06 May Changes to Water Conservation Needed. Interview of Paul Robbins by Brandi Clark Burton

Just yesterday, Paul Robbins released "A New Report on Austin Water: Read it and Leak".  For those who do not know Paul, he is perhaps our City's most diligent researcher and environmental reporter/nag/gadfly/advocate and effective local change agent. Robbins is best known for his every-few-years publication, the Austin Environmental Directory and his regular appearances at City Council meetings to bring important issues to their attention. This has not gone unnoticed. Not only did the City name the downtown District Cooling Plant after him, the citizens of Austin voted him Best Environmentalist in the 2010 Austin Chronicle readers' poll.  
So, he has spent nearly 8 months working on this evaluation of Austin's water conservation efforts and has developed a set of critiques and recommendations. I know Paul to be meticulous about his research and I'm always impressed with the level of detail he includes in his reports. Normally he reveals these type of reports in his latest edition of the Austin Environmental Directory. This time, he took on doing an independent report.

I, like most of the readers of this blog, am concerned about the environment AND a busy person. Figuring that most folks won't make the time to read the report, I wanted to make sure the main points of his report were clear to my peers and the leaders at the City of Austin. What follows is our interview this morning.

BCB: What inspired you to do this report?

PR: Two things: 1) Civic pride – wanting Austin to have the best water conservation in the country and 2) sentimental disappointment. I helped start the City's resource management programs in the early 1980s and I've been hearing about problems that are occurring at Austin Water. I've been trying to tell people about it for 3 years. I just got exasperated enough to write a whole report about it. It will be harder to ignore. Think about it , there are enough problems to write an entire report about it!

BCB: What are the top five things you want to CIty to do?

PR: 1) Most important is for the City government to take the water conservation department out of the water utility. There is a conflict of interest. It hasn't done well under their watch. It needs to move. They've had their chance.
2) They need to delegate adequate water staff to their best performing programs – the commercial rebate program and the 2-day-a-week watering ordinance
3) They need to study and install electronic water meters
4) They need to do everything they can to promote reclaimed water. (Reclaimed water is wastewater treated to a high level of purity and used for non-potable applications such as irrigation and cooling towers. Theoretically we could safely use all of our wastewater again.)
5) They need to put more money in replacing the old cast-iron pipes that are so leaky. 85% of the leaks in the systems come from those pipes.

BCB: Didn't the City just do a massive pipe replacement program in conjunction with the Clean Water project?

PR: I believe the Clean Water project was entirely about wastewater. Water main maintenance is sorely lacking. We have 1,050 miles of old cast-iron pipes in Austin. Last year they replaced 4 miles. Next  year they hope to replace 14.5 miles. Even at that accelerated rate that means it would take 72 years to replace water mains whose lifetime is already over.

BCB: What are are the most important things we as Austinites can do?

PR: 1) Get on the phone and ask the City Council to move water conservation out of the water utility!!
Other things the average individual can do is to save water, at their home and business through a  variety of technologies. Of course the biggest use is irrigation. There are many ways to make a difference there. 1) xeriscape 2) put more soil on the yard which acts like a sponge to hold more water 3) properly irrigate the yard (don't overwater).  There's no law saying you have to have a turf grass lawn.
Other things – replace toilets and washing machines and dishwashers with high efficiency models.

BCB: Is there a label that designates water-efficient appliances the way Energy Star indicates energy-efficient appliances?

PR: Go to the water conservation website and look for qualifying models for the clothes washer rebate program. There is a link to the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) that shows the Water Factor (WF) of clothes washers. The Federal Standard = 9.5 gal/cubic foot of laundry. The Consortium's rates washers which have WF ranges from 2.7 – 6 depending on the model.
The City of Austin does give washing machine rebates. I believe the City still gives out free low-flow shower heads – Call 512-974-2199. You can get one that has output as low as 1.5 gal/minute.

BCB: OK, so back to the City. Do you have a proposal for where the water conservation department should be placed?

PR: The Sustainability office might be one place to put it, or maybe it can go somewhere else. For 21 of the 27 years that the Water Conservation Program has existed it has been independent of the water utility.

BCB: Where was it before?

PR: It started out in the Resource Management Department, which changed to the Planning, Environment and Conservation Services Department in the late 80s, and then it went into another, I think the Transportation and Sustainability Department. Then in FY 2005 it was placed in the Water Utility.

BCB: I know you are a quantitative kinda guy, how have the conservation rates compared, if you know, during those different eras, and how has it been under the water utility?

PR: Depends on the program and how you qualify it. Not every program has been run badly. The watering ordinance has worked. I gave them credit in several areas in my report. The thing is that the City Council did not give the appropriate attention, budget nor staff to the program until approximately FY 2008. A higher level of funding started about 3 years ago.

BCB: Has it been less successful while placed in Austin Water?

PR: Depends on what you measure as success. If you give a water-saving device to a homeowner, do you assume it got installed and that we definitely get to claim a reduction in water use?

BCB: So you think it can not succeed with some changes made to it where it is?

PR: I don't think the management is particularly qualified or experienced (I called out individuals in my report) nor are they delegating enough to the right programs and they are not launching new programs. Their old programs are going to reach saturation point in the next few years. They have fallen into a pattern of doing what's easy and routine, like go door-to-door to give out showerheads.

BCB: What's an example of an innovative program you think we should be starting?

PR: They need to start by giving adequate staff to commercial program. The commerical customers may pay $11 per 1,000 gallons for commercial rates, but water conservation for this customer class costs as little as 10 cents per 1000 gallons. And they don't even have one full-time staff person on their most cost effective program.  They have maybe 2 people on the watering program that do random inspections. This is hugely understaffed. They are trying to conquer India with a sawed-off shotgun.

BCB: So if they just did things differently would it still need to be moved?

PR: I just don't think they will, based on observing them for the last 3 years. When the Resource Management Commission asks them to change things they look through them is if they were air and say "Thank you for your comments". They will change if council gives them direction. But Council is not giving them that kind of direction and that's why I wrote this report. They could decide to take my advice. Then again, 9 times out of  10, they don't.

BCB: Why?

PR: Pride, lack of experience, wanting to do things that are easy. Lacking vision and creativity. Not being willing to make the changes necessary.
Under WTP4 it will cost $45 Milliion dollars a year, if you include debt coverage.
If the City flat lined and didn't grow, the City would be very concerned about how to pay for that plant. They might find ways to hinder the conservation program which they will be able to do if it's staffed in the same bureaucracy.

BCB: What else should people know?

PR: We are kind of in a new era. My report does have summaries and charts. If you look at Section 6.2.3 there is a jaw-dropping chart. It basically shows that since 2008 we have entered a new kind of era. Our use plummeted for the first time in recent history. We went from 190 gallons/person/day in 2006 and that dropped to 135 gallons/person/day in 2010. 

How did we do it?  It rained a lot, yes, but there have been other rainy years. But really I think it was the water restrictions between August and November in 2009. People were being inundated with water commercials and there were FINES if you didn't comply. After the restrictions were lifted, water use stayed abnormally low, even when it was hot. I attribute this to the fact that people got the message. People remembered the two-day watering restrictions, and they remembered the fines. Water rates went up too, that didn't hurt either.  WTP4 may become a water conservation device because of its high cost.

BCB: Explain that.

PR: The more your bills are the less you are likely to use. So Water Treatment Plant 4 (WTP4) may end up being a water conservation device.

BCB:  You mean that tongue in cheek?

PR: Sort of. For every 1% increase in price you will lose .17 percent of consumption. So, by sarcasm and extension, WTP4 becomes a water conservation device.

BCB: But not the type we would like to be investing in.

PR: Correct

BCB: What innovative things should the City be getting into? Do you encourage water catchment, biological filtration, localized treatment and things like that?

PR: I support rain water catchment. You are basically talking about a David Vanhuizen decentralized system. It's a whole field of study. It would be best used in new developments. I spent 8 months on just the programs we do have. Give me two years and maybe I could tackle decentralized water.

BCB: Ha! Very well, I hope you do. I think there is great opportunity there with Low Impact Development.