Water, Water Everywhere but not a drop to drink!

WAIS Divide, Antarctica, Jan. 10, 2010 — I have had many people ask me how we get our water and whether or not we can take showers and do laundry. So I thought it was time to talk a bit about this subject.

We get all of our water at WAIS Divide by melting snow. There are two melters: one in the kitchen to provide water for cooking and cleaning dishes, and one in the wash module (at the back of the rec tent) that provides water for general washing up as well as for showers and for laundry. Everyone is responsible for helping to keep the melters full of snow. One simply shovels snow into a 45-gallon barrel, dumps it into the melter and pumps excess melted water from the melter into a holding tank.

The melter, holding tank, and the 45 gallon barrel in the wash module at the
back of the rec tent. When full, water is pumped from the melter into the
holding tank. This water is used for general washing up, showers,
and doing laundry.

The snow melter in the galley tent. This water is used primarily for
cooking and cleaning dishes.

Because it takes precious fuel to melt snow, we are limited to only one 2-minute shower once a week! To take advantage of this shower, one must first shovel snow to fill one 45-gallon barrel and add it to the melter so that water is ready for the next person. I tried to shovel my snow after a shower once and within minutes, my wet hair had completely frozen. We are actually lucky to have showers at all. Many field sites do not have showering facilities and individuals at these sites will often go 2 or 3 months without a shower!

There are two showers in the wash module, each with a small changing area.
Each person is limited to one 2-minute shower a week. To take advantage of
this, one must first shovel one 45 gallon barrel of snow to be added
to the melted.

We are lucky enough to have both a washer and a dryer, but are limited to one load of laundry every two weeks. For this one load of laundry, one must fill three 45-gallon barrels with snow and add these to the melter.

While there is plenty of snow to provide us with water, the fuel needed to melt the snow is expensive and must be brought in via LC-130 cargo planes from McMurdo. Because of this, everyone does what they can to conserve water. For example, the water we use to fill our hot water bottles at night, is dumped into pots the following morning. These pots, filled with water, sit on top of Preway heaters (the heaters used to keep our Jamesway tents warm) and slowly heat up during the day. At night the same water, now hot again, is reused to fill our water bottles (only for heating sleeping bags though, not for drinking!). Our efforts at conserving water have resulted in an average use of only 5 gallons of water per person per day. This includes all uses of water such as drinking water, water for cooking, cleaning, etc. The average person in regular society is estimated to use 90 gallons of water per day!

The melter, holding tank, and the 45-gallon barrel in the wash module
at the back of the rec tent. When full, water is pumped from the
melter into the holding tank. This water is used for general washing up,
showers, and doing laundry.

Today we celebrated the third annual WAIS Divide “Summer” Olympics. The Olympics this year consisted of Antarctic gear twister (particularly humorous with the large heavy boots and puffy big red parkas), frisbee, beach ball and mini golf with moving obstacles!

Antarctic gear twister! This was particularly hard to do in those big blue
boots and puffy red parkas!