include simple explanations of the world's water supply (hint: most of it isn't fresh and drinkable), the impacts of everyday activities -- getting your oil changed, fertilizing your lawn, taking a shower -- on the water cycle (one of the new terms you'll learn) and other useful bits of water trivia. Let me share a few that come right out of recent headlines. * In an area with a 100,000 population such as Lakeland, the canine population produces 2.5 tons of animal waste every day. An estimated 40 percent of the pet owners don't clean up after their pets, which means the waste has a good chance of ending up in a local lake. * If you want to stay cool and hydrated during the hot weather, use a reusable water bottle rather than the throwaway plastic bottle. Even after a plastic bottle breaks down enough to seem invisible, the petrochemicals (you did know plastic was made from oil, didn't you?) that make up the plastic remain in the environment and pollute it. * With the high cost of prescription and nonprescription drugs these days, throwing them away seems like a waste of money. However, it you must get rid of your meds, don't flush them down the toilet. Pharmaceuticals are showing up in increasingly high concentrations in water bodies and appear to be affecting fish and other aquatic life in unhealthy ways. The last item emphasizes the fact that this book not only speaks about water in terms of its usefulness to people, but also recognizes that water is the main habitat for many of the earth's plants and animals. That's a point that sometimes would otherwise be overlooked in water planning and is certainly one of the limiting factors in the plans to siphon water from rivers and lakes to feed the demands of new development.

If you have ever felt like you are in over your head when it comes to environmental issues, "Hold Your Water" is a book you must read. It gives you the information you need to know about clean water (and the environment in general) - and is actually fun and entertaining. Plus it provides easy tips for you to make a difference, for your local water resources and those across the world.

So I'm at work, waiting for my scanner to do its thing, and I picked up "Hold Your Water" and started to read the introduction. As soon as I got to the sentence about Ralph filling his water balloons and taking retribution on his sister, I knew that eventually, I would read every word. Wasn't really planning on doing that. This book is not preachy at all. The writing is fun and fresh, and of course, the ideas are things we all should be doing.

What can you do about the environment and clean water? Lots of things! Did you know that helping improve the environment can be as easy as... * Changing your dinner order at a restaurant. * Fixing a leaky faucet. * Putting off your laundry for one more day. This book is serious, but surprisingly upbeat. The storytelling helps to simplify complicated environmental issues. The facts, checklists and simple math make it easy to see how each of us can make a difference. By changing little everday habits, I will save 360,125 gallons of water this year! Wow...I feel better already.

I had the fortune of being able to meet the author and his new book, Hold Your Water, was easy to read with fascinating, yet simple tips for all of us to implement in preserving our natural resources. Great information definitely worth buying and sharing with our future generation.