With this summer being one of the hottest on record, not to mention 2012 being labeled as a drought year, we are already out of water. Gone.

Pineview Water Systems has asked residents to drastically reduce their water use by at least 50 percent for the rest of the year. But why now? Now farmers and residents in the affected area (statewide) have to employ alternative methods of watering their crops. The watering season extends into October.

The water company should have warned these residents sooner in the year and reduced their water usage all summer, not now, when it’s almost too late. Pineview Water Systems should have better monitored the water records and stopped the abuse before it began.

Water conservation needs to become part of daily conversation everywhere, not just on city hall steps or in small coffee shops. The drought, especially this summer, has become a water crisis. We need to all do our part to conserve water.

Many of us have been silent witnesses to sidewalks and roads being watered by a malfunctioning sprinkler system. Even worse than that mistake: watching our neighbors and fellow community members using water to clean off their driveways and sidewalks. This blatant abuse and misuse of everyone’s water is a disgrace.

The lack of water across the western states has made headlines worldwide. But the real threat isn’t just the drought; it’s the dry conditions that come with it. The dead, dry vegetation make the perfect fuel for fires caused by nature and man.

In Ogden, 11 suspicious fires have sprung up in nearly two weeks alone. A serial arsonist could be to blame, according to police. What’s going to happen when we have no water to douse these serial fires? What about the wildfires that run rampant across the mountains so close to our homes and Weber State University itself?

Our safety is a perfectly valid reason to conserve water, if no others suffice. While we used water to wash our car on a rainy day, we could have used it to put out these serial fires, water our crops or clean our food.

So please, for everyone’s sake, let’s “save water and shower together,” or, for those who don’t have shower buddies, take any action we can to conserve our dwindling water supply.