{"id":412512,"date":"2010-03-10T13:42:07","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T18:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/texaswatersolutions\/?p=48"},"modified":"2010-03-10T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T18:42:07","slug":"drop-by-drop-seven-ways-texas-cities-can-conserve-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/412512","title":{"rendered":"Drop by Drop: Seven Ways Texas Cities Can Conserve Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Guest post by Ken Kramer, Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The best and cheapest source of water is the one that\u2019s already on tap.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Texas \u2013 which is the fastest growing state in the union \u2013 a new report from National Wildlife Federation<\/a> and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club <\/a>concludes that most cities are not making the most existing use of their water supplies.<\/p>\n

Drop by Drop: Seven Ways Texas Cities Can Conserve Water<\/a> describes and recommends seven efficiency measures that have a proven track report at reducing water use, then it reviews 19 Texas cities to see how they measure up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The cities surveyed were rated on several of those measures, including:<\/p>\n

Water Pricing Structure<\/strong>: The report recommends a strongly tiered rate structure with affordable prices for those who use water efficiently and effectively higher water rates for customers who use excessive amounts of water. Austin was the only city whose residential use pricing structure earned a "Strong" rating, while Beaumont, Lubbock and Plano all had rate structures that, when assessed as an effective rate, offered significant discounts for high users, thereby encouraging wasteful water use.<\/p>\n

Water Savings Goals<\/strong>: Texas cities are required to create conservation plans with five- and ten-year water use reduction goals, however many cities set easily-achievable but not very impressive targets. Dallas, for example, had the highest rate of per capita water use in our review and committed to just a modest reduction. On the other hand, San Antonio-which has already achieved impressive reductions in per capita water use-committed to continued reductions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Toilet Replacement<\/strong>: New high-efficiency toilets can save 12,000 gallons annually over older models, but only six cities in the review had active programs encouraging the replacement of inefficient toilets.<\/p>\n

Conservation Funding<\/strong>: Most of Texas's biggest cities now have reasonably well-funded conservation departments. The city of Houston was the only major city in the state without a conservation department or any significant specific funding for conservation.<\/p>\n

Outdoor Watering<\/strong>: In Texas, a significant amount of treated drinking water is used for watering lawns. The Texas Water Development Board estimates that over half this water is wasted due to overwatering or run-off. Only two cities in our survey-El Paso and Austin-had "Strong" outdoor watering ordinances while ten cities placed no restrictions at all on outdoor watering.<\/p>\n

Read the report online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ken Kramer is the Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. He has worked on water and other environmental issues in Texas for over 30 years as a volunteer or professional advocate.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Ken Kramer, Director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. The best and cheapest source of water is the one that\u2019s already on tap. Unfortunately for Texas \u2013 which is the fastest growing state in the union \u2013 a new report from National Wildlife Federation and the Lone Star Chapter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}