D. Manage water demand through education, pricing, technical assistance, and regulation
While Metro Boston is blessed with relatively abundant water supplies (averaging 44 inches of rain per year), there is often a mismatch between supply and demand. Water suppliers are increasingly finding that their wells produce less water, and a lower quality of water, during summer months, or have seen their reservoirs drop dangerously low. Even when water is physically available for human uses, its withdrawal from surface or groundwater resources may impact the local environment, native flora and fauna, scenic beauty, and recreation opportunities. In some cases, municipal well pumping causes the desiccation and degradation of nearby wetlands that purify and store water. Municipalities seeking additional water to support new growth over the coming decades will find fewer opportunities for new source development, and may find permitting new sources to be time consuming, expensive, and uncertain due to the growing understanding of how water withdrawals affect environmental resources.
Our current water situation is partly due to local water policies that tend to promise abundance and promote consumption, effectively treating municipal water supply enterprise as if it were a private sector business. In the face of increasing scarcity and growing understanding of environmental costs, we can no longer think of water as a limitless commodity that should be sold as cheaply as possible. Water suppliers, municipal officials, and customers must move together toward greater sustainability in our finite water resources. The solutions may not be easy or immediate, but together the region can reduce water demand so there is sufficient supply for both humans and wildlife.
There are many strategies that communities can use to reduce water use demand. Public education is a fundamental prerequisite for the success of water conservation programs, and should be the first strategy implemented. However, outreach and education are only one component of a comprehensive water demand management program. Conservation pricing, landscaping irrigation controls, better metering and water accounting, upgrading inefficient plumbing fixtures, and direct water use regulation all require more time, investment, and political commitment than public outreach, but they are essential to success.
Municipal officials and water suppliers need to adopt a sustainability model similar to those emerging in the energy field, where conservation is seen as an alternative to system expansion. Because conservation is equivalent to a new source of supply, water suppliers should fund and support conservation programs just as they would a pay for new source engineering services—as part of the cost of doing business, paid for through full-cost water pricing, accounting for both environmental costs and investments in demand management. Full-cost pricing also requires the establishment of enterprise accounts so that water system revenues are kept separate from general municipal revenues, to avoid cross-subsidies that obscure the true costs of supplying water to the community.
Peak demand drives the cost of water supply, since water supply systems must be capable of meeting maximum demand under the most extreme circumstances. Dealing with Reducing peak demand also requires participation from all sectors. Property owners need to curb their summertime demand through low-water landscaping. Developers and engineers must become skilled in water efficient site design, and advanced irrigation systems.
11) Increase public awareness regarding water conservation
In order to achieve fundamental changes in patterns of water use in the region, residents and businesses must have a greater awareness about the region’s water resources, the impacts of excessive water use, and the need for conservation. Customers must understand how their actions affect the natural environment and how conservation measures can save them money. Pricing structures, technology, outdoor use restrictions, and development standards all depend on the water user for their effectiveness. Without an educated consumer who is aware of cause, effect, and solution, efforts to change behavior will be ill-received and ineffective.
11.a Water utilities should establish a water conservation coordinator position, funded by water system revenues
11.b The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs should establish a State Water Conservation Coordination Coordinator
11.c Public water suppliers should implement public education and outreach campaigns regarding water conservation
11.d Public water suppliers and municipalities should pursue opportunities for regional water conservation education campaigns
11.e Public agencies and private landowners should establish low-water demonstration gardens and pilot projects for alternative turf athletic fields
11.f Water suppliers should establish funding programs to support demonstration gardens and pilot programs
11.g Water suppliers and municipalities should collaborate to establish water education programs in public schools
12) Adopt water pricing structures as a primary mechanism to manage water demand
Water is both a necessity and a scarce commodity. This makes it important that water pricing discourages unnecessary and wasteful use while maintaining affordability for essential uses. Because a significant portion of water use is non-essential, there is considerable elasticity in demand with respect to price, meaning that if the price of a given quantity of water increases, consumers are encouraged to reduce their costs through reduced discretionary use and more efficient technology. In the short term, a 10% increase in the cost of water for single family residential customers can result in roughly a 1% to 2% decrease in summer water consumption. In the long run, the same price increase can reduce summer water use by approximately 2% to 5%.
Conservation-oriented pricing structures can be designed to be revenue neutral. As the rate burden is shifted to customers who use the most water or who use it most wastefully, rates decrease for customers using less water. Rates can also be structured to recover the full cost of delivering water, even as overall consumption decreases.
Many water systems in Massachusetts use a uniform rate structure in which customers pay the same rate for each gallon of water. This type of rate does not distinguish between essential and non-essential uses, between efficient and wasteful use, or between usage when supplies are high and usage when supplies are low. By structuring rates so that the price increases above certain usage levels or during certain time periods, customers will be encouraged to reduce water consumption, and/or to reduce peak use.
Most rate structures contain both an upfront fixed charge and per unit commodity charges covering the water used. There are a number of different ways to structure the commodity rates to discourage wasteful use. These include:
- Increasing block pricing, in which the price per gallon of water increases with the amount of water consumed;
- Seasonal rates, which charge more for each gallon of water in the summer when demand is greater and supplies are lower (and can be superimposed on block water rates);
- Other strategies to quantify the discretionary use of each customer and to charge higher rates for the water used for discretionary purposes. These strategies include targeted use rates based on projected essential household demand; separate outdoor meters; and fees or discounts based on the use of water efficient technologies.
Regardless of the rate structure, universal metering is a prerequisite for the success of conservation-oriented rates. Also, water systems must read meters and bill customers frequently to give feedback in time to influence customer behavior.
The New England Water Works Association Conservation Committee is developing a Best Management Practice document regarding pricing structures.
12.a Water utilities should ensure 100% metering of all public sector and private users with meters of proper size and accuracy
12.b Water utilities should bill all customers at least quarterly, preferably monthly, and should use water bills to educate consumers about consumption and conservation opportunities
12.c Water utilities in the region should adopt increasing block rate structures
12.d Water utilities should adopt seasonal rate structures that charge higher unit costs during peak demand periods
12.e Water utilities that permit outdoor meters should enact higher water rates for outdoor meters to send an appropriate conservation signal to consumers
13) Use full cost pricing and use water revenues to fund conservation programs
All water utilities should establish a water pricing structure that includes the full cost of operating, maintaining, and protecting the water supply system. Water revenues should be kept separate from the municipality’s general fund, in order to prevent cross-subsidies.
A full cost water pricing structure includes, but is not limited to the following:
- A comprehensive water conservation program, including retrofits, rebates, audits, education, leak detection, and advanced metering technology;
- Staff costs, including training and professional development;
- Pumping, maintenance, electricity, and fuel;
- Treatment plant costs;
- Distribution system operation, repair, and maintenance;
- Purchase or protection costs for watershed lands, well sites, aquifer recharge areas, or recharge sites; and
- A capital replacement fund, capital depreciation account, and debt service.
Full cost pricing can take the form of any rate structure so long as all costs are recovered through prices. Water systems should perform a rate evaluation at least once every two years to adjust rates to cover the cost of unanticipated capital needs, inflation and changing demand as needed.
13.a All municipal water utilities should utilize enterprise accounts
13.b EOEEA should develop a methodology for assessing environmental costs of water withdrawals
14) Increase the use of low-water landscaping
Municipalities can help to reduce water demand for irrigation by integrating landscaping best practices into existing site plan guidelines, zoning bylaws, and subdivision rules and regulations.
Since irrigation demand is directly correlated with lawn size, local bylaws limiting the extent of turf (either in terms of square footage or as a percentage of the total lot) have had considerable success in reducing irrigation demand in development subject to the limitations. By-laws may also encourage the use of native plants, require the preservation of existing plant communities, and/or require a certain depth of soil and percentage of organic content to ensure adequate moisture retention.
Locally, there are a few examples of landscape requirements. The Town of Falmouth enacted by-laws requiring Xeriscape (“a landscape designed with native, drought-tolerant species which require little fertilizer”) for all applicable projects (“all development projects other than single- or two-family dwellings that require a special permit or review”), unless a drip/mist irrigation system or a private well irrigation source is used (of course, private wells still have hydrologic impacts and result in a net loss of water from the watershed to the atmosphere, and therefore should be subject to the same irrigation restrictions and reporting requirements as municipal water).
The Town of Sharon also has a provision requiring development in “Rural and Suburban 2” districts to retain at least 50% of the lot in natural vegetation, and requiring building lots in Conservation Subdivision Design developments to have at least 15% of the lot in natural vegetation. Experience in Sharon suggests that enforcement is problematic. Some observers have reported that developers simply leave “natural areas” bare, and homeowners seed them with lawn grass immediately after purchasing their new home from the developer.
While Sharon and Falmouth created new by-laws, other communities may instead opt to include similar provisions in zoning by-laws, subdivision rules and regulations, or site plan review standards.
14.a Municipalities should adopt landscaping regulations or incorporate landscaping best practices into existing land use controls
14.b Property owners should amend their soil with organic content to reduce or eliminate the need for irrigation
14.c Water utilities should consider rebate programs for landscape conversion
15) Provide technical assistance to residents and businesses
Water audits offer detailed information to targeted classes of users. An audit includes a customer-specific on-site survey of water usage patterns and specific recommendations for increasing water efficiency. It may also involved distributing and/or installing water-saving devices. Audits can be conducted for both indoor and outdoor use for residential and nonresidential customers.
Some utilities offer audits to all residential customers; others target a subset of residences based on water use or on housing type (for example, age of housing stock, or single family houses only, or high water use households only). Residential audits can include indoor, outdoor, or both. Non-residential audits may also include both indoor and outdoor evaluations. Some commercial and institutional customers with large landscapes may be good targets for outdoor water use audits, similar to those described in the residential outdoor audits section.
Indoor water use audits for large commercial, industrial, and/or institutional users can be highly site-specific and require specialized knowledge of the systems and processes involved. Industrial users may be hesitant to allow auditors access to systems for confidentiality reasons, and may be unwilling to commit the time required for a complex audit. In communities where industrial users are a large source of year-round water demand, improving process water efficiency with these users may substantially reduce year-round water use
In order to improve the likelihood that the recommended measures will be implemented and the potential water savings will be realized, audit programs might require participants to implement some of the measures recommended by the audit (e.g. those with no more than a specified payback period) or be charged the price of the audit.
15.a The Commonwealth should establish a funding program and guidance to support water audit programs
15.b MAPC should explore opportunities for joint purchasing of water audit services
15.c Water suppliers in stressed watersheds should require mandatory water audits, at the time of sale or when existing residences connect to the public water supply
15.d Watershed organizations should expand educational landscaping and water conservation workshops for customers
15.e Nurseries and community organizations should collaborate to make native, low-water plants a staple of fundraising plant sales
16) Establish and enforce standards and restrictions for outdoor irrigation systems
The intensity of peak demands has grown in recent years due in part to the proliferation of automatic irrigation systems. These systems generally involve a series of sprinkler heads connected by piping or hoses, controlled by a central automatic timing device so that they operate on a regular schedule without requiring any human intervention.
Although irrigation systems can be designed to apply water precisely and efficiently, in practice they often irrigate more frequently and more heavily than necessary because of their automated nature. As they have spread from professionally managed and carefully monitored applications at golf courses and agricultural operations, to residential and commercial developments where they receive less oversight, they have become more and more wasteful of water. While the most sophisticated irrigation systems can distribute water where and when it is needed based on plant types, site and soil conditions, and recent weather patterns, the more basic systems have the potential to waste enormous quantities of water, running longer than necessary, spraying water onto paved areas, springing leaks, and even running during rainstorms. The Franklin Water Department estimated that homes with automatic systems consumed an average of five times the water than the typical household. The excessive irrigation, ironically, makes outdoor watering bans more likely by draining supplies, and also weakens plants through overwatering.
Recent improvements in technology have made it possible to increase the efficiency of irrigation systems (through local real-time or daily evapotranspiration rates). There are many alternative landscaping choices (including native lawns) that do not require irrigation, and higher standards or restrictions for irrigation systems may encourage many property owners to adopt such landscaping.
16.a Municipalities should establish restrictions on the use of automatic irrigation systems
16.b Property owners should increase the use of “smart” irrigation systems
17) Establish comprehensive programs to directly regulate water usage during peak periods
Until a municipality or water district establishes by-laws or other regulations authorizing officials to restrict water usage, the options available in a time of water shortage are only extremes: on one end of the spectrum, officials can request voluntary reduction of water use, and on the other, they can petition for the declaration of a state of emergency by Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
A preferable, proactive approach involves multiple techniques that can be tied to local conditions and phased in as necessary to prevent a crisis and minimize environmental impact of peak season withdrawals. Generally, such an approach is built on a legal framework that involves four components: indicators, triggers, restriction measures, and enforcement. The importance of the last component—enforcement—must not be underestimated. Too many Massachusetts communities have water use restrictions on the books that are either not enforced, or not effective due to jurisdictional uncertainty, lack of political will, or lack of significant penalties.
State entities also need to implement more aggressive drought response policies. In 2007 the Massachusetts Drought Management Task Force waited to declare a drought until after many perennial streams had already dried up. The U.S. Drought Monitor (http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html), updated weekly, indicated a “moderate drought” in Massachusetts in late August, long before the Drought Management Task Force finally issued a Drought Advisory on October 10, long after withdrawals in July, August and September had already depleted groundwater reserves that provide base flow to streams.
As a condition of their modified water withdrawal permit from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, both Danvers and Middleton have implemented a water use restriction system tied to streamflows in the Ipswich River.
17.a Each water utility should define Peak Water Demand Indicators and associated conservation measures
18) Increase incentives for installing water-efficient products
Even if water users understand the need for water conservation and know that they should be using more efficient technology inside, more water-conserving landscaping, and fewer, more efficient irrigation systems, the cost and/or the effort associated with obtaining replacements for their existing materials may be enough to prevent or delay them from doing so. To reduce the burden on the consumer, municipalities or water utilities can offer rebates, vouchers, or can provide the materials themselves. This reduces the customer’s investment by paying all or some of the costs of the products, and can make the products easier to acquire, either by providing them directly or by increasing the demand and giving vendors more cause to sell those products. Because these programs require active participation by customers, advertising and public education are critical to their success. The US EPA has a new “WaterSense” labeling program for water-efficient products, similar to the Energy Star program.
18.a Massachusetts Board of Building Regulations and Standards should regularly update the State Plumbing Code to account for efficiency advances
18.b Water utilities should implement and expand rebate and voucher programs
18.c Water utilities should explore the use of fees & discount systems
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