Nov. 7, 2007

N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger has challenged Chancellor James Moeser to a contest to see which campus can save the most water in residence halls starting Saturday, November 10th, the day our Tar Heel football team will meet the Wolfpack in Raleigh, and ending February 20th, the day our men's basketball teams will face each other on the court.

At Carolina, we plan periodic readings of water meters that will be posted along with updates on the Sustainability Office Web site (http://sustainability.unc.edu). We're calling on students in our residence halls to be creative and have some fun while stepping up to meet this challenge.

This is a serious issue - the drought in North Carolina and across the Southeast should make everyone rethink how they use water on a daily basis. We must do more to conserve throughout the entire year. To those of you who have already been doing your part, thank you. Now we're asking everyone to cut back even more.

Here are some other tips for conserving water:

1. Turn off water while shampooing, shaving and brushing your teeth.

2. Collect bath/shower water while it heats up and use for watering plants.

3. Do not leave water running while washing dishes.

4. When using laundry facilities in your residence halls, run only full loads to maximum capacity. Consider wearing clothes longer than you normally would to cut down on laundry loads.

5. Use dry clean-up methods whenever possible.

6. Check for plumbing leaks and report them (for residence halls) to Facilities Services Housing Support, 966-2471, or www.fac.unc.edu