Every drop counts

ALBUQUERQUE — It’s been 13 years since Albuquerque started aggressively tackling water conservation, and officials say the effort has paid off — sort of. Water use has declined from an average daily use of about 250 gallons per person to 167 gallons, thanks mostly to voluntary measures and financial incentives such as low-flow toilet rebates.

But the area is still using too much water, says Katherine Yuhas, water conservation officer for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. It’s time to start applying some pressure, she says.

"I think we’re at a crossroads with water conservation," Yuhas told the New Mexico Independent in a recent interview. Since the conservation program began in 1995, there’s been a "wonderful response" from water customers, she said. "But we’re at a place now where we need to push … where more legislation is necessary."

The Albuquerque City Council balked, however, when confronted Monday with a measure aimed at reducing water waste at the commercial and institutional levels, including within the city itself.

The proposal sponsored by Councilor Michael Cadigan got only lukewarm support from most of the council and a tongue-lashing from Councilor Trudy Jones, who said that the cost to businesses and the city would be "absolutely astronomical" and that the measure might cause more environmental harm than good. Councilors postponed the issue for three months, but only because their own rules prevented them from postponing it any longer.

What’s the problem?

Water utility customers this year will use about 24 billion gallons, virtually all of it pumped from deep and rapidly declining aquifers. That averages to about 165 gallons per person every day, the authority says. While that’s a dramatic improvement over 1995, when average daily use was 250 gallons, the city’s goal is 150 gallons per day by 2014. It’s actually written into the city’s permit to use water out of the Rio Grande and save the aquifer for times of drought.

Yuhas sees the need for stricter water conservation measures as a financial issue for the city. "What it really comes down to is cost," she said. It’s cheaper to conserve water than to buy additional water rights — currently some $12,000 to $15,000 for enough water for about five households, and the price is only going to rise, she said.

The water authority has already saved billions of gallons a year through voluntary measures such as asking residents to conserve and to use xeric landscaping, and offering rebates to replace old, water-wasting toilets and dishwashers. But there are billions more gallons to save if the city can simply pick off the next level of low-hanging fruit, Yuhas said.

A good place to start would be City Hall. For 10 years the city has required new homes and commercial buildings to install low-flow toilets and other water-saving fixtures, but it never mandated that the owners of existing homes and buildings retrofit. Ironically, the Albuquerque Journal pointed out last year, most of the toilets in City Hall are still the old-style, 5-gallon flush models rather than the low-flow variety that uses just 1.6 gallons per flush.

Cadigan’s bill calls for the city to install low-flow toilets in all its buildings, and to have a work plan by the end of 2009. "I don’t think we can ask the public to do much more (conservation) until our own house is in order," he told the council Monday.

If that had been all that was on Monday’s council agenda, Cadigan’s measure might have passed. But his bill also targeted a much more sensitive issue: grass.

In Yuhas’ eyes, there are no easier water savings than eliminating what she calls "nonfunctional turf." It’s the little strip of Kentucky bluegrass in a shopping mall parking lot or road median, or a lawn on a steep slope in front of an office building. Those areas are a waste of good water, she said, and should be removed.

"Do you sit on it, play on it, take your dog for a walk on it," she asked. "If the answer is no, I’d say take it out."

About 40 percent of Albuquerque’s water use — roughly 13 billion gallons a year — is for landscaping, and studies suggest about one-fourth of all landscape watering is wasted, Yuhas said. While new commercial and residential developments already must limit their landscaping water use, removing the city’s existing nonfunctional turf, fixing broken sprinkler systems, and eliminating overspray and the like could save billions of gallons a year, she said.

Cadigan’s bill would force the city to take the lead on its own land. It requires the city to replace any area of turf fewer than 10 feet in diameter with xeriscaping and to inventory all its spray irrigation system and fix leaks and overspray. As with the toilet replacement, the bill gives the city through the end of 2009 to come up with a plan and to make the changes a priority.

But the measure also would extend the water conservation burden to existing commercial developments, though giving the building owners more time to accomplish the work. They would have to replace toilets with the low-flush variety by 2011. By the end of 2015, property owners would have to eliminate nonfunctional turf (fewer than 10 feet in any direction or on steep slopes) and reduce their high-water use turf and plants to 20 percent of the landscaped area.

Said Yuhas, "We’re always looking for ways we can save water and not have people get less enjoyment out of our community."

Green in the eye of the beholder

Cadigan’s measure brought a pre-emptive strike last Saturday from the development community. Lynne Andersen, the New Mexico chapter president of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), and Katherine Martinez, director of government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico, said that while "most of us can agree that water conservation is vital to our future, debate continues over the most effective way to achieve that common goal."

They called for taking a different approach to water conservation. Rather than have the city define water wasting, they prefer limiting the amount of water that property owners could use but allowing individuals and businesses to figure out for themselves how to stay within their limits.

On Monday, several councilors piled on, saying the city shouldn’t "micromanage" water use. Jones also wondered how the city would pay for all the mandated retrofits and about the environmental effect. Noting that the mayor wants the city to plant thousands of trees as an antidote to rising levels of greenhouse gases, she said, "Why are we removing grasses and planting more trees?"

Councilor Sally Mayer said she believes in water conservation, "but I want to see the science behind this as we pull out grass and put in gravel." And the idea that grass isn’t good if it’s nonrecreational? "I can’t accept that," she said.

Councilor Don Harris called for a cost-benefit analysis of the bill, and questioned the wisdom of removing grass on city property even as his constituents call out for more parks. "I don’t think we should be taking our limited resource and tearing up grass" before fulfilling residents’ needs, he said.

Councilor Rey Garduno alone supported the measure; Councilors Debbie O’Malley and Isaac Benton were absent.

What next?

The council reluctantly agreed to defer the measure for three months, though Cadigan said he might bring the city-only conservation measures back to the table earlier. "It’s probably a good idea to get the city started," he said.

Martinez, of the home builders association, said Tuesday she was glad to see the council postpone the measure. "I think it still needs some work," she said.

Andersen, of the commercial property owners group, agreed. "I think it’s a wise decision" to let the issue percolate, especially now that the water authority’s Citizen Advisory Committee is taking public comment on conservation measures. Those comments should be taken into account in Cadigan’s bill, she said.

But Gabriel Nims, a member of the Citizen Advisory Committee and executive director of the advocacy group 1000 Friends of New Mexico, called the setback discouraging. "At this point the community needs to be more forceful and demand these conservation efforts are made sooner rather than later," he said.

The city has a lot of water saving to do before the meeting the 150-gallon daily usage mark, Nims said. "We’re beyond the point of where we can delay much longer," he said.

Cadigan said he was taken aback by the reception his bill got Monday. "I may be old school, but I thought water conservation was right there alongside mom and apple pie," he said. Particularly odd, he said, was the opposition to using city capital funds to replace high-flow toilets in City Hall. If the city moves fast, it can take advantage of the $150 rebate for each old toilet from the water authority, he added. "Seems to me that’s a no-brainer."

Yuhas, who helped write the bill and whose office door in City Hall has a hand-written sign saying "Water Queen," said she was surprised and disappointed at some of the councilors’ comments. She thought that the need for water conservation was fairly well understood and that it would be accepted more readily, but said she would provide as many answers as she could to answer councilors’ questions.

On the big question of giving property owners a water budget and letting them figure it individually, Yuhas said it would be an enormous burden for the authority. Not only would it require a budget for every business in town, but the budgets would require regular revision to keep up with changes in business size, ownership and location.

To meet the city’s water-reduction goals, Yuhas said, a business only has to replace its toilets and change its landscaping from high water use to low. Said Yuhas, "It’s not rocket science."