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The Griswold family in National Lampoon’s, “Vacation,” maybe the ultimate American icon for that favorite of summer pastimes: Road trips!

But now the EPA  is whistling down the on-ramp and they’ve got the pedal to metal. They’ve replaced Clark Griswold behind the wheel of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster with Flo and a hybrid. Flo is the “spokesgallon” for WaterSense’s new “We’re for Water” campaign. And instead of Wally World, their destination are water-stressed communities across the country.

Why the grand road trip?

Flo will stop at national landmarks and tourist attractions from Los Angeles to New York City, spreading the word about water efficiency along the way—from July 14 until August 2.

The EPA reports that 36 states have projected some degree of water shortages through 2013. With the U.S. population doubling between 1950 and 2005, and water use tripling, the EPA decided to send Flo on a drive-about to educate all of us on the little water-saving tips that can make a big difference. Plus, they’re pushing WaterSense labeled products on their trip.

Go to their site and you can take an “I’m for Water” pledge. You can even friend them on Facebook.

It’s great to see the EPA hit the road with this kind of messaging. The Water – Use It Wisely campaign has been at it for almost 14 years with our now famous, “100+ Ways to Save Water.”

I hope Flo makes it to Phoenix, because our own Wayne Drop could use some company (Although I’m not sure Flo can hold a candle to Christy Brinkley in her Ferrari).

Managing a scarce resource like water is serious business.  But come on, educating on how to use water wisely can and should be fun, especially if you want your message to resonate with kids.

Here are a few examples from the Water – Use It Wisely campaign, and other great programs around the world.  We invite you to play along and share these wonderful online games and activities freely.  And if you know of a fun, interactive way to learn about water, please send us a comment and link to this blog.

“Tip Tank” Water Conservation Concentration Game Can you match the water-saving devices before the water runs out on our happy little gold fish?  Try to beat all three levels.  Highly recommended by Fast Company magazine.

H20house Water Saver Home Tour the California Urban Water Conservation Council’s interactive H20House and see where you can save along the way.

Bert & Phil’s Water Busters Play along as Bert the Salmon helps Phil Dumpster save water in his home in this interactive game brought to you by Seattle Public Utilities.

Project WET’s Water Festival One of the country’s premier water education organizations, Project WET launched its new interactive water festival.  It’s tremendous fun as kids learn about the water cycle and conservation.  It takes the program a bit to load, but while you wait you can try to catch water drops in a bucket.  Frustratingly fun!

The Water Family Game Now let’s go overseas to the United Kingdom, where you get to build your own family and learn how to save water around the home.  This is kind of a goofy, but informative game with simple and colorful clip-art-like animation.

Finally, we’ll go down under to the remarkable Mission H20 game produce by the amazing students at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia.  The storytelling, animation, music, and Aussie wit is found throughout this terrific online conservation game.  You can even win an iPod nano if you “choose to accept the mission.”

Got a game?  Lets us know in the comment section below.

December is typically the time to shop for others.  So, while you’re at it, why not consider a gift for your home and/or for the environment?  Water-efficient devices and appliances give back all year not only in terms of the amount of water saved, but also money saved on your water bill, wastewater bill and often even your energy bill.

With climate change being discussed by the media daily, these gift ideas are perfect to help reduce your carbon footprint.

• Front loading washers may cost a bit more, but they are more water and energy efficient.  The increased capacity means fewer loads of laundry.  Less water is used, so there is less water to heat.  And, the higher speed spin cycle removes more water, easing the dryer’s work load, as well.  A family of four can save 1,000 gallons a month.
• Water efficient dishwashers can also save you both water and energy. If your dishwasher is more than a decade old, newer dishwashers are now using one-third to  one-half less water. Save 1,200 gallons a year with a new water-efficient model.
• Low-flow showerheads provide amazing savings. Cut your water use dramatically by replacing a 4 gallon per minute (gpm) head with a model that uses 2.5 gpm or less and save up to 12 gallons or more for each eight minute shower. Multiply that out for a family of four and you’ll save up to 1,400 gallons of water monthly.
• High efficiency toilets are the latest and greatest water savers you can get for your home. This certainly has an impact – easily saving you up to 1,200 gallons a month. Think about  pairing it up with new flooring for the bathroom, since that’s the best time to replace a toilet.
• Landscape renovations can turn a thirsty landscape to a low water-using Xeriscape and can cut your outdoor water use in half. Since 50-70 percent of household water is commonly used outdoors, the savings can add up to as much as 50,000 gallons a year for an average sized yard.

If you’ve great a an idea for a holiday gift that can save water, please share it with the water world below in the comments section.  For 100+ other ways to save, click here.

The weather outside is far from frightful – in fact, it’s downright delightful.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t create your own “Winter Wonderland” in the Arizona desert.  The winter months provide a perfect opportunity to experiment with container gardening, which can add some amazingly colorful – and even flavorful – variety to your landscape and garden.  Landscaping with containers is also a great option for winter visitors who may be looking for ways to quickly and inexpensively add some Arizona beauty to their patios and entryways.

Many types of low-water use plants lend themselves to container planting, especially cacti and succulents.  There are a number of possibilities that look great during the winter months. For container gardening success, check out the following ideas:

Plant Selection

• Consider cacti, agaves, and a great selection of other succulents such as aloes, which will provide spikes of winter blooms that attract hummingbirds.
• Desert annuals and perennials will provide lots of showy color.  Try early blooming Mexican poppy and penstemons, or long blooming angelita daisy, blackfoot daisy, and moss verbena.  Combine flower types and colors for added visual interest.  Mix and match colors to find the combination that’s most pleasing to you.
• Small, colorful shrubs are good performers. Look for plumbago, bush morning glory, purple hop bush, and dwarf bottlebrush.
• Herbs also do well in containers and provide the benefit of fragrance and for spicing up your cooking. Tough performers include trailing rosemary, lavender, oregano, thyme, and lemon grass. Many will cascade nicely over hanging baskets.
• Don’t hesitate to combine plants together in pots. Just don’t mix cacti and succulents with plants that will need more water.

Choosing the Right Pot

• Plants don’t like to be crowded, so buy the bigger pot, as opposed to the smaller one. Plant roots will stay cooler during warmer months and will also dry out less quickly.
• No matter what pot you choose, allow for drainage.  Arizona’s water is highly
• alkaline and the salts can harm plant roots.  Make sure there are holes in the bottom of the pot; place screens over the holes so you’re draining water, not    soil; and, place pots on pot feet, bricks or iron stands, rather than saucers.
• Clay pots are most popular, but they don’t always hold up well to the moisture.  To preserve them, line the inside with plastic before putting in soil and plants.  Punch a hole through the plastic in the bottom of the pot to allow water to drain. Inserting a plastic pot inside a clay planter is also an option.
• Pots made of light-weight Styrofoam-type materials are great for making it easier to move plants to a protected location on colder nights.  They also allow you to move your plants in and out of the shade as the seasons change.

Maximize Your Soil

• A good quality soil mix is probably the most important ingredient to successful container gardening.  Choose a cactus/succulent mix for those varieties. For everything else use a lightweight packaged potting soil or a blend of 1/3 potting soil, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 pre-moistened peat moss.
• Use a timed-release fertilizer.  Typically, a three- or four-month release fertilizer is sufficient for container gardening.

Water Appropriately

• Container plants have restricted root systems and less soil compared to plants established in the ground, so will typically need more frequent watering than your landscape plants.
• Be sure to water thoroughly each time, then allow the soil to dry moderately in between.
• Keep in mind that weather and plant growth over time will change water needs.

Visit www.wateruseitwisely.com for more tips on plant selection, outdoor water use, and landscaping.  If you have an idea you’d like to share about container gardening, please write us in the comments box below.  We’d love to hear from you.

The web’s function as the world’s electronic card catalog system and its ocean of information is both its blessing and its bane.  So much info, so little time. As the new Water – Use It Wisely website strives to “give voice to water – YOUR voice,” we will cull through and direct you to the online sources we find to be the most helpful in communicating about water conservation.

One such blog is Water Words that Work.  Eric Ekl is an environmentalist and public relations & marketing consultant who has an exceptional track record as an environmental communicator.  Often, environmentalists are so passionate and fanatical about their mission that they lose credibility with their audience because of their overzelous actions and dialogue.  Eckl’s blog is a wonderful resource for powerful words and messaging that resonate with the public.

“Water Words That Work re-orients nature protection and pollution control experts to the vocabulary and perspective of everyday citizens, and helps you translate your shoptalk into messages that are clear and compelling to them.”

He gets a five water drop rating in my RSS library as a continuous source of terrific information on messaging about the environment, especially water.  Check him out.

Let’s face it, none of us in conservation has the marketing budget of Budweiser.  Sure, beer is more fun than water.  But if you had your druthers on a desert island, which would you choose for survival?  Most of us would presumably choose water, unless of course you’re not long for this world and you want to go out like Homer Simpson.

In the “highly romantic,” and mostly underfunded, business of water conservation, we typically get one or two shots at our target markets with our messages.  All while competing in that mass shooting gallery of advertising.  So not only do we have to be great shots, we have to be smart.  That’s where environmental triggers come in.

Brothers Dan & Chip Heath, educators and “idea collectors,” wrote an incredible book on messaging called, “Made to Stick.”  This is an absolute must read for anyone in the business of persuasion – and let’s face it, we’re all in that business in one way or another.  The Heaths are also regular contributors to Fast Company magazine where I came across their article about environmental triggers.

It’s gratifying to note that, several years prior to their book, article and blog, the Water – Use It Wisely campaign was built solely on environmental triggers.  The creative came from an intuitive solution to how to make our message resonate in the every day habits of our water-using customers.  That means everyone.

The whole concept is based around unexpected, but highly effective water-saving devices. Like a toothbrush, for instance. It is a physical prompt that reminds you to turn off the water while you brush your teeth (a razor does the same for shaving). Another example is water-saving device #15, a broom. It begs the question, “How can a broom save me water?”  The answer, of course, is to use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway or sidewalk and save at least 80 gallons every time. We make your broom an environmental trigger; a tangible extension of our message that triggers conscious actions toward saving water every time you use it.

The campaign is all about presenting these “water-saving devices,” each with it’s own number to emphasize the main campaign theme: “There are a number of ways to save water, and they all start with you.” You, of course, being water-saving device #1.

In our on-going effort to give voice to water – YOUR voice, and to make your life easier in finding and activating relevant information on ways to produce effective messaging, we highly recommend the Made to Stick blog.

If you’re using triggers in your messaging, or you have seen a great example of them in another campaign, please share it with the water world by commenting below.

Richard Bach, author of 5 New York Times Bestsellers, just came out with his latest  “get rich quick” book.  In it he explains how to build wealth with a different kind of green.  Go Green, Live Rich is all about 50 simple things you can do to help save the plant, and BTW, a little money along the way.

Tip #17 in his book is to “Turn Off Your Tap,” and features the URL to the 100+ water-saving tips on the Water – Use It Wisely website.  The 49 other tips include:

#1 Calculate Your Carbon Footprint: www.earthlab.com
#4 Upgrade to a Hybrid: fueleconomy.gov
#16 Plant Trees: arborday.org
#22 Bring Your Bags: www.reusablebags.com
#24 Grow Your Own: backyardgardener.com
#31 Get Rid of Junk Mail: www.catalogchoice.org
#38 Green Your Computer: www.greenchoices.org
#44 Start a Green Business: greenlivingideas.com
#50: Vote Green: www.lcv.org

There are a number of ways to save water, AND the planet, and they all start with you.