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WATER FACTS
DID YOU KNOW?
 Water is the most common substance found on
earth.
In a 100-year period, a water molecule spends 98 years
in the ocean, 20 months as ice, about 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, and less than a week in
atmosphere.
Each day the sun evaporates 1,000,000,000,000 (a
trillion) tons of water. Once evaporated, a water molecule spends ten days in
the air.
Forty trillion gallons
of water a day are carried in the atmosphere across the United States.
Water is the only substance on earth naturally found in
the three true element forms: solid, liquid, and gas.
Eighty percent of the earth's surface is water.
Ninety-seven percent of the earth's water is
saltwater in oceans and seas. Of the 3% that is freshwater, only 1% is available
for drinking - the remaining 2% is frozen in the polar ice caps.
Sixty-six percent of your body is water.
Bones are 25% water.
Human blood is 83% water.
Watermelon is 93% water.
People
need about 2.5 quarts of water a day (from drinking or eating) to maintain good
health. A person can survive without food for more than 30 days,
but less than a week without water.
The people in the U.S. use as much as 700,000,000,000
(700 billion) gallons of water each day.
Heating water is the second largest energy user in the
home.
In a glass of water, there are about
8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (8 septillion) water molecules.
A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds.
For every 2.31 feet that water is raised above the
earth's surface, it can create one pound per square inch of pressure.
For every 2.31 feet you are submerged below a body of
water's surface, there is 1 pound per square inch of pressure equally placed on your body.
The first water pipes made in the U.S. were
fire-charred, bored out logs.
There are over 1 million miles of water pipelines and
aqueducts in the U.S. and Canada - enough to circle the globe 40 times.
About 60,000 public water systems across the
US process 34 billion gallons of water per day for home and commercial use.
Eighty-five percent of the population is served by these facilities. The
remaining 15 percent rely on 13 million private water systems.
It
can take up to 45 minutes for a water supplier to produce one glass of
water.
The average household uses 107,000 gallons of water per
year.
It takes 1,851 gallons of water to refine one barrel of
crude oil.
It takes 1,500 gallons of water to process one barrel of
beer.
It takes about 1,000 gallons of water to grow
the wheat to make a two pound loaf of bread, and 120 gallons of water to produce one egg.
Approximately 48,000 gallons of water are needed to grow and prepare the food for a typical Thanksgiving
dinner for eight.
About 4,000 gallons of
water are needed to grow one bushel of corn, 11,000 gallons to grow one bushel
of wheat, and about 135,000 gallons to grow one ton of alfalfa.
It takes 39,000 gallons of water to produce
the average domestic auto, including tires.
A single birch tree will give off 70 gallons of water
per day in evaporation.
About 1,400 gallons of
water are used to produce a meal of a quarter-pound hamburger, an order of fries
and a soft drink.
An acre of corn will give off 4,000 gallons of water per
day in evaporation.
A
typical garden hose can deliver 50 gallons of water in just five minutes.
In some deserts, rain is so uncommon that the natives do
not have a word for it.
"Water" was the first word that Helen Keller
learned. "Water" was the last word spoken by President Ulysses S. Grant.
The koala bear and the desert rat do not drink water.
Running the tap, waiting for water to get hot or cold,
can waste 5 gallons per minute.
A hot water faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute can
waste 192 gallons of water and 48 kilowatt hours of electricity per month.
Showers use nine gallons of water per minute. A bath
requires 30 to 50 gallons.
Source: United States EPA - Office of Water
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