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Score! I'm a water winner
I haven't won the lottery. Hell, I rarely ever win a raffle.
But, thanks to a friend at Marquette University, I found h2oscore.com, a site that allows homeowners to see how much water they consume and how the usage compares to similar households.
The site uses water utility data that is available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act.
As you can see from the image, ours is a top-tier Milwaukee household in terms of water usage. A mere 4% use less water than we do. Once I get the kids to learn not to flush an empty toilet and to take fewer than 15Â minutes to wash their hands, we should shoot up even higher in the rankings.
According to Andy Brodzeller at Marquette, the site is the result of a class project.
"The site was started as a student project during an environmental politics class taught by (poli sci prof) McGee Young last spring. A requirement of the class was to develop a solution to a water challenge, which spawned the website."
The site currently tracks water usage data from seven Wisconsin cities – Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, Madison, Green Bay, Whitefish Bay, Grafton and Whitewater – and nine northern Chicago 'burbs.
The team is hoping to add St. Paul and St. Louis Park, Minn., and Fort Worth and Houston any day now.
"There typically is a fee to obtain the records from the utilities, but some cities like Whitewater, have agreed to provide the data to the site for free," says Brodzeller.
"New electronic water meters in Whitewater actually allow the site to provide real-time data. They are still working on a sustainable business model for the site and are looking at developing apps to charge people for."
Now pardon me, I hear a faucet dripping. Gotta run.
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