By Daisy Lawrence
Faced with one of the most severe droughts in its history, Californians have had to grapple with the effects of water shortage in nearly every area of life.
The students and faculty of Thacher School in Ojai, California are no strangers to this challenge. The school has adopted measures to reduce the school’s water use, including low-flow shower heads and a water recycling program.
Thacher has also taken steps to cut back on the amount of water used to care for one of its most water-needy constituents — the roughly 120 horses it keeps on campus.
I decided to examine water consumption at the barns because, as an avid rider, I became interested in how one of my favorite aspects of Thacher affected our campus’s sustainability posture.
We all know how as humans we can cut down on our personal water consumption, for example by taking shorter showers, but it seemed hard to imagine the possibility of reducing my horse’s water usage. So I was curious how Thacher, with several dozen horses on campus, could pursue sustainability.
In this podcast, learn from Thacher’s director of facilities, Ed Bennett, and director of the school’s Horse Program, Richard Winters, about how Thacher has adapted its trademark program to California’s ongoing drought.
Daisy Lawrence is in her second-to-last year at the Thacher School in California. She is the founder and co-president of Thacher’s Political Alliance and an avid writer for the school newspaper, The Notes. She loves studying History, English and current events.