The Phoenix City Council this month approved a list of water conservation measures in an effort to reduce water use from 169 to 155 gallons per capita per day by the year 2030.
The range of voluntary initiatives includes:
- "Evaluating the feasibility” of a new rebate for toilets.
- Expanding a landscape audit program for HOAs.
- Offering free xeriscape plans for city residents who want to move away from thirsty lawns.
- Outreach to businesses to persuade them to use water efficient technology in their cooling towers.
- Expansion of public awareness efforts.
Fourteen proposals came out of the work of an ad hoc water conservation committee. The only committee proposal rejected by the council was a $10,000 contest to redesign the fountain in front of Phoenix City Hall.
The toilet rebate tackles the biggest indoor water use in city households, according to a 2016 study cited in the final report of the committee. Phoenix toilets average 32 gallons per day and 2.2 gallons per flush.
So come next summer, if your new toilet uses only 1.28 gallons per flush, the city may give you a $75 rebate.
“To make sure that it’s affordable for people to replace their toilet and for us to pay for the replacement, we’re doing the rebate,” said Phoenix City Councilwoman Thelda Williams in an interview.
The water level of 1.28 gallons per flush coincides with the EPA’s WaterSense standard. Phoenix would join Scottsdale, Avondale, Gilbert, Chandler, and Tucson as Arizona cities that offer a rebate for installing WaterSense-compatible fixtures.
Phoenix would also continue to pay for toilet replacements for low-income people in old homes.
WaterSense-compatible household fixtures are not required by the EPA, although there is a federal requirement that new toilets use a maximum of 1.6 gallons per flush. Many older toilets use much more than that.
The City of Scottsdale requires new construction of homes and businesses to install WaterSense-compatible toilets, faucets, and showerheads, something that’s unique among the 10 Valley cities who are members of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association.
Phoenix’s new conservation measures stop short of that, instructing city staff to “update building codes on a 3-year cycle,” which would allow them to keep up with “the most efficient technologies available in water conservation.”
Updates to building codes from the International Code Council (ICC) come out every three years.
“We don’t always adopt them in the three-year cycle,” said City Planning and Development Director Alan Stephenson. “What this recommendation is doing is requiring staff to look at it every three years to see, do we want to adopt it, and [where are] the water conservation measures to ensure that we do adopt those?”
The ICC Code says WaterSense-compatible fixtures are acceptable, but not required, according to Stephen Dudley in Phoenix’s Planning and Development Department. The next ICC Code comes out in 2021.
The conservation programs Phoenix adopted incentivize people and businesses to save water. They’re not mandatory, and that is intentional.
“We want to know exactly how much water we’re going to get for how much we’re going to spend and what effort it’s going to take on the part of our citizens” before adopting more restrictive conservation measures, said Cynthia Campbell of the Phoenix Water Services Department.
She said the city will study these programs while they are implementing them. “We’re going to see just how much water we’re saving.”
The new programs come as the Colorado River system enters “shortage,” which will require mandatory cutbacks for some users in Arizona (but not Phoenix). The City gets about 40% of its water from that river.
The proposed start-up cost of the conservation programs is $1,540,600 and the annual cost is $1,330,800. The final amounts will be subject to next year’s budget process.
Altogether, the estimated water savings is a minimum of 314,801,280 gallons annually, which is 1.15 times what the City uses in one entire day. Water savings due to the education component, however, are difficult to determine.
