It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Visit a Sustainability Fair}

A local branch of Fiserv, a national financial services company, held their first ever Green Day Sustainability Fair for their employees. Frannie and her friends at the Groundwater Foundation were invited to share their knowledge about our groundwater resources. Frannie met many people from local organizations that are doing good work to grow our food, save electricity, and recycle or repurpose old materials! 

Frannie shared an activity called "How Wet is Our Planet". Did you know that 70% of the Earth is made up of water?
Well, imagine all of that water could fit inside a 5-gallon bucket. Now, take a little over 1 1/2 cups, 25 tablespoons, out of the big bucket and put it into a smaller container. That represents all of the freshwater in the world.
But we don't always have easy access to freshwater. Sometimes, the water is stored inside plants or glaciers or ice caps or clouds. Have you ever tried to drink a cloud? It's pretty hard!
If we take a 1/2 cup or 8 tablespoons out of the freshwater jar, that's about how much clean, fresh groundwater is available for humans to use.
If we take a little eye dropper and place 25 drops from the groundwater cup into the rivers, streams, and lakes cup, then that's how much fresh surface water in the world that humans can use.

Isn't it wonderful and weird to know that ALL of the water we use is just a fraction of the total amount of water on Earth? If we keep it clean now, we will be able to keep using it way into the future.

Have you attended a festival recently? Share your favorite activity with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! See you next time!

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {World Water Day 2018}

World Water Day is celebrated annually on March 22nd.  Water is essential to life and our society.  It quenches our thirst, grows our food, and even provides social and economic opportunities.

According to the United Nations, there are over 662 million people in the world today who live with little to no access to clean, safe water. By 2050, it’s predicted that 1 in 5 developing nations will face water shortage.  That’s why it’s so important to take this day to learn about water in the world. The theme of this year’s World Water Day is “Nature for Water”, specifically how we can use nature to address 21st century water challenges.

Environmental damage and strain on ecosystems can make water quality and quantity problems worse.  Nature-based treatment techniques have the potential to provide long-term, sustainable solutions to water quality and quantity problems while also reducing the environment’s strain or damage.

Frannie talked with her family and friends about why it is important to talk about freshwater and nature - because we all are a part of the water cycle!  Freshwater is the water we use to grow our food, that both humans and wild animals drink, that runs in the rivers and rains, and the list goes on and on.  Most of the world's usable freshwater is stored under our feet as groundwater:

Check out The Groundwater Foundation and Frannie's previous posts for fun ideas of ways you can protect and conserve groundwater!

World Water Day emphasizes the importance of water to us all.  Water is one shared resource.  We must all do our part to ensure the world's freshwater is taken care, used wisely, and is available to all of us!  Share how you will help protect water resources and be sure to tell your family and friends about protecting and conserving water every day!

It’s Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Food Waste Part 2: Save and Reuse}

This is the second part of Frannie’s dive into reducing food waste at home.  To read the first part, click here.

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Do you like to cook? Frannie does!

There are ways to reduce food waste and save water even when you’re preparing food and cooking food.

To make sure our food is clean, we should wash our fruits and vegetables even if they come in a bag.  Before turning on the tap, put a bowl in sink to catch the dirty water.  When you are done washing your food, you can use the water on your houseplants or garden instead of letting it run down the sink.  You can also do this with the water you have used to boil fruits, vegetables, and eggs after, of course, you let it cool.

As pointed out last week, you can easily use vegetable peelings to start your own compost pile, but did you know you can also some vegetable food waste to make soup?  Save your carrot and celery ends and freeze them for up to six months and boil them in water to make a delicious vegetable broth.  You can also do this with vegetables that are beginning to get old by simply cutting away any bad parts and chopping them into large chunks.

Want a meat broth instead? Save bones and scraps leftover from your pork chops or chicken and add them to boiling water or the veggie broth.

When your bread goes stale, you can break it into pieces and make homemade croutons or breadcrumbs using recipes like this one.  If you want to try something a bit different, try these cornbread croutons!

Even cheese can be reused.  After cutting away the Parmesan rind, turn it into a nice cheesy broth for a Wisconsin Cheese soup or a creamy pasta sauce for your next Italian night.

Share with us some of your ways to reduce food and water waste while cooking on our Facebook, Twitter, or E-mail.  Bon appetite!

It's Water-Wise Wednesdays with Frannie the Fish! {Mulch}

Evaporation happens when water is heated enough to turn into a gas and expand into the atmosphere.  When Frannie is gardening, she wants to make sure that her plants get enough water but that it’s not wasted by evaporating in the hot summer sun.

In the past, she learned the best times of the day to water are dawn and dusk when it isn’t so hot.  But there’s another common and inexpensive option that she’d like to share with you: Mulch.

Mulch is a material that you use to cover the soil around your plants. Many people use it in landscaping because it comes in a variety of colors and textures, but it also does several important things to help keep your plants healthy and strong.

1. Evaporation Prevention. This is one of the most important purposes mulch serves in this hot weather. Mulch absorbs the heat from the sun and prevents it from reaching the soil that the plant is growing in. Because the soil is cooler, it is able to take in and retain more moisture than it would were it exposed.
2. Weed Prevention. No one likes weeds.  They take up all the water and good nutrients in the soil that we want for our own flowers and food.  Mulch, by stopping the sunlight from reaching the ground, starves out weeds and they are unable to grow in that area. It also stops any new seeds from landing in your garden.
3. Soil Improvement. Ok, so we know that the soil in our garden is cooler with more moisture and fewer weeds, but it also builds up the soil.  All types of mulch prevent the wind from eroding the soil but organic or natural mulch can go one step further by enhancing the soil with nutrients as they decompose.  An area mulched with pine needles, for example, becomes acidic as the mulch decomposes and becomes suited for acid-loving plants like azaleas. 
   

Try using mulch this summer and let us know how it goes on our Facebook, Twitter, or send us an email. Happy Gardening!

BLOG: It's The Right Thing To Do

by Tammy Rogers, Sustainability Task Force Chair, Assurity

The Assurity Center in Lincoln, Nebraska displays its
Groundwater Guardian Green Site sign.

“It’s the right thing to do.” This is the long-time mantra of our president, Tom Henning, when it comes to business and sustainability. Following that mantra has led to a "green culture" at Assurity, not only in practicing green habits throughout our building, but also in the way we do business.

Assurity has been practicing sustainability in some form or another for almost 30 years. The building of our LEED Gold certified Assurity Center corporate office has given us many more opportunities to expand upon that culture. Additionally, becoming a certified B corporation in 2015 was another way to show our commitment to "doing good." 

We are firm in our belief that it is our responsibility to protect the environment and leave a small footprint.  One of the areas in which we have done that is groundwater conservation and protection.

Our efforts towards that end have earned us a Groundwater Guardian Green Site designation that we are proud to hold. There are many features of our corporate campus that qualified us for that honor:

Stormwater collection
During the building of the Assurity Center, an abandoned public storm water pipe was discovered running along the east and northern edges of the property.  This pipe was capped and is now an 180,000 gallon cistern that we use to reclaim and reuse storm water to irrigate our indigenous sustainable landscaping.

Our campus includes a rain garden, bioswales and pervious paving which reduce runoff and allow absorption of rainwater into the subsoil. 

The reuse of large quantities of storm water runoff reduces heat island effects as well as impacts to downstream receiving waters.

Stormwater management for the Assurity Center.

Landscape water use reduction
In addition to the reclaimed cistern, water for the campus landscape is pulled from wells in the area instead of using public water for irrigation.  Additionally, plants were selected that are native or specifically adaptive to Lincoln’s climatic conditions, reducing reliance on additional water use while creating habitat within the city.

Green (living) roofs
We have 3 green roofs totaling 8,000 square feet.  These roofs benefit stormwater quality and reduce the quantity of runoff.

Low-flow, water-conserving plumbing
We receive up to a 33% water use savings over the typical office building by using dual-flush toilets and low-flow faucets and showers.

Energy recovery ventilators
In addition to reducing energy costs, these units also employ dehumidification as a part of the process, conserving water as well.

Education
Building a sustainable culture began with Assurity’s top company leaders and has continued to grow with educational lunch ‘n learns, displays and an internal ‘Greenspace’ website that communicates related community events, activities and volunteer opportunities.  Our education efforts are led by our Sustainability Task Force.

The desire to do good for the environment will continue to be at the forefront of Assurity's business. It’s the right thing to do.


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Tammy Rogers is the Chair of the Sustainability Task Force and a Senior Business Analyst at Assurity Life Insurance Company in Lincoln, Nebraska. Reach her at trogers@assurity.com.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the view of The Groundwater Foundation, its board of directors, or individual members.