Efficiency As a Water Source

This article is summarized from an article in Home

Energy’s Special Issue on Water/Energy, 2007. See

www.homeenergy.org. Contact Ronnie Cohen at

rcohen@nrdc.org.

Forward-thinking water agencies are also considering efficient use

as an “alternative” source of water. These agencies compare efficiency or

“demand-side” alternatives to traditional supply-side alternatives for meeting

a community’s future water needs. A recent analysis by the Natural Resources

Defense Council (NRDC) and the Pacific Institute found that for the San Diego

region, end use represents the single largest component of water-related

energy costs. If this is true for regions like San Diego, where the energy cost

of conveyance is unusally high, it is likely to be even truer for other regions,

suggesting potentially enormous energy savings from using water more efficiently.

Residential water use accounts for 50 percent to 85 percent of urban water

use. Using water more efficiently may be the single best way to reduce water related

energy costs, because, in addition to saving the on-site energy, efficiency

reduces the upstream energy required to extract, convey, treat, and distribute

water, as well as the downstream energy needed to treat and dispose of wastewater.

Efficiency measures that reduce indoor water use include installing efficient toilets,

showerheads, dishwashers, and clothes washers. Outdoor landscape irrigation,

which typically does not require end-use energy nor wastewater treatment, is still a

highly promising area for reducing water and energy use, due to the sheer magnitude

of water required for landscape use. More than 50 percent of residential use goes

to landscape irrigation. This percentage may be even higher in hot, inland areas.

According to the CEC, the cumulative energy consumed for outdoor water use

(including conveyance, treatment, and distribution) averages 3,500 kilowatt-hours

per acre-foot in Northern California and over 11,000 kilowatt-hours per acre-foot

in Southern California. Recently, water agencies have begun to focus conservation

programs on outdoor use, using such tools as “smart” controllers that adjust landscape

irrigation based on weather conditions. A recent CEC report suggested that

conserving water might be a more cost efficient approach for energy utilities to

save energy than traditional programs. Preliminary estimates showed that by

conserving water, California could save 95 percent of the energy saved by

implementing the usual energy efficiency programs at only 58 percent of the cost.

Climate Concerns

Any evaluation of new water supplies or re-examination of existing supplies

must factor in the predicted impacts of climate change. The most energy conserving

approaches—efficient-use programs and recycling—are also likely

to be the best performers in the uncertain conditions created by climate change.

Water conservation and recycling can help water agencies meet the demand for

water under a variety of climate change scenarios, while simultaneously saving

them energy and reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change.

As the water-energy nexus gains attention, more people will recognize the role that

improved conservation, recycling, and other water management alternatives

can play in saving energy. When it comes to saving energy, turning off

the tap is like turning off the lights.

Save Water, Save Money (According to the EPA watersense website)

The average household spends as much as $500 per year on its water and sewer bill. By making just a few simple changes to use water more efficiently, you could save about $170 per year. If all U.S. households installed water-efficient appliances, the country would save more than 3 trillion gallons of water and more than $18 billion dollars per year! Also, when we use water more efficiently, we reduce the need for costly water supply infrastructure investments and new wastewater treatment facilities.

Save Water, Save Energy

It takes a considerable amount of energy to deliver and treat the water you use everyday. American public water supply and treatment facilities consume about 56 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year—enough electricity to power more than 5 million homes for an entire year. For example, letting your faucet run for five minutes uses about as much energy as letting a 60-watt light bulb run for 14 hours.
By reducing household water use you can not only help reduce the energy required to supply and treat public water supplies but also can help address climate change. In fact:

If one out of every 100 American homes retrofitted with water-efficient fixtures, we could save about 100 million kWh of electricity per year—avoiding 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. That is equivalent to removing nearly 15,000 automobiles from the road for one year!

WATER: Metropolitan Water District boosts rates 15 percent

WATER: Metropolitan Water District boosts rates 15 percent



Water wholesaler cites recession, conservation, pumping limits

By BRADLEY J. FIKES - bfikes@nctimes.com  Posted: April 13, 2010 4:23 pm
Font Size:Default font sizeLarger font sizeShare Southern California's largest water wholesaler, Metropolitan Water District, voted Tuesday to hike water rates by 7.5 percent Jan. 1 and another 7.5 percent a year later.
Metropolitan's board also voted for a second consecutive year of mandatory water conservation, for what the agency said was the first time in its history.
The rationale for the rate hike was that Metropolitan's water sales have taken an unexpectedly severe tumble because conservation during the state's drought was compounded by the recession.
In addition, court-imposed restrictions on pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay delta have crimped supplies, Metropolitan said, despite a relatively wet winter. The restrictions also increase the cost of water, the agency said in a statement.
Cost increases from Metropolitan flow down to its member agencies, such as the San Diego County Water Authority. The authority in turn passes along its higher costs to local agencies that sell water at retail to business and residential customers.
Metropolitan board members from San Diego County opposed all of the rate hikes, said board member Keith Lewinger, who is also general manager of Fallbrook Public Utility District. The district buys water from the San Diego County Water Authority.
"San Diego takes issue with how Metropolitan allocates its costs," Lewinger said in a phone interview. "The cost allocation disproportionately charges San Diego under any of the rate scenarios presented."
The rate hike was one of four options presented by Metropolitan's staff that called for raising rates as much as 12.4 percent on Jan. 1.
The chosen option leaves Metropolitan with a $20 million shortfall. Under one proposal, the difference was to be made up from reserves. But Metropolitan's board instead ordered the budget balanced by a $20 million reduction in spending.
Metropolitan's budget for the year ending June 30 is $2.03 billion.

Call staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at 760-739-6641. Read his blogs at bizblogs.nctimes.com.
Posted in Business on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 4:23 pm

Water supply up, but pumps shut down

Apr 5, 2010 11:20 AM

With the Sierra snowpack’s water content above average, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has increased its State Water Project (SWP) allocation to 20 percent for this season.
This follows an announcement two weeks ago that The Bureau of Reclamation was significantly increasing the federal water project supplies for Central Valley Project (CVP) water contractors.
However, as Central California farmers and Southern California urbanites have learned to come to expect, nothing is ever settled in the escalating California water wars. The day before the state announced the increase its allocations, U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger denied a request from state water users to rescind pumping restrictions that were to go into effect April 1 to protect spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead.
Wanger endorsed the National Marine Fisheries Service biological opinion for protecting the salmon and steelhead as acceptable and refused to rescind the scheduled cutback, which means four of the five Delta pumps went down on Thursday as planned. Reduced pumping from the Delta south will likely continue for two months. This is happening with 300,000 acre feet of capacity available in the 2 million acre feet San Luis Reservoir, the major mid-valley storage reservoir for both state and federal water.
A full San Luis is important to valley farmers when the time comes to begin irrigating crops this summer. Cities also count on San Luis water during the heavy-use summer months.
Wanger’s March 31 ruling is the first salvo of what will be a protracted courtroom battle over the management plan for not only the salmon and steelhead, but the Delta smelt minnow as well. The legal battle is now ongoing on Wanger’s Fresno courtroom.
“As the water picture for this year becomes clearer, we can increase our deliveries to farms and communities throughout the state,” said DWR Director Mark Cowin, without addressing the impact of Wanger’s edict. “But the aftermath of three years of drought and regulatory restrictions on Delta pumping to protect fish species will keep this year’s allocation far below normal. This underscores, once again, the need to implement long-term solutions to improve water supply reliability.”
Manual and electronic snow survey readings indicate that statewide, snowpack water content is 106 percent of normal for the date. This time last year, the reading was 81percent of normal for the date.
Snowpack water content normally is at its peak the first of April, although DWR makes a final manual survey the first of May, and electronic readings report conditions daily. DWR may be able to increase the State Water Project allocation to above 20 percent as hydrologists refine runoff projections from today’s snowpack readings and conditions continue to develop.
Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s principal reservoir, is recovering slowly after three consecutive dry years. Its storage level today is at only 47 percent of capacity, 60 percent of normal for the date. In addition, fishery agency restrictions on Delta pumping continue to reduce the amount of water that can be delivered to contractors and customers in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast and Southern California. The final State Water Project allocation, to be set later this spring, will partially depend on how the pumping restrictions to protect fish including Delta smelt, salmon and longfin smelt are applied.
In 2009, the State Water Project delivered 40 percent of customer requests. The average of project deliveries over the past 10 years is 68 percent of the amount requested by the 29 public agencies with long-term contracts to buy SWP water. The 29 contractors deliver water to more than 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of irrigated farmland.

Reporter's Notes: Putting Landscaping on a Water Budget

Katharine Mieszkowski • March 5th, 201037.453213, -122.177448

I wanted to share this article written by Katharine Mieszkowski this month.

This information is clearly sending a message to the building industry and to all of us with established thirsty yards using outdated irrigation systems. Please enjoy.

Great article Katharine!



California: This is your new water budget.

In an effort to make plants guzzle less, the state has imposed new restrictions on how much water new and rehabilitated landscapes can use.

For instance, as of January 1st, whenever a developer in California plans a property – commercial or residential – that has at least 2500 square feet of yard and garden, he'll have to tailor the plantings to conform to the amount of water the state deems sufficient for that site. That's where the water budget comes in. More details on the ins and outs of what the state is now requiring can be found here. As I reported in my QUEST radio piece, some California cities are imposing tighter restrictions in hopes of saving more water. Check your city's water efficient landscape ordinance for details.

That being said, homeowners needn't worry that a crew of strapping regulators will be ripping up their front lawns. Existing landscapes won't be impacted by the new rules. But homeowners might wonder how their own landscaping would stack up if their properties were being built today. In other words, is your yard a dated relic of California's water guzzling past, or, an exemplar of the drought-tolerant future that the state's trying to nudge us all towards?

Here's how to figure it out:

Click on this link to get your very own Water Budget Workbook. Choose the tab on the bottom of the page that says "MAWA" — that stands for Maximum Applied Water Allowance.

Choose your city from the list provided. If your city isn't on the list, choose another nearby city that is, but be sure it's in the same "EvapoTranspiration Zone" where you live.

Evapo what?

"Evapotranspiration" is the loss of water to the atmosphere, by evaporation from the soil and plant surfaces, as well as by "transpiration" from plant tissues. A more detailed explanation of what that all means can be found here.

The state's Department of Water Resources and UC Davis developed this beguiling map that divides the state into 18 different zones based on long-term monthly average evapotranspiration. Not everyone in the Bay Area lives in the same zone with local zones ranging from Coastal Plains Heavy Fog Belt to Northern Inland Valleys. For a close-up view of the map where you can choose your zone, click here.

Now, that you've selected your city — or at least one in the same zone — input your square feet of landscaping, and you'll get your water budget in thousands of gallons. But what does that mean in terms of what you're growing?

That's where the Estimated Total Water Use calculation comes in. Click on the ETWU tab on the bottom of the page. Now, you can determine how much water your landscaping likely drinks, based on how thirsty your plants are. You can even look up which species of flowers, trees and shrubs are water hogs and which are sippers by clicking here to consult the "Water Use Classification of Landscape Species: A Guide to the Water Needs of Landscape Plants." It classifies species according to "high," "medium" or "low" water use.

To meet state regulations, the Estimated Total Water Use of a site must not exceed that site's Maximum Applied Water Allowance. Play around with these spreadsheets, and you'll get an idea of how your own yard compares to the water-sipping future that state regulators envision.

Happy water budgeting!

Shower Water is Key to Local Man’s Unique System

CARLSBAD, Calif. --April, 2010: A Carlsbad man has invented a unique system that could save homeowners water and thousands of dollars.

Kevin Norton, an eco innovation consultant, has developed a grey water system that re-uses water from his shower and bathtub -- twice -- using supplies found at a local hardware store.

Powered by a small solar panel, the system sucks water off the shower floor, through some PVC pipes and into a collection basin. Norton's basin is a repurposed garbage can

From there, Norton pumps the shower water through a drip irrigation system in his landscaping. He said the system saves hundreds of gallons of water every day and cut his most recent water bill 30 percent. Water is kept from going into the sewer system with a simple drain stopper.

"You can get it at Home Depot or Lowe's for about a $1.25," Norton told 10News.

A patent is pending on Norton's invention and a couple of companies are talking with him about manufacturing on a wide scale.

The system could save homeowners thousands of dollars, and Norton estimates it will cost between $500 and $700. A full-grade grey water system would cost upwards of $10,000. It would also need a series of permits because it would require changing the plumbing in your foundation.

Of course, those systems are nearly impossible to install without tearing apart part of a home's concrete foundation. Norton's invention can be installed simply through a wall or the pipes could be run out of a window.

Norton said, "It took me an hour-and-a-half to put it in. It’ll take me about 30 minutes to take it down.

"I’m doing this to help maybe empower homeowners to start conserving water and to do their part," Norton added.

Click to see the Video about Kevin’s Invention