Once again, Bermuda is facing drought conditions and water shortages.

These are so serious that the Government is restricting supplies of water from the Government pumps that draw from the Island's main underground fresh water lenses.

While it is true that there has been virtually no rain so far this month and July rainfall was just 1.27 inches (the fourth driest July on record), this dry spell followed a very wet June and above average rainfall through the first five months of the year.

That suggests that the lenses - and tanks - should have been reasonably full and able to reasonably handle six weeks without rain. Certainly, there some tanks would have emptied, but the Island should not find itself in such crisis conditions.

That we have is largely due to carelessness about water conservation.

Bermuda residents were much more careful about water use than they were before the discovery of the fresh water lenses beneath the Island and the introduction of desalination and reverse osmosis systems.

Bermuda last suffered from a serious drought in 1999, at which time the Works Minister Alex Scott noted that water usage exceeded by 44 percent the amount of water used during the previous major drought in 1989.

But in the last few months in 2003, the lens has been drained at twice the rate it usually is.

Mr. Scott said then: "We should all be doing whatever we can to conserve what we have now. Because even if we do get heavy rain in the next two weeks, we will still need to conserve for the future."

This is right. Production of water from desalination remains relatively limited and great care must be taken not to drain the fresh water lenses to the point that they are irreparably damaged.

That would be too high a price to pay for the luxuries and mod cons that many Bermudians enjoy.

The increase in the number of swimming pools, increased flushing, longer showers and more frequent use of laundry in private homes are all contributing to the spectacular increase in water use. We run a dangerous risk of acting as if nothing is seriously wrong and damaging the Island's future resources as a result.

Water conservation measures should be well known. Some people carry these measures out already from sheer habit. Most people have either forgotten them or never knew them:

Use a basin for washing dishes and vegetables rather than just running water;

Keep a bottle of drinking water in a refrigerator rather than running a tap;

Wash laundry when there is a full load and take a quick shower and turning off water while soaping and shampooing;

Turn off the tap when brushing one's teeth;

Place a brick inside the toilet cistern or adjust the float to a lower level to reduce the quantity of water used to flush; flush only when necessary;

Use a bucket rather than a hose to wash cars; and

Recycle waste water for flushing or watering plants.

This is all good advice. If it was practised year-round, it would conserve the water lenses. And it that isn't reason enough, it would save people money and avoid the aggravation of running out of water too.