Are your water conservation dollars being used appropriately? Recently I have looked at how we utility conservation folks evaluate conservation programs. What measures do we choose? Why? How do we know they work? I've come to some conclusions.
First, let me begin by saying that I group measures into two categories. Information or educational types of measures and infrastructure types of measures. Our customers need to have the information to know why and how they can save water. But, everyone knows that just because you know you should do something doesn't mean you will act on that knowledge. If we really want people to save water we have to make easy. That's why we give out rebates for washing machines and toilets. A push to put the infrastructure in place.
Most measures, I conclude, are chosen for emotional reasons. We get the reaction from our customers and run with it. An example is rain barrels. A rain barrel holds 55 gallons of water which in the scheme of things is not that much. Our customers love rain barrels. They know they are making a difference however small. Its a good thing. Our customers respond to certain programs like this. Poster contests involve many of our customers through their children. There is nothing like seeing your children's work up on a calendar on their wall! We can't quantify the water savings, but again, our guts say getting the word out this way is successful.
Albert Einstein had a saying on his door - Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. This is my mantra these days. Conservation measures are very difficult to evaluate. Educational measures are especially difficult. Is that decrease in water consumption due to the wonderful outreach our utility has been doing or to the wet summer weather. . . Hard to tell. Of course good conservation professionals keep track of how many brochures are given out, how many shower heads have been distributed or even make follow up phone calls to find out if those toilet test dye tablets were used. But actually water savings is hard to measure.
In these days of watching our decreasing budgets, we must be able to equate numbers to measures. To compare the dollar amounts spent to the dollars saved by delayed need for new water sources. Luckily, there are studies out there that the rest of us can look at and base assumptions on. The City of Seattle participated in the Residential End Uses of Water Study in 2000 which still gives us reliable information on where water is being used in the home. The Alliance for Water Efficiency web page houses studies and reports about high efficiency washers, toilets, showerheads and faucets. EPA's WaterSense webpage has specifications for recommended retrofits and draft specifications for weather based irrigation controllers.
Utilities choose measures that educate as well as measures that they can assign a number of gallons saved. For example replacing a 3.5 gallon per flush toilet with one that uses 1.28 gallons per flush will definitely save 2.2 gallons per flush. Easy to quantify. However, even programs like these are hard to evaluate. When following up on replacement of fixtures, one conservation professional found that water use had increased in some customer accounts. How? Well she found out that the customer's daughter moved back in with three year old twins. There lies another evaluation problem.
My conclusion is evaluation is important up to a point. Its difficult and it rarely gets done and that OK. The assumptions of water savings are valid. Utilities use common sense, information available and, most importantly, they know their customers. They use these tools to choose measures that are appropriate for their customers.
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