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Water Policies:
Encouraging Conservation
This summary is a shortened, condensed version of the Full Article.
Executive Summary
This third article in a series on water focuses on the wide range of regulations, codes, incentives, and other policies that are being used to bring about reductions in water use.
Product standards have established maximum water use for toilets and other fixtures, and have had a tremendous effect on water savings since first being implemented in the 1990s; California has passed legislation that will further reduce water use of toilets and urinals starting in 2010.
Plumbing codes establish rules relating to how products are installed, and they can affect graywater collection, waterless urinals, and the increasingly common and wasteful installation of multiple showerheads in shower stalls.
Voluntary labeling programs help specifiers and building owners identify water-conserving products.
Tiered pricing of water, where the cost per unit goes us with greater consumption, provides direct financial incentives to use less.
Direct payments to property owners for removing water-intensive turf, giving away free water-conserving plumbing fixtures, or providing rebates for such products continue to be tremendously successful.
In water-stressed areas, restrictions on development or high fees for hook-ups are controlling development and providing revenue to fund water conservation programs. Outright bans on certain water features, such as fountains and turf may appear in certain areas.
Among the more unusual programs appearing in California and a few other areas are water-demand offset programs in which a developer must offset some multiplier of the projected water consumption from a new project as a condition of permitting. Another fairly new—and controversial approach—is the retrofit-on-resale ordinance that requires a building to be upgraded with water-conserving plumbing fixtures at the time of resale.
Emergency ordinances that prohibit or restrict certain, primarily outdoor, water uses, such as lawn watering and car washing, are widely implemented in areas affected by drought.
Finally, requirements for water metering and submetering ensure that building owners understand their water consumption, which encourages conservation.
DISCUSSIONSReader-contributed comments related to EBN: 17:9 - Water Policies: Encouraging Conservation. Comments are listed with newest at the top.
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Although the article aptly describes many approaches that can be critical for reducing water use, it fails to address fundamental differences between performative and prescriptive approaches to encouraging water conservation, the most salient difference being that the former encourages innovation while the latter does not. A performance-based system aims most directly at the overall goal of responsible water use. If a building is designed to use an acceptable amount of municipal water and sewer capacity and if the owner is willing to pay the determined true cost for the service, shouldn’t that house be permissible regardless of what fixtures or appliances are contained within? Such an approach could be the basis for a rational water policy that both satisfies a regional need and provides latitude for individual innovation.
By presenting both approaches on par, the article avoids the question of priority. I argue that municipalities, for instance, should focus on establishing and communicating fair allocation and pricing of resources given the limited supply rather than restricting choices of appliances and fixtures. Doing so would communicate the true cost of the water to consumers who can then independently prioritize water use. The homeowner considering a new decadent water fountain will then be forced to account for its water use through conservation in other areas, paying an appropriately high price for the water, or replacing it with a waterless sculpture, such as one of those plywood pink flamingos with its plastic feet rotating in the breeze. While there’s no accounting for taste, individual responsibility and choice are essential elements of conservation through innovation.