Abstract
This
paper was about Lubbock water. We were a group in the class, ESL5301 Advanced
Writing, and this paper was our final assignment. In the introduction,
background knowledge, literature review and how people thought in general were
provided. Furthermore, we had done 150 surveys,
and translated the outcomes into charts to make the datum digest easier.
According to those charts, we found some interesting points that we could
discuss. They were the most challengeable and interesting part in the paper.
The paper would give deeper aspects in Lubbock water after you read them.
Introduction
In
the middle of America, the climate is known as dry and hot most of the time. Of
course, Texas is also the same. If some regions have little rain, areas must
have water shortage unless they contain underground water. Due to this kind of
climate, the water resource is more precious, and people should truly care about water. Hence, I was going to talk about the
water in Lubbock. We would not only generally speak of the situation of water in Lubbock but also make hypotheses and study about how the public
thinks in the end.
According
to the news and resources that we had, the water situation in Lubbock did not look optimistic. We had three sources of
water in 2011, but there had become only one in 2012.
Therefore, the ex-mayor of Lubbock came out
and announced to the public about limiting and saving water (Reed, 2012). However, the government had found a new water resource, Lake Alan Henry, which we could use in the future, and it
could
supply us for 8 years (Reed, 2012). Although the government said that, we had run Lake Meredith
dry. That was very scary, because if we
did not
try to reduce the usage of water, we would face the same problem
again and again. Nonetheless, the Mayor of Lubbock said that he would try to find another water
source in order to make the civilians less anxious. On the other hand, the water
problem might result from the fracking and farming, because these kinds of
industries needed plenty of water, and we knew another fact, which was that land owners could drill water or oil as
long as they were doing it on their own land. Those situations were
how the water
problem happened and how it had been caused, and I was going to talk about how
people feel and their perspective.
I found an
article talking about shale and fracking, and it said they were not the main reason why
Texas had water shortages (Blackmon, 2013). Moreover, the water crisis might be caused by agriculture, and I thought that it could represent some part of the population. Sometimes, people were not correct, but
according to the article, we could understand some people’s thinking.
If you said that agriculture was the main culprit of the water shortage, I believed most people would agree with that kind of
statement.
After we
knew
some people’s perspective, we could make a guess. Because we were not fortune tellers, we
had to make
hypotheses. The first hypothesis was
that I thought most people would not know what fracking was, because even Microsoft
office Word did not know the word. Therefore, how could we expect people to
know the word that the most powerful documental software did not know? The second one regarded Lubbock water supply. I supposed the residents
living here would not know where the water supply came from. We could try to
imagine a condition which was you were a resident here. What do you did every
day? You would not associate the water supply issue if there was no water
shortage or problem that happened here, because people would take water for
granted. When people turned on the tap, water would automatically come out. It did
not matter how long people had been living here. The third one deals with which of the people took more water
than they should. I think it might be the oil drillers because their career
type was more like business men. They were an enterprise or a company, and the stereotype
of them was greedy and only caring about the profits, so it would affect what
people thought about oil drillers in the survey. That was just my hypothesis
which did not mean all oil drillers were greedy or profits focusing.
Methods
We
were a group in the class, ESL5301 Advanced Writing. There were four teachers
and 13 of students in our class. The class was 9:30 to 11:00 on Tuesday and
Thursday. In addition, we had an assignment which was a survey about how people
thought about Lubbock water.
The survey
included 12 questions. Some of them were multiple selections, and some of them
were yes/no questions. At the beginning of the survey, we recorded their
personal information, such as where they were from, student or non-student, and
male or female. After that, we asked what climate issues were important for
them, whether they knew what fracking was, whether they believed fracking
endangered the public water supply, how knowledgeable they were about where
Lubbock got its water supply, whether they knew where Lubbock was getting its
water for public use now, etc. Most questions were asking about the information
around Lubbock water, and it was kind of testing how knowledgeable they were
about Lubbock water supply.
Despite
these questions, the teacher required us that we had to get eight surveys and
find at least five Americans, four male, and four female. It was fine to find
eight residents or eight students. We didn’t limit this population. Where the
Americans were from was not a big issue. Where you found the
people was also not a big issue. People might think that
our survey was not scientific, but the results only provided us in a class
discussion. According to the
survey, we could have a general idea of people’s perception of Lubbock water.
In my survey, I asked three females; one
of them was an American. She was very knowledgeable about the topic; the rest
of them seemed like it was the first time they thought about or contacted these
questions. Moreover, I asked five males; one of them was an international
student. He knew a little bit about Lubbock water, but the rest of the male
Americans were more knowledgeable than him. In addition, all of my surveys were
done by TTU students, so there was no data about residents. Actually, TTU was a
huge community, and it included 32,611 students in 2012 (Cook, 2012).
Therefore, the whole university was like a small size Lubbock. To sum up, among
my respondents, Americans were more familiar with Lubbock water than
internationals.
Results
According
to the results of the surveys, we had found that people who were surveyed were
not ignorant.
Actually, they were more knowledgeable than I had expected. In the first
question the items which they were worried about the most were air and water
pollution (the results were close, so I mentioned both into the most). Most
people knew what fracking was, but they didn’t know if fracking endangered the
public water supply. In the fourth question, people were humble because only a
few people checked “very knowledgeable.” More than half the people knew
where Lubbock got public water; however, almost half the people knew what Lake
Meredith was. More than half the people believed in water restrictions for the
city of Lubbock. Half the people had confidence that Lubbock water restrictions
were effective. Only some people believed in water restrictions for farmers in
the area. Most the people were trying to save water generally. Farmers and oil
drillers were the major answer that the people had chosen in question eleven.
Less than half the people were confident about Lubbock water. They were
generally more knowledgeable than me. I think that was because the Americans
have been living in America for several years, and Americans are supposed to be
more knowledgeable than the international population.
Therefore we may assume that Americans are
more knowledgeable than the international population based on the first
paragraph. Here are some facts that showed Texans were more knowledgeable than
the other population. We had 96 (64%) people who knew about fracking, and in
the knowing group 59% were from Texas, 25% from other states and 16% from
international population (chart #5). The other fact that appeared was that only
44% people knew Lake Meredith. In the group of that people who knew Lake
Meredith, 59% were from Texas, 26% from other states and 15% from the
international population.
Moreover,
I had made three hypotheses about the survey. The first hypothesis was that I
thought most people would not know what fracking was, but surprisingly I was
wrong. The second one, I supposed the people who are from Texas would not know
where the water supply came from, and less than half people knew where the
water came from. According to the data, there were 75 people who were from Texas
and only 21 (28%) people who were checking knowledgeable. Almost half of Texans
(37 people, 49%) were checking somewhat. Hence, we could see that Texans were
not familiar with the water supply. The third one dealt with which of the
people took more water than they should. I was right in the last hypothesis
which is “which of the people took more water that they should,” and I said it
might be the oil drillers. We could look up the outcome that 23 (31%) people chose
farmer, 30 (40%) people chose oil drillers, and 30 (40%) people choose people
who water their lawns (Texans). This result only accounted on Texans, so it
appeared that Texans had the same idea with me that oil drillers took too much water.
Discussion
According
to those charts, I found some interesting points that we could discuss. In the
first question, check the issues that you feel are the most important, I
started to distribute these nine issues into two parts, global and local
issues. Air and water pollution were the highest (chart #7), and the following
items were Fresh water supply, Drought and Global warming. The top five were
all over 80 notes; however, the remaining four items were all below 50 notes.
In those top five, which meant people were concerned the most, three items were
global issues, and two items were local issues. Nonetheless, if you looked at
the top two items, you could have seen they were both global issues. In my
opinion, this situation was as if New Yorkers saw the news of Katrina
hurricane, they might not give compassion. However, if the hurricane was Sandy,
it would have been a totally different reaction.
Another
interesting thing was that there was a fun fact when I compared chart #5 and
#9. In chart #5 the people who knew what fracking was had 59% people from
Texas, 25% people from other states and 16% people from international group. In
chart #9 the people who believed fracking endangered the public water supply
had the similar percentage with the people who knew what fracking was. The
people who checked “yes” in question three had 58% from Texas, 23% people from
other states and 19% people from the international population. According to
this fact, we could not assume anything, but when we looked at another fact,
there were 96 (64%) people knowing what fracking was. Only 30 (31%) people said
that fracking didn’t endanger the public water supply, so we could truly
understand what people thought about fracking.
The other
interesting thing would be in chart #17, #18 and #19. Those charts listed how
knowledgeable people were about where Lubbock got its water supply and their
feeling about Lubbock’s ability to get water in the future. I only compared the
knowledgeable part because if people were not knowledgeable, they could have
guessed about answers. Texans who were knowledgeable had 76% people (chart #17)
who worried about Lubbock’s ability to get water in the future. In the USA non
Texans part (chart #18), USA non Texans who were knowledgeable had 20% people
who worried about Lubbock’s ability to get water in the future. In the
international part (chart #19), internationals who were knowledgeable also had
20% of people who worried about Lubbock’s ability to get water in the future.
Actually, I felt a little bit weird that the percentage should be similar, but
it didn’t. It was supposed to be similar because that was how the population
distributed. Maybe, the people who were from Texas were more concerned Lubbock
water because Lubbock was also part of Texas.
If we do further research on this
project, my advice will be surveying more people instead of 150. We can
probably get 300 surveys and divide more populations. For example, we can
include ages, majors and the time they have been in Lubbock. According to the
three new categories, we will have the group of American, American from Texas, internationals,
students, non-students, males, females, different ages, different majors and
the time they have spent in Lubbock. I believe that we will have an exciting
and interesting result after we cross match these datum. We had had interesting
results even though we only got 150 surveys. However, it will be a problem to
collect 300 surveys. For instance, the workload of the assignment will explore
as twice as the previous one, but the decision depends on teachers. Actually, I
felt very comfortable in the class because we usually had a paragraph per week.
If everyone followed the steps of teachers, the assignments should have been a
burden. Therefore, if teachers want to do 300 surveys, teachers can set more
capacity in the class in order to get more students or give more credits in the
class.
Bibliography
Blackmon, D.
(2013, Aug. 21). Shale, fracking are not the main cause of Texas water
shortages. Forbes Retrieved in
September, 2013 from:
Cook, C.
(2012, Sep. 15). Texas Tech Sets Another Enrollment Record. Forbes
Retrieved in November, 2013 from:
Reed, A.
(2012, Feb. 09). Lubbock’s water crisis, how did we get here? KCBD.
Retrieved in September, 2013 from:
