Wafer Log

Waterworks engineers across the U.S. have been puzzled by capricious rises and falls in the volume of water used in the early evening. Like clockwork on the hour and the half hour, the demand shoots violently upward--sometimes as much as 30% during a five-minute period. As puzzled as any of his colleagues, Water Commissioner George J. Van Dorp of Toledo, Ohio studied his charts, maps and figures and set out to find the culprit.

In the trade journal Public Works, Van Dorp named the villain: television. The violent fluctuations in water use, says Van Dorp, were caused by televiewers who, "having their interest held by the program on the air, were, at the end of the program or during the commercial, suddenly released. They then became engaged in many activities which were water consuming . . ."

Bathrooms account for much of the water demand, each flush of a water closet requiring eight gallons of water. Van Dorp suggested that his findings might be used as a swift and foolproof system (dubbed Teleflush by the irreverent) of rating TV programs. To no one's surprise, Van Dorp's system reveals (see chart) that Toledo's favorite is the same as the rest of the nation's: I Love Lucy.

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