Low-flow showerheads? Check!
HET toilets? Check!
Smart Irrigation? Check!
Reduced demand? Check!
So, what’s the next step once you’ve done everything “right”—hit all your water conservation high notes—but still need more water than you’ve got? While many communities are still in the throes of low-flow rebates programs and smart irrigation and xeriscaping campaigns, in some parts of the country conservation techniques have hit their apex and yet demand still outstrips supply.
Case in point: Riverside County, CA. Last month, the Riverside County Water Task Force held an informational meeting to inform county supervisors—and the public at large—that while the Inland Empire’s water conservation programs had been wildly successful and helped the region survive ongoing drought and other supply challenges, there is still not enough water to “sustain residents and businesses in the future.”
(www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_water19.2a67335.html)
The task pointed out that while recent measures—including easy and inexpensive efficiency tactics like widespread toilet changeouts and low-flow appliance rebates—had improved the regions water efficiency, the task of finding new water supplies would be more difficult, and more costly. For the task force, the best option available to Riverside County involves the development of a new conveyance system to deliver water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
In the past, taking water from the Sacramento River Delta and delivering it to parched communities hundreds of miles to the south has been a tricky proposition—fraught will all manner of environmental, engineering, and economic obstacles. Rather than pursue an expansion of the current Delta delivery system, Riverside’s water task force is pushing for the construction of an alternate canal—one designed to avoid or overcome the many obstacles that have restricted the current Delta. The idea is to fund this new system with an $11.1 billion bond measure that will be put before voters on the 2012 ballot.
So what do you think? Once all other water efficiency policies and procedures have been exhausted, are large-scale infrastructure projects the answer? Is it ever viable to discuss other demand-reduction alternatives—like caps on growth, mandatory reuse for non-potable water use (like irrigation), or new building codes that require not just indoor efficiency, but outdoor resource management via rainwater catchment, stormwater controls, and even smarter irrigation and landscaping? And can demand-reduction efforts ever really be completed, or are there levels of efficiency that can still be fine-tuned?