Water Conservation Obstacle Course
Group tries course
By Joshua Rivera
The average Californian uses 181 gallons of water a day. With a population of over 30 million, California uses over five billion gallons of water each day. Bakersfield alone uses over 83 million gallons of water a day. This amount of water that California uses has been slowly declining since 1980, but California has still found itself in a severe drought.
California mostly gets its water supply from surface water, but gets a small percentage of water from groundwater. Since California has been in a drought for five years, we have seen the use of groundwater increase exponentially.
Kern County has done a great deal to conserve water by putting restrictions on what Kern County residents can and cannot do when it comes to water. The Kern River has seen improvement because of this, but it’s still not enough.
Taft College decided to start raising awareness on the issue and held a Water Conservation Event on October 19, 2016, to raise awareness to students on campus and the Kern County community.
An obstacle course was set up at the school’s quad where groups of three would try and complete the course without popping a water balloon. Student participants as well as spectators at the event thought this was a fun way to inform students of the need to conserve water while also getting them involved.
Taft College hopes to host more events that raise awareness on the issue of water conservation and hopes that students will spread the word as well.
Group tries course