The Commission for Energy Regulation has just published the cost of water to Irish households, with charging to begin 1st October 2014.

Some key points about the charges:

• Householders will pay €2.44 per thousand litres of water, doubling to €4.88 to cover waste water also.
• Charging for all homes will be capped for nine months and those on boil-water notices for 24 hours will not be charged for water supply.
• Under the CER plan, all customers will have their total water charges capped at the un-metered or assessed charge for nine months
• The assessed charge for water and wastewater for a one adult household is €176 or €278 for two adults, with children deemed to be free.
• Those with water unfit for human consumption – on a boil water notice for just 24 hours – will get a 100% discount on the water supply element of the charge, but will still have to pay for waste water if on a public sewerage system.
• The CER says the average charge will be €238 per annum and it has cut the costs Irish Water can recover between now and the end of 2016 by more than 8% to just over €2bn.

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Think of what you need to survive, really just survive. Food? Water? Air? Facebook? Naturally, I’m going to concentrate on water here. Water is of major importance to all living things; in some organisms, up to 90% of their body weight comes from water. Up to 60% of the human adult body is water.

According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.

Each day humans must consume a certain amount of water to survive. Of course, this varies according to age and gender, and also by where someone lives. Generally, an adult male needs about 3 liters per day while an adult female needs about 2.2 liters per day. Some of this water is gotten in food. Read more

Pink Floyd’s new album, The Endless River, is almost completely instrumental: Lyrics don’t appear until the closing track “Louder Than Words,” a reflection on the group’s 50-year saga written by David Gilmour’s wife Polly Sampson. “Her words really spoke to something about the band,” says Gilmour, “certainly when it came to Rick [Wright] and myself. We speak better with our musical instruments.”

Director Po Powell shot much of the footage for the song’s video near the remains of the Aral Sea on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He got the idea when he saw an image of rusting ships lying in the sand where the river used to flow. “A surreal image if ever I saw one,” says Powell, “and a shocking example of human mismanagement and one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters. . . The river has shrunk to 10 percent of its original size, destroying the fishing industry and whole townships.” Read more

The benefits of drinking warm water infused with lemon has been touted by many as a healthy way to kick-start the day. Beginning the day in this manner has been embraced in Ayurvedic (literally meaning “life” and “knowledge”) philosophy, a way of life that focuses on interconnectedness, balance, and an overall harmony between thoughts, action and feeling that fosters emotional and physical healing.

However, one does not have to subscribe to every detail behind this way of life to reap the benefits; many people simply enjoy knowing that sipping warm lemon water has many health benefits. Read more

Back in December SaveOne.net and Good Morning America featured ABC News’ Dr. Richard Besser travelling through the slums of India, and rural Dhaka, Bangladesh. This was no ordinary international video diary, as it primarily featured children who lacked basic sanitation in their schools.

The purpose of Dr. Besser’s travels to Bangladesh was to have a conversation with school children who had partnered with schools in the U.S through an organization called H20 for Life.

H20 for Life connects schools in America with schools in developing countries to raise money for water needs. The organization also provides teachers with a curriculum for children in the U.S. to learn about the water crisis and what it’s like for over half the schools in the developing world who don’t have access to proper sanitation. Read more