GAINESVILLE — Deciding whether to fill up the bath tub to the lip or letting the faucet run while brushing your teeth never seemed so meaningful — until now.

As Lake Lanier water levels head daily to an all-time low and water restrictions are a part of everyday conversation, it is time for everyone to do their part in water conservation.

“The current (Lake Lanier) level that we are at right now and the projections of possibly running out of drinking water or rationing drinking water is a very real situation,” said Brian Wiley, Gainesville environmental monitoring coordinator. “There are other counties around us that are already having to worry about those things and it is a change in behavior. If we change our behavior now, that change will be something that will guide us through the future.

“This level that we are under is not going away for a long time, at least a year as it looks.”

The stringent restrictions associated with a Level 4 drought — the highest drought level — that we are experiencing in North Georgia has many taking a second look at how much water we consume.

“The local water providers and governments have the authority to go beyond the state standards,” said Alice Keyes, a planning and policy adviser with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. “The level 4 in the northern counties right now is considered a minimum.”

So, at a time many are considering water consumption, Gainesville has a few unique ways to get children and adults involved in water conservation.

Local superhero Captain Conservation sporting his royal blue and bright green costume visits Gainesville school children and teaches them how to save and reuse water.

“Children really respond well to conservation and to Captain Conservation,” Wiley said. “We also provide to our public leak detection tablets, you put the tablets or dye in the back of the toilet to see if it comes out into the bowl.”

A new service that is available through the water provider is an indoor/outdoor water assessment to customers. The plumbing retrofit program gives credit for installing a low-flow toilet.

“If you are a city customer and you get water from the city of Gainesville and you go and change out your old toilet,” he said. “Bring your old toilet to us with a receipt and we would give you a $75 credit per toilet (on you water bill); for single family residential homes, three per household.”

Other suggestions include putting a bowl in the sink to catch extra water and collecting water in rain barrels.

Joe Krewer of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs said it is critical to follow local water restriction guidelines and suggests some ways you can conserve.

“Capture the water in your bath or shower while you are warming up the water and you can use this to flush your toilet or to use on outside plants,” said Krewer, a program coordinator with the Environmental Assistance Program. “Basically just turn down your water flow when you are taking a shower.”

Krewer and Keyes are both affiliated with www.conservewater        georgia.net, a group that informs and educates Georgians on water conservation.

Changing out high-flow water fixtures to low-flow fixtures in the average home could save millions of gallons of water over a lifetime, which results in energy and money saved.

“If an average home changed out there high-flow fixtures with low-flow fixtures they can save on average about 30,000 gallons a year,” Keyes said. “Nationally the average the financial savings from that is about $250 in water costs and about $42 a year in energy savings. That is saying that an average home has two toilets, one clothes washer, two shower heads and three faucets.”

So in this important time of behavioral change, Krewer said thinking about water usage boils down to compliance.