Blue Ribbons
When a community is out there doing something new and producing great results, it’s a good idea to sit up and take notice.
There’s no use in reinventing the wheel (or the water efficiency/ conservation program.) So whenever there’s a community out there doing something new that is producing great results, it’s a good idea to sit up and take notice.
In 2006, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) awarded 16 public drinking-water utilities with top management achievement awards.
The AMWA Gold Awards for Competitiveness Achievement recognize large public drinking-water systems whose management practices chart new financial courses, seek new growth opportunities, and meet the ever-expanding array of customer service needs and expectations. Benchmarking, competitiveness strategies, and competitiveness improvement initiatives are among the factors assessed.
The AMWA Platinum Awards for Sustained Competitiveness Achievement take an even broader perspective, focusing on the long-term accomplishments of forward-looking drinking-water agencies. Platinum Award winners are all previous Gold Award winners that have successfully maintained and expanded their competitiveness initiatives in such areas as new technology introduction, infrastructure management, and customer service.
All of the six communities described here were recipients of either Gold or Platinum awards in 2006. As concerns over efficiency and conservation of water grow, these communities have rolled along toward a better way of meeting their challenges.
Water Conservation Efforts in a High-Growth Area With Clear Limits to Water Resources
Aurora, CO’s water conservation program has grown greatly in the past few years. When Kevin Reidy, water conservation supervisor, first started, there were only two employees in this department. Now, five years later, there are 12.
Reidy was hired in the wake of a 2002 drought. Prior to that time the rebate program didn’t exist; neither did the Xeriscape programs and a lot of the other programs and ordinances. “The drought really changed everything,” says Reidy. “In its wake we put into effect washing machine and toilet rebates, Xeriscape rebates, a 6-acre Xeriscape demonstration garden, and a full Xeriscape staff, which offers 30 to 40 gardening classes per year, as well as a youth education program, ongoing throughout the school year.”
The community also offers a voluntary certification program for car washes, a point of contention following the drought. Also, residential irrigation audits for homeowners are another option. About two years ago, the city started selling hand-held devices at a discounted price and rebates. The WaterSmart Reader technology enabled customers to read water meters from inside their homes.
“This AMR technology lets us key it to that same meter, and then someone can audit their own system,” says Reidy. “Customers can tell how much water their sprinkler systems, washers, dishwashers, and toilet flushes are using. We’ve been doing that for much better monitoring.”
Aurora is also participating in efforts to derive a baseline of water use in the commercial, institutional, and industrial sectors in order to observe differences in use by various cities and communities along the Front Range. They are also contracting with the Center for Resource Conservation, a nonprofit energy and water conservation group headquartered in Boulder, for their outdoor irrigation audit program.
“That group comes in during the summer and sets up irrigation audits,” says Reidy. “We pay for this, but there is no cost to our customers. They go into both single-family and large homeowners’ association properties, many of which are very old and leaky, some up to 20 acres in size. They then sit down with the homeowner and go through the whole system, where it becomes a good operational opportunity for the homeowners to actually know what’s going on with their irrigation system.
“Even if the system is pretty new and they don’t find too much wrong with it, they can still work with them and determine if perhaps their watering clocks are set too high for what’s being put out. A schedule is presented to them based on soil type, root depth, topography of the landscape, and other factors. Sometimes something very wrong is found, such as mixed heads on the system, leaky valves, or obstructions by plant materials. All of these add up.
 |
Photo: City of Glendale Water Conservatioin Office |
| This water conservation program in Aurora, CO, hosts youth education programs. |
“But the program is a really nice thing. They go out one on one with the homeowner, and they really get some good information. In the end, I feel this is much cheaper than for us to do these ourselves, as we don’t have to hire new people, buy equipment, and all reports are compiled in detail by them for the homeowner. “
Aurora is also participating in the new high-efficiency home study, one of nine study sites nationwide. This study is partially EPA-funded and partially funded by the municipality through an EPA grant. Surveys were sent out to 2,000 homes, pre-2001 and post-2001, in order to include new homes in the study as well as look at water records, a random sampling of consumption records, and now there will be a data logging of 40 homes on the meters to measure how the water is used in the house. This will be done for two weeks.
Afterwards a study will be done of what type of appliances are present, including toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, or anything using water. The hope is to then build 20 high-efficiency homes in the service area. Those homes will then be measured against a standard post-2001 home to see the difference in water use.
Landscaping, Smart Controllers, washing machines, and toilets will be included in the program. A set of specs was drawn up for the study as well. Other communities included in this study are Tampa Bay, FL; Las Vegas, NV; Eugene, OR; and Phoenix, AZ.
“The purpose of this study is to see what the differences would be with indoor and outdoor use in high-water-efficiency homes,” adds Reidy. “This in turn may influence future building codes when it comes to homebuilding.”
Green Exchange Program
Santa Rosa, CA, has the Green Exchange Program, which has two segments to it. One component is called “Cash for Grass,” in which residents or businesses are paid $0.50 per square foot for grasses they’ve pulled out. The other leg is the irrigation-efficiency upgrade, in which the city actually goes out and does an onsite audit for the customers, identifying hardware fixes, whether it’s updating to pressure regulation, converting to drip irrigation, or Smart Controller systems that automatically update themselves.
 |
Photos: City of Glendale Water Conservation Office |
| Water conservation programs across the country educate all ages. |
 |
| Volunteers doing upkeep on a Xeriscaping demonstration garden in Glendale, AZ. |
On the residential side, customers can receive up to $350 in irrigation upgrade rebates, and on the commercial side up to $3,500. In the Cash for Grass program residences and commercial customers can receive up to $250 and $2,500 for 500 and 5,000 square feet of lawn removal respectively. This program started July 2007 and has been successful. Under the program, some 110,000 square feet of grass had been removed as of October 2007.
“That’s not bad for being a relatively new program,” says to Dan Muelrath, water conservation program coordinator. “What we’re mainly promoting in the whole Cash for Grass program is the conversion from the high-water-use lawn to more of a water-wise landscape,” says Muelrath. “Our guidelines do not permit the simple tearing out of lawns and paving over them. We still want landscaping, whether mulching or water-wise plants with simple drip irrigation is used; it’s up to the owner.”
Santa Rosa also has a high-efficiency toilet rebate program. The city has mailed “water on request” cards to area restaurants, and for hotel and motels, it has mailed towel and linen cards in order to raise communitywide awareness. A Water Watch patrol goes out in early morning and later in the evening, and some staff goes out looking for waste in the middle of the day as well.
“This is one way to get our foot in the door with residents. If they have a problem with a broken sprinkler or other things, they can go through some of our rebate programs to fix it,” says Muelrath. “We’re definitely going after those things as areas in which we can help the customers. This year, after a local newspaper ran an article about the program, we had over 500 actual reports from people noticing waste. We’ve started calling up our customers to see if there is some way that we can help them fix their irrigation water problems.”
Santa Rosa, in cooperation with other local agencies, has created a top ten list of ways people can reduce water use. On the back of the utility bill there is always a message, such as how to use online bill payment system, or something even more conservation-oriented, in addition to bill inserts highlighting conservation pointers, which are always placed in with bills. Irrigation customers receive a water budget based on real-time weather or real-time evapotranspiration (ET) as well.
“We look at the ET or the weather during the actual billing period, instead of historically or an average,” says Muelrath. “We also look at their actual landscape, whether it has high-water-use or moderate-use plants, so it’s continually changing throughout the year to promote their irrigation contractors to continually update the irrigation schedule.
“It’s then possible to go out during various times of the year and adjust the irrigation controllers for optimal water use. The billing system is our driver, and the customers themselves have a water-efficiency calculator online in order for them to track where they are at compared with their budget. I don’t consider it boasting to say our utility as a whole has always been recognized as a leader.”
In a Residential Coastal City
Clearwater, FL, has used some 15 million gallons of water per day (gpd) in the past. But it’s expanded its reclaimed water use into areas which formerly used drinking water for irrigation purposes so that they’ve offset the use by switching to reclaimed water. The 15 million gpd has dropped to between 12 million to 13 million gpd because of that action.
Clearwater targets areas with the highest concentration of lawn meters, as well as areas with lots of green space, such as parks and ball fields. A main goal is to switch from the use of potable water to water for irrigation purposes. “In those areas we have made reclaimed water available so that people will quit using drinking water for irrigation uses,” says Glenn Daniel, water superintendent with the City of Clearwater. “The first places we tried were golf courses. Over time we grew into this system with more projects and learning experiences. In beach areas where wells will yield unusable seawater, almost everyone had a lawn meter for irrigation purposes.
“There, we got everyone to use reclaimed water and they’ve liked it a lot. There are even several large condominium complexes with used drinking water for chillers. They’ve now switched to reclaimed water use and have found that very effective for them; they save money, and we use less drinking water for non-drinking-water purposes. Also, this reclaimed water is of a very high quality, with no odor or color.”
While the city tries to raise awareness about water conservation, it has always given out efficiency devices to anyone who wanted them at no charge. Large condominium complexes were the first to ask for large quantities of them realizing how much savings could be derived. Some of the parts distributed included low-flow shower heads, toilet displacement bags, and aerators, among other devices.
Sustained Efficiency and Competitiveness
Back in 2002, St. Paul, MN, received the Gold Award from the AMWA. Just prior to receiving the award, the city had undergone a study by a consultant trying to figure out what needs to be done to make the water utility as efficient as possible. There had been some talk at that time of a private firm coming in and running St. Paul’s water utility.
“The consultant came up with a lot of recommendations,” says Steve Schneider, general manager for St. Paul Regional Water. “But at the heart of things was the fact that we were overspending on our operations and maintenance while at the same time we underspent on capital improvements. They came up with a five-year plan on how to reduce our O&M [operations and maintenance] costs.”
Over that five-year period the city was able to achieve the goal of cutting some $2.5 million, or 10% of its O&M expenses, and then take the savings to its capital program. Staff was reduced through attrition—not layoffs—and there were no water-rate increases, except for those associated with inflation. There was even an increase in services during this period of time. Along with this five-year plan, the city also had a five-year investment plan involved with system automation and IT.
“To my knowledge, in some 130 years of operations we have never had to lay off an employee,” adds Schneider. “Our automation improvements simply allowed us to redeploy staff. Being a public service, we are able to concentrate on things other than the bottom line, providing services at a reasonable cost.”
Because of the extreme weather, this region tends to get breaks in water lines during the winter. Leak detection and surveys can do much to reduce water loss.
“We try hard to reduce the difference between the water we pump out and the water we bill,” says Schneider. “If we as a utility reduce that by minimizing leaks, and talking to customers about leaks then we make headway there. Also, water leaks in the winter can cause an awful mess. When a pipe bursts in a vacant building or somewhere when residents are on vacation, it’s horrible.”
Rebate Programs and Hotlines
Santa Clara Valley, which includes the City of San Jose, CA, has been looking at prolonged drought and water shortages. The water district has a very large and successful toilet rebate program. Santa Clara Valley tries to swap out as many toilets using more than 3.5 gallons per flush as it can, according to Hossein Ashktorab, unit manager for water-use efficiency. Ashktorab and those who answer the district’s excellent hotline are committed to this program and the others available.
“Toilets are found in every home and can be a big factor in achieving efficiency and conservation in water use,” says Ashktorab. “SCVWD [Santa Clara Valley Water District] also has a number of landscaping programs involved in replacing lawn turf with more water-efficient landscaping and reducing drip irrigation and water use in irrigation. They also offer rebates on a better-based controller system for irrigation as well as a water-softener rebate program which started in summer of 2007.”
The SCVWD mails out a great amount of literature to customers with ideas and suggestions on landscaping, and it sends out aerators for faucets, flappers for toilets, dye tablets to determine if there is a leak in the toilet, and showerheads for saving water. The Water-Wise House Call program is designed to perform water audits for residential customers. Once scheduled, auditors spend at least an hour checking the home inside and out, measuring water flows and giving specific suggestions on how water use can be reduced.
The public outreach includes gardening workshops, especially in spring. At water-use conventions the SCVWD tries to educate the public saving water.
Through its washer rebate program, commercial and residential users can bring in their old clothes washing machine and receive a check for $100 to $150 dollars, depending on the efficiency of the new machine purchased. Their toilet rebate program is equally as generous. Customers may receive $120 dollars for bringing in their old toilets. Since this fixture typically uses close to 50% of a family’s water consumption, better efficiency in that area can be especially dramatic.
“I think as drought issues become more critical it’s a good idea to have already raised awareness of all this with the public,” says Hossein.
When Water Education Is Blooming
Glendale, AZ, is especially geared to educating children and adults on the importance of water conservation and efficiency. Its Xeriscape Demonstration Garden is very popular for those looking for drought-tolerant plants to plant around area yards. The Glendale Water Conservation Office uses the garden as a focal point for outreach programs to promote outdoor water efficiency.
 |
Photo: City of Santa Rosa Utilities |
| SCVWD offers rebates for weather-based controllers |
Art in the Garden, a youth education program, has brought about the installation of three pieces of art in the garden. One is a tile mosaic of the “Blue Planet,” containing a water conservation pledge. Another is a watershed cross-section, while the third is a retaining wall containing tiles created by children during a workshop on plant and animal adaptations to the desert.
The garden contains numerous plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds and other native wildlife. An audio tour was installed in 2003. The tour takes 40 to 50 minutes and is self-guided. Its themes include the relationships people have with plants in the past, present, and future. “For the past we can point to the adjacent historic Sahauro Ranch, one of the earliest in the area, and discuss our past relationship with plants—primarily agricultural,” says Jo Miller, Glendale environmental program manager for water conservation.
“But as we look to the present and future, the trend is toward more urbanization and population growth. The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden is a living illustration of how our relationship with plants has changed. With urbanization comes a focus on Xeriscape, designing attractive landscapes using low-water-use plants. Looking toward the future, design trends are moving toward planting native plants to restore habitats and plant species and to encourage native wildlife. Our south area Habitat Garden is certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
“Our landscape rebate program is for removing grass and installing low-water-use landscaping. This includes rebate programs for single-family homes, homeowner associations, or commercial properties,” says Miller. “The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden provides the inspiration and assists as a resource for ideas when making the conversion from grass to a low-water-use landscape.”
The city’s audio tour received a Governor’s Pride Award, as did the garden artwork. Glendale has also received a Valley Forward Environmental Excellence award for the Art in the Garden educational program.
The Friends of the Garden volunteer group assists with both the garden and the children’s program. “We consider them our ambassadors out in the community,” says Miller.
“We also have in the works the installation of an outdoor classroom in our garden, as well. A grant with the Bureau of Reclamation has started work toward updating our water education outreach in the public schools. The Xeriscape Garden is offered as a field-trip destination for participating classrooms.
 |
Photo: Rick Niemiller |
| Clearwater Beach, FL, roundabout landscaping |
“Tied with our garden, we also conduct landscape classes for homeowners, including demos in the garden. Twenty classes are offered per year, averaging 35 to 40 people per class. Class participants are asked to complete evaluations after the classes, and one of the questions asked is, what will you do differently as a result of this class?”
Results from all the replies are compiled and classified as to whether or not they are a water-saving action. Some of the actions considered water conserving include purchasing and using mulch around plants, seasonal changing of timer settings on home irrigation, and doing less pruning.
“We’ve come up with what we call an action rate,” says Miller. “Our results show that more than 70% of the responses involve an action that will result in water savings. We consider that rate high and a good reflection on our classes.”
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It’s interesting to note that overall in Glendale, water use has gone down when compared with population growth. Demand between 2001 and 2006 shows that the city was actually at the same water-use level in the latter year, even though population had increased by 30,360 people. Also, 2006 was actually 4.6% below 2002 water use levels.
“There’s a lot that factors into that, but over the last five years we’ve seen a trend in water savings despite increases in population,” says Miller. “This means someone out there is saving water. We hope our efforts have had some influence on those statistics.”
January-February 2008
Blue Ribbons
When a community is out there doing something new and producing great results, it’s a good idea to sit up and take notice.
There’s no use in reinventing the wheel (or the water efficiency/ conservation program.) So whenever there’s a community out there doing something new that is producing great results, it’s a good idea to sit up and take notice.
In 2006, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) awarded 16 public drinking-water utilities with top management achievement awards.
The AMWA Gold Awards for Competitiveness Achievement recognize large public drinking-water systems whose management practices chart new financial courses, seek new growth opportunities, and meet the ever-expanding array of customer service needs and expectations. Benchmarking, competitiveness strategies, and competitiveness improvement initiatives are among the factors assessed.
The AMWA Platinum Awards for Sustained Competitiveness Achievement take an even broader perspective, focusing on the long-term accomplishments of forward-looking drinking-water agencies. Platinum Award winners are all previous Gold Award winners that have successfully maintained and expanded their competitiveness initiatives in such areas as new technology introduction, infrastructure management, and customer service.
All of the six communities described here were recipients of either Gold or Platinum awards in 2006. As concerns over efficiency and conservation of water grow, these communities have rolled along toward a better way of meeting their challenges.
Water Conservation Efforts in a High-Growth Area With Clear Limits to Water Resources
Aurora, CO’s water conservation program has grown greatly in the past few years. When Kevin Reidy, water conservation supervisor, first started, there were only two employees in this department. Now, five years later, there are 12.
Reidy was hired in the wake of a 2002 drought. Prior to that time the rebate program didn’t exist; neither did the Xeriscape programs and a lot of the other programs and ordinances. “The drought really changed everything,” says Reidy. “In its wake we put into effect washing machine and toilet rebates, Xeriscape rebates, a 6-acre Xeriscape demonstration garden, and a full Xeriscape staff, which offers 30 to 40 gardening classes per year, as well as a youth education program, ongoing throughout the school year.”
The community also offers a voluntary certification program for car washes, a point of contention following the drought. Also, residential irrigation audits for homeowners are another option. About two years ago, the city started selling hand-held devices at a discounted price and rebates. The WaterSmart Reader technology enabled customers to read water meters from inside their homes.
“This AMR technology lets us key it to that same meter, and then someone can audit their own system,” says Reidy. “Customers can tell how much water their sprinkler systems, washers, dishwashers, and toilet flushes are using. We’ve been doing that for much better monitoring.”
Aurora is also participating in efforts to derive a baseline of water use in the commercial, institutional, and industrial sectors in order to observe differences in use by various cities and communities along the Front Range. They are also contracting with the Center for Resource Conservation, a nonprofit energy and water conservation group headquartered in Boulder, for their outdoor irrigation audit program.
“That group comes in during the summer and sets up irrigation audits,” says Reidy. “We pay for this, but there is no cost to our customers. They go into both single-family and large homeowners’ association properties, many of which are very old and leaky, some up to 20 acres in size. They then sit down with the homeowner and go through the whole system, where it becomes a good operational opportunity for the homeowners to actually know what’s going on with their irrigation system.
“Even if the system is pretty new and they don’t find too much wrong with it, they can still work with them and determine if perhaps their watering clocks are set too high for what’s being put out. A schedule is presented to them based on soil type, root depth, topography of the landscape, and other factors. Sometimes something very wrong is found, such as mixed heads on the system, leaky valves, or obstructions by plant materials. All of these add up.
|
Photo: City of Glendale Water Conservatioin Office |
| This water conservation program in Aurora, CO, hosts youth education programs. |
“But the program is a really nice thing. They go out one on one with the homeowner, and they really get some good information. In the end, I feel this is much cheaper than for us to do these ourselves, as we don’t have to hire new people, buy equipment, and all reports are compiled in detail by them for the homeowner. “
Aurora is also participating in the new high-efficiency home study, one of nine study sites nationwide. This study is partially EPA-funded and partially funded by the municipality through an EPA grant. Surveys were sent out to 2,000 homes, pre-2001 and post-2001, in order to include new homes in the study as well as look at water records, a random sampling of consumption records, and now there will be a data logging of 40 homes on the meters to measure how the water is used in the house. This will be done for two weeks.
Afterwards a study will be done of what type of appliances are present, including toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, or anything using water. The hope is to then build 20 high-efficiency homes in the service area. Those homes will then be measured against a standard post-2001 home to see the difference in water use.
Landscaping, Smart Controllers, washing machines, and toilets will be included in the program. A set of specs was drawn up for the study as well. Other communities included in this study are Tampa Bay, FL; Las Vegas, NV; Eugene, OR; and Phoenix, AZ.
“The purpose of this study is to see what the differences would be with indoor and outdoor use in high-water-efficiency homes,” adds Reidy. “This in turn may influence future building codes when it comes to homebuilding.”
Green Exchange Program
Santa Rosa, CA, has the Green Exchange Program, which has two segments to it. One component is called “Cash for Grass,” in which residents or businesses are paid $0.50 per square foot for grasses they’ve pulled out. The other leg is the irrigation-efficiency upgrade, in which the city actually goes out and does an onsite audit for the customers, identifying hardware fixes, whether it’s updating to pressure regulation, converting to drip irrigation, or Smart Controller systems that automatically update themselves.
|
Photos: City of Glendale Water Conservation Office |
| Water conservation programs across the country educate all ages. |
|
| Volunteers doing upkeep on a Xeriscaping demonstration garden in Glendale, AZ. |
On the residential side, customers can receive up to $350 in irrigation upgrade rebates, and on the commercial side up to $3,500. In the Cash for Grass program residences and commercial customers can receive up to $250 and $2,500 for 500 and 5,000 square feet of lawn removal respectively. This program started July 2007 and has been successful. Under the program, some 110,000 square feet of grass had been removed as of October 2007.
“That’s not bad for being a relatively new program,” says to Dan Muelrath, water conservation program coordinator. “What we’re mainly promoting in the whole Cash for Grass program is the conversion from the high-water-use lawn to more of a water-wise landscape,” says Muelrath. “Our guidelines do not permit the simple tearing out of lawns and paving over them. We still want landscaping, whether mulching or water-wise plants with simple drip irrigation is used; it’s up to the owner.”
Santa Rosa also has a high-efficiency toilet rebate program. The city has mailed “water on request” cards to area restaurants, and for hotel and motels, it has mailed towel and linen cards in order to raise communitywide awareness. A Water Watch patrol goes out in early morning and later in the evening, and some staff goes out looking for waste in the middle of the day as well.
“This is one way to get our foot in the door with residents. If they have a problem with a broken sprinkler or other things, they can go through some of our rebate programs to fix it,” says Muelrath. “We’re definitely going after those things as areas in which we can help the customers. This year, after a local newspaper ran an article about the program, we had over 500 actual reports from people noticing waste. We’ve started calling up our customers to see if there is some way that we can help them fix their irrigation water problems.”
Santa Rosa, in cooperation with other local agencies, has created a top ten list of ways people can reduce water use. On the back of the utility bill there is always a message, such as how to use online bill payment system, or something even more conservation-oriented, in addition to bill inserts highlighting conservation pointers, which are always placed in with bills. Irrigation customers receive a water budget based on real-time weather or real-time evapotranspiration (ET) as well.
“We look at the ET or the weather during the actual billing period, instead of historically or an average,” says Muelrath. “We also look at their actual landscape, whether it has high-water-use or moderate-use plants, so it’s continually changing throughout the year to promote their irrigation contractors to continually update the irrigation schedule.
“It’s then possible to go out during various times of the year and adjust the irrigation controllers for optimal water use. The billing system is our driver, and the customers themselves have a water-efficiency calculator online in order for them to track where they are at compared with their budget. I don’t consider it boasting to say our utility as a whole has always been recognized as a leader.”
In a Residential Coastal City
Clearwater, FL, has used some 15 million gallons of water per day (gpd) in the past. But it’s expanded its reclaimed water use into areas which formerly used drinking water for irrigation purposes so that they’ve offset the use by switching to reclaimed water. The 15 million gpd has dropped to between 12 million to 13 million gpd because of that action.
Clearwater targets areas with the highest concentration of lawn meters, as well as areas with lots of green space, such as parks and ball fields. A main goal is to switch from the use of potable water to water for irrigation purposes. “In those areas we have made reclaimed water available so that people will quit using drinking water for irrigation uses,” says Glenn Daniel, water superintendent with the City of Clearwater. “The first places we tried were golf courses. Over time we grew into this system with more projects and learning experiences. In beach areas where wells will yield unusable seawater, almost everyone had a lawn meter for irrigation purposes.
“There, we got everyone to use reclaimed water and they’ve liked it a lot. There are even several large condominium complexes with used drinking water for chillers. They’ve now switched to reclaimed water use and have found that very effective for them; they save money, and we use less drinking water for non-drinking-water purposes. Also, this reclaimed water is of a very high quality, with no odor or color.”
While the city tries to raise awareness about water conservation, it has always given out efficiency devices to anyone who wanted them at no charge. Large condominium complexes were the first to ask for large quantities of them realizing how much savings could be derived. Some of the parts distributed included low-flow shower heads, toilet displacement bags, and aerators, among other devices.
Sustained Efficiency and Competitiveness
Back in 2002, St. Paul, MN, received the Gold Award from the AMWA. Just prior to receiving the award, the city had undergone a study by a consultant trying to figure out what needs to be done to make the water utility as efficient as possible. There had been some talk at that time of a private firm coming in and running St. Paul’s water utility.
“The consultant came up with a lot of recommendations,” says Steve Schneider, general manager for St. Paul Regional Water. “But at the heart of things was the fact that we were overspending on our operations and maintenance while at the same time we underspent on capital improvements. They came up with a five-year plan on how to reduce our O&M [operations and maintenance] costs.”
Over that five-year period the city was able to achieve the goal of cutting some $2.5 million, or 10% of its O&M expenses, and then take the savings to its capital program. Staff was reduced through attrition—not layoffs—and there were no water-rate increases, except for those associated with inflation. There was even an increase in services during this period of time. Along with this five-year plan, the city also had a five-year investment plan involved with system automation and IT.
“To my knowledge, in some 130 years of operations we have never had to lay off an employee,” adds Schneider. “Our automation improvements simply allowed us to redeploy staff. Being a public service, we are able to concentrate on things other than the bottom line, providing services at a reasonable cost.”
Because of the extreme weather, this region tends to get breaks in water lines during the winter. Leak detection and surveys can do much to reduce water loss.
“We try hard to reduce the difference between the water we pump out and the water we bill,” says Schneider. “If we as a utility reduce that by minimizing leaks, and talking to customers about leaks then we make headway there. Also, water leaks in the winter can cause an awful mess. When a pipe bursts in a vacant building or somewhere when residents are on vacation, it’s horrible.”
Rebate Programs and Hotlines
Santa Clara Valley, which includes the City of San Jose, CA, has been looking at prolonged drought and water shortages. The water district has a very large and successful toilet rebate program. Santa Clara Valley tries to swap out as many toilets using more than 3.5 gallons per flush as it can, according to Hossein Ashktorab, unit manager for water-use efficiency. Ashktorab and those who answer the district’s excellent hotline are committed to this program and the others available.
“Toilets are found in every home and can be a big factor in achieving efficiency and conservation in water use,” says Ashktorab. “SCVWD [Santa Clara Valley Water District] also has a number of landscaping programs involved in replacing lawn turf with more water-efficient landscaping and reducing drip irrigation and water use in irrigation. They also offer rebates on a better-based controller system for irrigation as well as a water-softener rebate program which started in summer of 2007.”
The SCVWD mails out a great amount of literature to customers with ideas and suggestions on landscaping, and it sends out aerators for faucets, flappers for toilets, dye tablets to determine if there is a leak in the toilet, and showerheads for saving water. The Water-Wise House Call program is designed to perform water audits for residential customers. Once scheduled, auditors spend at least an hour checking the home inside and out, measuring water flows and giving specific suggestions on how water use can be reduced.
The public outreach includes gardening workshops, especially in spring. At water-use conventions the SCVWD tries to educate the public saving water.
Through its washer rebate program, commercial and residential users can bring in their old clothes washing machine and receive a check for $100 to $150 dollars, depending on the efficiency of the new machine purchased. Their toilet rebate program is equally as generous. Customers may receive $120 dollars for bringing in their old toilets. Since this fixture typically uses close to 50% of a family’s water consumption, better efficiency in that area can be especially dramatic.
“I think as drought issues become more critical it’s a good idea to have already raised awareness of all this with the public,” says Hossein.
When Water Education Is Blooming
Glendale, AZ, is especially geared to educating children and adults on the importance of water conservation and efficiency. Its Xeriscape Demonstration Garden is very popular for those looking for drought-tolerant plants to plant around area yards. The Glendale Water Conservation Office uses the garden as a focal point for outreach programs to promote outdoor water efficiency.
|
Photo: City of Santa Rosa Utilities |
| SCVWD offers rebates for weather-based controllers |
Art in the Garden, a youth education program, has brought about the installation of three pieces of art in the garden. One is a tile mosaic of the “Blue Planet,” containing a water conservation pledge. Another is a watershed cross-section, while the third is a retaining wall containing tiles created by children during a workshop on plant and animal adaptations to the desert.
The garden contains numerous plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds and other native wildlife. An audio tour was installed in 2003. The tour takes 40 to 50 minutes and is self-guided. Its themes include the relationships people have with plants in the past, present, and future. “For the past we can point to the adjacent historic Sahauro Ranch, one of the earliest in the area, and discuss our past relationship with plants—primarily agricultural,” says Jo Miller, Glendale environmental program manager for water conservation.
“But as we look to the present and future, the trend is toward more urbanization and population growth. The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden is a living illustration of how our relationship with plants has changed. With urbanization comes a focus on Xeriscape, designing attractive landscapes using low-water-use plants. Looking toward the future, design trends are moving toward planting native plants to restore habitats and plant species and to encourage native wildlife. Our south area Habitat Garden is certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
“Our landscape rebate program is for removing grass and installing low-water-use landscaping. This includes rebate programs for single-family homes, homeowner associations, or commercial properties,” says Miller. “The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden provides the inspiration and assists as a resource for ideas when making the conversion from grass to a low-water-use landscape.”
The city’s audio tour received a Governor’s Pride Award, as did the garden artwork. Glendale has also received a Valley Forward Environmental Excellence award for the Art in the Garden educational program.
The Friends of the Garden volunteer group assists with both the garden and the children’s program. “We consider them our ambassadors out in the community,” says Miller.
“We also have in the works the installation of an outdoor classroom in our garden, as well. A grant with the Bureau of Reclamation has started work toward updating our water education outreach in the public schools. The Xeriscape Garden is offered as a field-trip destination for participating classrooms.
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Photo: Rick Niemiller |
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“Tied with our garden, we also conduct landscape classes for homeowners, including demos in the garden. Twenty classes are offered per year, averaging 35 to 40 people per class. Class participants are asked to complete evaluations after the classes, and one of the questions asked is, what will you do differently as a result of this class?”
Results from all the replies are compiled and classified as to whether or not they are a water-saving action. Some of the actions considered water conserving include purchasing and using mulch around plants, seasonal changing of timer settings on home irrigation, and doing less pruning.
“We’ve come up with what we call an action rate,” says Miller. “Our results show that more than 70% of the responses involve an action that will result in water savings. We consider that rate high and a good reflection on our classes.”
It’s interesting to note that overall in Glendale, water use has gone down when compared with population growth. Demand between 2001 and 2006 shows that the city was actually at the same water-use level in the latter year, even though population had increased by 30,360 people. Also, 2006 was actually 4.6% below 2002 water use levels.
“There’s a lot that factors into that, but over the last five years we’ve seen a trend in water savings despite increases in population,” says Miller. “This means someone out there is saving water. We hope our efforts have had some influence on those statistics.”