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 15 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.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
