Presented in June, 2008 at two workshops entitled Tools and Techniques for Meeting Your Water Use Efficiency Goals. Presentation makes a case for conserving water resources, discusses methods for estimating the cost and savings for various conservation measures, and provides resources for the audience to reference in their evaluation efforts.
When water supplies dwindle, hydropower output suffers. As a general rule, a 1% decrease in runoff produces a greater than 1% decrease in hydropower production. In the Colorado River Basin, an EPA study found that one hydropower dam produces 36% less electricity when flows are down only 10%.
In the West, 75% of all water supply is stored in the form of snowpack. Some estimates claim that by 2060, the total snowpack in the West will have declined by 40%. Increased Flooding causes increased turbidity levels in reservoirs. As temperatures increase, there are more chances for rain events in favor of snowfall. 50% of all federally declared disasters today are related to floods. More than wildfires and earthquakes combined.
The process for obtaining a new water right is a long process. This graph compares the amount of applications that are actually processed each year with that of new applications and existing overall pending applications. As you can tell, more applications are coming than are being processed. The DOE has been instructed to evaluate necessary environmental flows for certain basins that contain endangered species, such as certain kinds of salmon. This is a directive that has resulted from the Endangered Species Act, which lists the Columbia River and Puget Sound basins as habitats for endangered Salmon. DOE is in the process of looking at what the minimum flow for maintaining a healthy environment for the salmon, a sort of water right for the fish, and the status of water right holders in these critical basins may be affected. Adjudication has taken place in some watersheds where water rights are no longer available. The Town of Roslyn nearly lost their ability to supply water to residents in summer months because their water right was not senior enough in the adjudication process. Eventually they were able to negotiate the purchase of an older water right, but the town had a bit of a scare.
Change Applications take place when a water right holder wishes to change their place of use or purpose of use. Many water right holders like municipal suppliers are looking to expand their right as growth occurs, and DOE has been directed to focus their efforts on change applications instead of new water right applications. Conservation on everyone’s part allows for those with junior water rights to continue to use water in times of scarcity or drought.
Having context helps you address concerns from the public, your board, or city council, and your customers. For many cities, especially rural towns that have become accustomed to having an abundance of water at their fingertips, and so conservation has been an afterthought. “Conservation is for people that live in the desert.” Or “Let’s just let plumbing codes take care of the problem”. It just was not a concern until perhaps the last 20 years or so, and in some cases, until 2007 when the MWL went into effect. A stitch in time saves nine. We’ve all heard it. Some of us with a little bit of regularity from our parents when growing up. We’ve seen across the country and around the world that conservation is a proactive way to address future supply concerns – and it works. WA has been wise to look around at our neighbors (like California) and say “Let’s not let this happen to us”. “Let’s start working on this now.” This is a cost saving exercise, and it is one that every water supplier has a duty to perform.
As I said, the overall purpose of this presentation is to discuss how to perform a Cost-Effective analysis as a way to Evaluate your Conservation Measures. When it comes to evaluating measures, the better data you have, the greater success your evaluation will be. Generally speaking, Quantitative data is centered around numbers and statistics. Qualitative data is centered around words. Personal accounts and such. No question about it, it is easier to evaluate measures that produce results you can track with hard numbers.
Handing out a low flow shower head will save a half gallon per minute per shower per day. 2 showers per day at 8 minutes per shower times 365 days a year = type it into your little fake calculator and Wha-La! You have a set amount of water you can point to and say “this is how much we saved”. Measures that require qualitative data, like public education programs and demonstration gardens, are more difficult to quantify. I will offer an example of how to do this after we take a break. The good news is you do not have to evaluate a measure if you choose to implement it. Let me say that again, because it is important and I want you to feel less stress at the end of today. If you decide to have a public education program, then you do not have to evaluate it for cost-effectiveness. BUT! If you find that you aren’t reaching your goal, you may have to change your program, and without knowing whether your public education program is working, you won’t know if you should change it.
Calculating the Cost of Producing Water is critical to the process. If you don’t calculate the cost of producing water, it is difficult to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of measures. Before I go any further, I want to say that I’m not an expert on calculating the cost of water. There are several well qualified financial consultants, some of which may be here with us today, that can tell you the best way to go about calculating the cost of water. What I offer is a starting point. If you don’t have the time or resources to do an extensive analysis on the cost of producing water, this is a quick way to estimate it until you do have time. For those that have ample supply and the ability to increase your output at existing facilities, the calculation is simple. For those that are at or near their maximum output and are evaluating future water sources, you’ll want to include the additional fixed costs for expansion, whether they are low, such as adding an additional pump or wellhead at an existing site, or high, such a finding a new site, purchasing the land, building the infrastructure from scratch, etc. The important thing is to establish cost assumptions that your ratepayers, your board, or your council can support, and always use standard accounting principals in your calculations. This includes putting costs into current dollars and/or future dollars, inflation assumptions, etc. Second, remember that system expansion is most often driven by development, and growth pays for growth. So any costs incurred for extending pipe in the system should remain separate from the cost of producing additional water. The overall goal here is find that magic number that you can always point to and say “on paper, this measure is worth doing”. This, of course, is the cost-effectiveness method.
Try to include measures for all customer types will place the burden on everyone. If there’s an attitude of “we’re all in this together”, then not only are you being inclusive, you are also and avoiding responses like “if they’re not doing it, then why should I?”. Examining seasonal patterns will help you further define the measures you need. Many systems experience the most problems during the peak demand season, and outdoor measures Especially when it comes to Public Education programs, identify the customers and community leaders that are strongly connected in the community. Find those “early adopters” and “sales persons”. Turn this into a social epidemic. Customers that complain about their water bill. They might as well have a bulls eye painted on their chest. New meters with SCADA technology can also automatically detect leaks. When meter reading occurs, a red flag is triggered. A perfect candidate for your leak detection and repair program. Leak detection kits can be distributed at that moment or at the next meter read.
Especially when it comes to Public Education programs, identify the customers and community leaders that are strongly connected in the community. Find those “early adopters” and “sales persons”. Turn this into a social epidemic. Make sure your field staff are on board with your conservation program. They are the faces of your organization, and customers often look to field workers for advice and their take on the issue.
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