Looking for Research on Watering Restrictions

Check out South Africa they they have a restrictions which requires the home owner to actually stand out in the lawn and water with a hand held sprayer. Here are some websites that might help http://www.denverwater.org/ This article covers the Denver water restrictions. The Denver Water Board may have the research they used to develop these guidlines http://www.denvergov.org/newsarticle.asp?id=5668 IN 2005 there were no watering restrictions for the city of Boulder but that was the first year in several that there weren't. The watering recommendations are at this site along with the city's drought plan http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/publicworks/depts/utilities/conservation/restrictions.html In Western States we have special water rights courts to deal with water issues. Water law is a separate body of law and the lawyers and judges need to be specialists in this type of law. The first case on water issues to go the US Supreme Court is likely to come from Colorado in as early as 2008. As of this time, the only Justice with a background in Water Law is Sandra Day OConnor. At issue will be if cities and counties are responsible for seeing if developments have adequate resources in perpetuity (sustainable development). Beginning in 2008 running through 2012 an increasing number of home owners will lose their water. When the land was developed between in 1988-1992, the water rights were severed from the land and the City of Denver bought them as a 20 year future. In practice what this means is that is that those home owners (about 40 square miles of them) have the water to use for their households and lawns. Beginning in 2008 the water becomes the property of Denver and will be piped to their water district and these home owners, many of them the second or third since the area was developed, lose their water.

Beth:

A number of Australia's urban centres have tackled the issue of water shortages in the last few years. Perth, Western Australia, has had a comprehensive regime of water conservation measures (most authorities in Australia now term what were "restrictions" as "conservation" measures - more positive :-)). Anyway, Perth is recognised as having successfully managed public opinion and behaviour of consumers in reducing water consumption over the long term, since 1999. A good contact if you want to follow up is John Brennan, [email protected]  The state of Victoria has instituted permanent water conservation measures which permanently ban some activities, as follows: Use manual watering systems only between 8 pm and 10 am Use automatic watering systems only between 10 pm and 10 am Fit your hose with a trigger nozzle No hosing paved areas Apply to fill a new pool. For info go to <http://www.vic.gov.au/VictoriaOnline?action=executeQuery&taxonomy=&id=5158&
breadcrumbs=[Topic]Environment^5158&currentId=[Topic]Environment">

A number of other cities have implemented similar measures in Australia, and the emphasis is less on punitive actions and more on a holistic apporach of introducing equipment that will result in less water being used, forging strategic partnerships with industry e.g. nursery, irrigaiton and the plumbing industries, and policies that promote waterwise behaviour. If you are interested in more info and resources on this topic I'm happy to oblige.

Anne Currey
Naturally Resourceful
Pty Ltd Editor-in-Chief, Irrigation Australia

The Las Vegas Valley Water District has developed watering restrictions: "Drought Alert Mandatory Watering Restrictions ..." www.lvvwd.com/ While watering restrictions have been in effect here, not much has been done to curb growth and development of new properties (including golf courses, etc.) that require more water and not much has been done to curb the politics of water rights with "grandfather clauses" and those of hotels/casinos (although, to their credit many are recycling and using "gray water" in public water features). The issue of state vs. individual rights is argued constantly as the state is looking to curtail water usage and homeowners are looking to plant grass instead of going with natural desert landscaping. It's generally agreed that this area will continue to require more and more water and plans seem to be underway to take it from other areas. In other words.....this area is a major problem on its way to becoming worse......

Julie Wignall

Biodynamics Inc.
7265 W. Coley Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89117
(702) 368-4994
Fax: (702) 368-4998

How about the logic of "what is over watering and causes leaching of the soil in your area?" Is it 4 hours per day? And if so.. why would anyone water over 4 hours per day? And to water during the "sun" hours is absolutely assinine? Does your area water at night? or "early" in the morning rather than during the day? What about "phoney grass" on the golf courses.. the National Football teams use artificial grass.. why not golf courses? Sure would be a whole lot less maintenance and gross waste of the water resources. Is there really any such thing as grandfather clauses??? I am part of the team trying to save the Shuswap Lake water system.. people keep spouting off "grandfather clauses" .. when in fact "no such thing exists". Make sure you are not getting a crock of "you know what"!!?? Reality is.. find out how much water per day the area actually needs.. what I have discovered over the years in the Kamloops region (semi arid) is that most people.. including idiotic golf courses... tend to over water ... at the wrong times. WE only need a max of several hours water per day.. anything more is a gross misuse and waste of water resources...and causes major leachate of the valuable soil components and leads to over fertilizing... Is that what is going on in your region too?? People just being stupid about a very precious resource? We had one idiot that would leave her irrigation sprinklers running for 12-18 hours at a time.. during the hot summer days.. Meanwhile the people on the upper bench didn't have enough water to even shower or do a wash load of clothes. Her logic... "nobody tells me what to do" .. meanwhile we all knew that anything over 4 hours was leaching the soil.. do you think we could get it throughn that morons thick skull?? Not a chance.. go figure... I sure hope you can come up with a way to "educate" people.. so they become part of the solution.. not part of the problem.

Best thoughts in your endeavour...
Deb Bischoff
Shuswap Country (BC Canada)

G'day from Australia, where I spent my Xmas in the pool...

Until real estate agents, design magazines, TV ads and sitcoms show an ideal home as having either no lawn at all, or an all-native garden, we will never get anywhere. I live in the sub-tropics, where you can grow just about anything, from anywhere (yes we have a lot of weed pests). Nevertheless, the standard house garden consists of a lawn and one mango tree. Weekends consist of mowing the lawn. Weekdays consist of working to pay for air-conditioning a house which is standing on a lawn in the blazing sun! Go figure!

Anna Hitchcock
Port Curtis Waterwatch Coordinator
(07) 4970 7293 0412 502 798

There has been quite a bit of traffic on water restrictions over the break. I thought a consumer perspective might be timely. All homes in Perth have a water meter and fees are levied but for supply and use. All water delivered to households is high quality drinking water standard, we have no recycling of domestic water here, although for the last couple of years there has been some easing of restrictions on the use of grey water to allow households to use it on site. This is difficult, and expensive, to do in an existing home, but some up market new homes now have doubling plumbing. Water is sourced from both catchments into dams, and from underground aquifers. We have had domestic water restrictions in Perth since 1999. Households are entitled to water gardens using scheme water (the public supply) twice per week. Days are allocated by the last digit of your house number. Consumers are only allowed to water between 6pm and 9pm. Most people in Perth have automated reticulation systems (the retic) in their gardens broken into timed stations (I have 5). The length of time per station is limited to 15mins by the regulations. The regulations are policed by the Water Authority, and fines are steep after warnings have been issued. Hand watering is allowed at all other times. Many householders here also have a domestic bore which taps ground water for garden use. I have one of these and use it to water most of my acre of land which was a barren unused paddock when I arrived here 6 years ago, now a fantastic site full of great things including food. Domestic bores are installed at personal cost and there is no license fees attached to owning one, but since water restrictions were introduced the time for use is the same as for scheme water: 6pm-9pm. The water from bores in Perth has high iron content and any one who has been here will know the distinctive red stain on many of the buildings. The water authority has also introduced a range of low water use rebated products to consumers including washing machines, shower heads, and wetting agents for gardens the soil here is sandy and water repellant. There has been a large marketing campaign to encourage householders to use less water including the authority website, graphs and charts in the printed media, TV commercials and bill board advertising. There is a great deal of community anxiety about domestic water use. All this seems very positive but from my perspective the restrictions are unfair and discriminate against us (much maligned souls even on this list) who garden both as a hobby and as a contribution to the environment. Under the restrictions I am fined if I water my veggies on the wrong day but my neighbour is not if she tops up her swimming pool! I am penalized if I water my lawn, but brick paving is encouraged obviously by those who know nothing about the water used in the production of bricks (or the toxic gases, or the heat, or the destruction of landscape by quarrying!) Having a garden is one way that ordinary folk can encourage green spaces into their world, and their community, and learn more about their environment. The home garden is the first place that most children ever encounter nature as they encourage bird life, reptiles and small mammals. Gardens are cooling - try 45degrees on brick paving to see if a lawn suits the climate better. Gardens provide recreational space for families without the need to drive, they provide opportunities to grow food and compost domestic waste, they provide health benefits through exercise. Gardens are a benefit not a cost and our communities seemed to work a whole lot better when houses were smaller and gardens were bigger. While there is always room to educate about sensible practices the current pillorying of the home gardener is ill informed and ill conceived. The real water users are manufacturers the imbedded water use in manufactured products is enormous, and is never discussed. Changing the business sector is harder, less politically palatable, and will require a restructuring of all things economic including business legislation and tax. It is the introduction of water saving measures in the economic sector which has the capacity to have real impact on water use over all. Concerns about domestic water use seem to be largely missing the point. They make people feel better achievements may be very limited indeed. My partners mother aged 91 recently fell while bucketing grey water into her toilet because of the drought! It takes 3 litres of water to make one litre of beer, and 4 -11 litres to flush it down afterwards! So lets have less beer and more gardens (as if??)

Kind regards
Peta Wellstead

Freelance Information Services
PO Box 368 GUILDFORD WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6935
Ph 08 9379 8562
Fax 08 6278 2704
[email protected]

Peta is right about Domestic consumers being minimal compared to industry. I live in Gladstone, Qld and recently we had a town scale greywater system installed - basically all the grey water from the Sewage Treatment plant is piped to one of the local industrial sites for reuse in their processes. This volume of water from 20 000 people accounts for only one quarter of their raw water needs. Then again, these industries wouldn't be around if we, the consumer didn't keep buying stuff we don't really need. I was asking a year 4 class recently about ways we could save water. Along with the usual 'turn off the tap while brushing teeth kind of answers, on bright spark said "turn off a light". He was absolutely right, we won't save water until we start living more simply in all aspects of our lives, because everything we use requires water to manufacture or produce, including electricity. Industry here in Gladstone uses 80% of the total water storage. Something to think about, anyway.

Anna Hitchcock

I've been set straight off list about water consumption figures. Roughly (the figures I've been given vary) the major user of water in Australia is irrigated agriculture, then followed by households and then by manufacturing and power type industry.

I guess what Peta was deploring was the demonisation of dripping taps as the major contributor to our water woes. If Food production then is the really major water user, then maybe we need to be sorting out a labelling system for waterwise food, similar to the organic labelling system. Then exports from waterwise farms may be able to command a premium as organic produce does. Don't forget though that farmers are already working on making water go further, as it is a scarce resource. Ultimately, we should never forget that George Perkins Marsh, one of the first true Geographers, worked out Australia's freshwater resources in the late 1800's and predicted that Australia could support a population of 19 million people. (A theory for which he was derided) Funnily enough, here we are in 2006 , with a population of about 20 million and we are having a water crisis. Australia is a dry continent. Maybe we need to learn to live with that and restrict our population to what the land can support, not try to make the land and water do more and more.

Regards,
Anna Hitchcock

In Melbourne, Australia there has been a sustained campaign to reduce domestic water use that has been quite successful. However, it is not widely known or advertised that the domestic water consumption only accounts for approximately fifteen percent (15%) of total water use. Obviously, if this was widely known, it would undermine the campaign. One school of thought is that when the value of water is appreciated and the need to use it efficiently becomes embedded in the mind of the public then programs to reduce water use in industry will be more effective. Maybe...

Cheers
MOC

The statistics from Melbourne are just the point I wanted to highlight. Quite frankly I think a strategy which operates on a dishonest premise and does not provide accurate information to the community is unprofessional and verging on immoral. My other major client load comes from the health behaviour change sector. We all know that misinformation and bad science abounds there too! (with sometimes catastrophic consequences). With the might of the pharmaceutical companies to battle it is a huge problem, and we don't have direct marketing to consumers in Australia yet. Confusing and inaccurate messages lead to wholesale non compliance - just the opposite of what social marketing and behaviour change strategies are trying to achieve. People can inform themselves, and do, and want information which is accurate so they can make changes which really make a difference, both for their own wellbeing and for the community. But they want the whole community to be involved in this, not just the soft target which is the domestic consumer!

Peta

maybe the focus on domestic use is because industry and farmers have powerful and effective political lobby groups.

Anna Hitchcock
Port Curtis Waterwatch Coordinator

Industry and farmers do have effective lobby groups, however, the pressure is on domestic use in urban areas because cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Gold Coast have come up against limits to growth in the last few years, i.e. with increase in per capita water consumption + population growth + prolonged drought, current storage facilities are at their limit. In many of these areas, government has decided that it is preferable to decrease water consumption and rely on other water sources such as recycling (unfortunately Sydney has chosen desalination) rather than build new storages. Farmers have been under the hammer since the early 1990s to improve water use efficiency, and it looks like it is now the turn of urban Australians.

Anne Currey

It's important not to make broad-brush statements and generalisations against farmers and miners (nor any other 'obvious' group of water users) when discussing water use sustainability and related issues. In south west WA, much of the water used by farmers is rainfall collected in their own dams. And it is rain falling directly onto crops and pastures that produces the vast bulk of Australia's grain crops, silage and hay. In the goldfields around Kalgoorlie, most of the process water used by the mining industry is brackish to saline underground water that is unsuitable for potable use. My experience leads me to suggest that, when dealing with complex issues such as water use, it is critically important to break up the various commodity users into specific categories. In this way, suggestions for more efficient use of the commodity can be tailored to meet the needs of each specific group.

Bernie Masters

Bernie is right - it is important to provide information, and campaigns to support uptake of change, to reflect the real circumstances of people's experience. Much of the science and discussion around water use in Australia, and the information to support that, focus on concerns around the large cities on eastern seaboard, and the Murray Darling Basin. Very big problems indeed but not necessarily relevant to issues in other places with different weather systems and farming practice. For instance there has been a large amount of information in the national media about the start to summer being the hottest on record, when in fact it has been the coolest start ever here in south west WA. We need to remember when it comes to information delivery that one size does not fit all on very many issues. Local campaigns to reflect local experience has far greater impact, and have the greatest hope for behaviour change.

Peta

Hi all

It seems to me that the issue of agriculture vs industry vs domestic use is a bit of a furphy - it depends on which audience you are addressing. Obviously in the overall picture, addressing the major users (Ag) will achieve the best results overall. But this won't help a major town who's water is used by industry and domestic. So obviously we need to address the relevant users. There is also an issue of equity (if such a value still exists in the modern Australian political scene) and even though the savings of the urban dripping tap might be small compared to increasing irrigation efficiency, it can help support a sense of we're all in this together and we're all doing our bit. At the AWA conference on urban water use efficiency held in Sydney last year, Dr Peter Coombes pointed out that current regulations prevent the use of rainwater in urban areas for hotwater systems, but that his research showed that; a. using rainwater through the hotwater system as well was safe from a health perspective (farmers have known that for years!) and, b. it yielded a much higher return in water savings than any other scenario. (see AWA journal 'Water' vol 32 no 2 Mar 2005 - also some other excellent articles on demand management) Yet our public health rules make the use of RW in hotwater systems illegal! Perhaps it is time to review many of our regulations that were developed at a time that water was seen as an infinite resource to see if they are still appropriate. Making people more self sufficient for water will also hopefully make them more responsive to the realities of climate variability and change - you don't find farmers wasting domestic water because they know where it comes from! It seems to me that some of our woes come from the centralisation of infrastructure and the transfer of responsibility to a bureaucracy. This results in the distancing of responsibility from the end user. Self sufficient country people have for generations demonstrated that if people look after their own water supply, they are not condemned to plague. Certainly, in a densely populated city we need protection from bad practice, but people can take much more responsibility for them selves without threatening the system (except perhaps the powerbase of the bureaucrats!). On a separate note - an issue that needs to be addressed in urban water use efficiency is the issue of rental housing. How can we encourage uptake of improved water efficiency when many of the solutions proposed are capital in nature, and the renter can't 'adapt' the house?

Cheers
Richard Swinton

Resource Management Officer NSW
DPI Wollongbar Agricultural Institute
1243 Bruxner Highway Wollongbar, 2477
Phone 02 6626 1362
Mobile 0427 201 942
Fax 02 6628 1744
[email protected]

Re: Richard's comments on renting.

As someone who has lived in many rental houses, you are given with your lease a certain amount of water to use for free. This is usually up to the point at which the fixed tariff changes to an excess water bill for owners. In return, you are expected to 'look after' the house and garden. This usally means expending large amounts of water on a lawn and European garden plants which have been poorly chosen and planted in inappropriate spots. As a renter, you don't have the option to reinvent the garden, as a) you would need to get full permission from the owner; b) you don't have the capital to pay for a redesigned garden, and c) why would you work hard on someone else's property?I have known cases where people improved the garden, and had their rent raised as the property value improved! Recently, the local council implemented a 'pay for every drop' water pricing policy. This had an effect on my landlord, as although we still had the right in our lease to use a certain amount of water free of charge, we were sent a letter by the owner asking us to reduce our water use. (We were actually using about 55% of the average household's use at the time) Accordingly, we simply stopped watering the garden. When we moved out, we were questioned by the estate agent as to why the lawn was brown, and luckily I had kept the letter from the owner or we may have been penalised for not 'looking after' the garden. The solution to this issue needs to provide an incentive to both renters and the landlord to save money. Maybe houses which are being rented could be required to have water saving showerheads, and a rainwater tank for the garden. Renters who use less than the full amount of water could then get a rebate of half the money saved, with the other half going to the landlord. Gardens could be required to be only watered from the tank. Landlords who want their gardens 'looked after' would then have to pay to fill this tank. Just some ideas from an eco-warrior who has suffered through ten lawns which refused to stay green and some really Scrooge-like landlords. Happily we have just purchased our own house which we are busily modifying.

Regards,
Anna Hitchcock
Port Curtis Waterwatch Coordinator

Mmmm, I was just thinking! I live in a rural area and rely upon the rain to fill my water tanks. Since living here I have never had to order or pump from the nearby creek for water. We try to save our water, however we are not complete water misers. We would often have two showers per day (small ones). Now my thinking, has anyone done a sliding scale of pro-rata water usage per household for the population of a city/town? the sliding scale would essentially be dictated by the % of water in the catchment minus X % for biological and other reasoning. That way households would be allocated their amount of water per quarter/half year/full year....Overuse would be charged at huge prices!! If they were to install a water tank they would then have greater water capacity within their castles. So I'm wondering if this model of usage has been explored??

happy new year
Paul

The situation for renters is changing rapidly throughout Australia as the various water authorities move towards a user pays system (away from the old fixed + excess approach). The water bill is being split into two components 1. A fixed access fee payable by the landlord and 2. a usage charge payable by the tenant. Of course the tenant will end up paying for the access fee indirectly through their rent. This is starting to have a big impact on low and fixed income households particularly those who are in ministry housing as the various state governments are beginning to pass on the full water charges.

Richard Swinton makes several valid points about water. But he talks about rainwater having restrictions being placed on its domestic use in urban areas without addressing the economics of water use in such areas. While I am reluctant to refer to the dismal science of economics, nonetheless the economic reality is that few people will voluntarily install a rainwater tanks to collect 100% of the rain that falls on their roofs if the cost of the exercise is $5000 and the annual savings are $200 or less. To date in Australia, it is almost unheard of for people not to have enough water to drink or wash in or to cook with, etc. At 60 cents a tonne, it's cheap and, for the vast majority of people, it's readily available. Sadly, at least in WA, the politicians talk about a water crisis where none exists (except in some inland rural areas), so they unsurprising choose not to take actions that will make a major and long-lasting impact on water sustainability issues. Similarly, Mr and Mrs Citizen not surprising don't invest in actions or decisions that could result in major reductions in domestic water use because they prefer to spend their money on other things. Until water charges reach those of Germany (about $2 a tonne, I'm told) or higher, I don't believe that people will take claims of water shortages seriously and hence won't make personal decisions to increase their sustainable use of water.

Bernie Masters

I am wondering if I am a slow learner but my question is how do you get the water out of the tank? Most houses here are built off the plan from building companies specialising in domestic contruction of many homes but a small number of designs (which keeps the price down) and these homes are constructed on a concrete slab with the plumbing embedded so that post contruction renovation of plumbing is almost impossible. If I have all that water in my tank but the only way to get it out is with a tap and a bucket it all seems a bit too difficult, regardless of the cost of installing the tank - or the rebate available to do it. If I have to run a pump to get the water out where do I pump it too, and what happens to that water need when the tank is empty. In rural areas people pay to have their tanks refilled from the scheme water from town, but if I have scheme water already that also seems a bit ridiculous. I think that this might be another example of making consumers feel bad about their water use when what is really needed is industry and government action to develop building codes for housing design so that the consumers can purchase sustainable housing at a comparable price. But that still doesn't do anything about the existing housing stock. Pricing of water definately seems a much better option for curbing high use. Pay for what you use - just like petrol, or coke!

Peta

The simplest retrofit tank option that provides fully autonomous operation consists of a tank with an internal float valve that uses the mains to keep a small amount of water in tank when it hasn't rained for a while and on-demand pressure pump to supply water at (close to) mains pressure to the toilet, laundry, etc. The float valve is similar to the one in your toilet cistern and is arranged to add more water from the mains if the level drops too low. For example a 2000L tank might maintain a minimum of 100L in the tank. This would allow a reasonable amount of water use at one time (because the float valve may not be able to refill the tank as fast as it is being used) while leaving plenty of room in the tank when it rains. The on-demand presuure pump has a small cylinder (or ball) similar to a gas cylinder mounted upside-down which is used to provide the water pressure. The pump pumps water from the tank into the cylinder and the water compresses the air trapped above it. When the pressure reaches a certain limit the pump turns off. When you use the water (flush the toilet, open a tap, etc.) the water flows from the cylinder under pressure (just like the mains). As the water flows the pressure drops and, when the pressure drops below a certain limit, the pumps starts up again. This way the pressure is maintinaed all the time. If the wet areas are against an exernal wall (often the case) then it is relatively simple to access the pipes through the wall, move the mains to the tank and connect the pump to the toilet etc.)

Cheers
MOC

Bernie,

Yes, the charges are generally higher in the cities and urban surrounds. For example my bill in Melbourne, which has lower rates than Perth, is $0.7819/kL for the first 440L/day (averaged over the quarter) and $0.9175/kL thereafter. There is also a sewerage disposal charge of $1.0218/kL based, in my case, on approx. 65% of the incoming water giving an effective price of $0.6697/kL of incoming water. This gives an effective total rate of $1.4516/kL for the first 440kL and $1.5872kL thereafter. It is interesting to note that the service charges, at $49.80 a quarter, are a substantial part of the bill. More than a third in my case. This does not provide much incentive to reduce consumption. I would much prefer that the usage rates were increased and the fixed charges dropped. I agree that we should be reusing the treated water prior to investing in new sources. The piorities should be. 1. Reduce consumption 2a. Reuse water for non-potable applications 2b. Harvest Rainwater (potable and non-potable) 3. Reuse water for potable applications 4. Water Cleansing for potable use (eg desalination) 5. Invest in major infrastructure to collect more water from natural sources. Of course, I sure other people may prioritise the list slightly differently, but the bottom line is that we should be reducing consumption and using water more efficiently before we consider spending money on new supplies.

Cheers
MOC

For your information with respect to cost of water, here in Victoria British Columbia as a resident our costs are much lower than those being reported for Australia. The bill here has three components: 1. A fixed fee based on service entrance size--residential is typically 0.62 inches and costs $28.05 for four months-a 'demand' charge which goes as high as $1,000 for and eight inch feed. Seems to make sense. 2. Constant water rate is $1.48 per 100 cubic feet or $0.62/kL 3. Sewer surcharge is $0.73 per 100 cubic feet or say 30 cents/kL (not certain but recall this is typically in the order of a 50% surcharge here) We have a reservoir in a protected watershed that was recently expanded significantly to satisfy demand (population growth). In the winter, rain fills the reservoir (next to no snow and or ice here) and in the summer when we get next to no rain we drain the community rain barrel and treat it of course. On the conservation side, there are watering restrictions in the summer for lawns at two levels, one allows infrequent and the second no watering of lawns. First stage restrictions are routine, second stage restrictions are not. As a matter of policy and regulation for building permits four-liter toilets and low flow showerheads are required. There is also a rebate program to encourage retrofit of low flow toilets ($65), showerheads ($10) and frount loading clothes washers ($125). It is interesting to note that several years ago before the reservoir was raised, we had a real problem (low winter rain fall hence a short fall in the reservoir). The community consumption and reservoir water level were reported on the frount page of the newspaper every Friday (as I recall) and as a community we significantly cut consumption, big time. The feedback and communication effort made the necessity come alive and be real for individuals. It was the talk of the town. A brown lawn was a signal of ones contribution to the community or perhaps self interest-water available for fire protection. Price was not really a consideration, as supply was the issue.

Forrest