The WaterSense Current: Fall 2021
Fall 2021 - Issue LIV
The WaterSense Current is a quarterly update dedicated to news and events related to WaterSense. Sign up to receive The WaterSense Current and get WaterSense news delivered right to your Inbox.
In This Issue:
- Award-Winning Partners Made Sustained Savings Possible
- Making Water More Affordable With Efficiency Efforts
- Leave Landscape Water Waste Behind
- The City of Durham Is No Stranger to Stopping Leaks
- California Regional Water Authority Takes Savings to the Big Screen
Award-Winning Partners Made Sustained Savings Possible
WaterSense is celebrating 15 years of water savings, thanks to the more than 2,000 partners who made it possible. Like pieces of a puzzle, our partners work together to promote WaterSense labeled products, encourage water-saving behaviors, and educate consumers and businesses on reducing water waste. WaterSense recently recognized 34 partners for their product innovation, creative communications, and perseverance during the pandemic in 2020.
Nine partners in particular were honored for their continued commitment to the program as 2021 Sustained Excellence Award winners.
Athens-Clarke County (Georgia) Public Utilities Department Water Conservation Office won its fifth Sustained Excellence Award for their creative outreach as it navigated the challenges of 2020. WCO turned its popular Athens Water Festival into a “Festival in a Box,” sending participants packages of water-themed activities, a beach ball with the WaterSense logo, and fortune cookies with water-saving tips inside. Some recipients opened their boxes on camera during a live virtual event.
Citrus County (Florida) Utilities, a three-time Sustained Excellence Award winner, reached the younger generation during the second annual Mardi Gras-themed Shrimpapalooza festival in March 2020, which coincided with Fix a Leak Week. Children decorated water-drop shaped masks, and parents received information about toilet leaks and free leak detection tablets. Kids also got to be leak detectives during Citrus County’s sixth annual classroom toilet leak detection challenge.
The City of Charlottesville (Virginia) had a virtually amazing year promoting water conservation and WaterSense, despite challenges faced during the pandemic, and earned its fourth WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award. Although its annual 5K race was cancelled due to COVID-19, the City still celebrated Fix a Leak Week through bill stuffers, web presence, social media, and a creative television spot featuring a barbershop quartet promoting fixing leaks and WaterSense labeled fixtures.
The City of Plano (Texas) earned its second Sustained Excellence Award by hosting numerous remote events, including a Virtual Garden Green at the Plano Fair, In the Know H2O, Rain Barrels 101, Virtual Sprinkler Fair, and a month-long Virtual WaterWise Landscape Tour. The City also turned its in-person presentations into webinars, adding photo demonstrations and video clips to promote Sprinkler Spruce-Up when COVID restrictions kept people safe at home.
Cobb County (Georgia) Water System, no stranger to WaterSense recognition, earned its fourth Sustained Excellence Award. To educate customers during the pandemic, Cobb County conducted virtual lunch-and-learns. Helping residents that could really benefit from water savings, Cobb County examined high monthly water use among single‐family residential customers—specifically in older homes. The County helped identify opportunities to save water by replacing older toilets and showerheads with water-efficient WaterSense labeled models. In 2020, the county issued more than 1,400 residential toilet rebates through a $100 water bill credit.
Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District racked up its fourth Sustained Excellence Award for promoting WaterSense and water conservation in 2020. The Water Planning District made its annual Water Drop Dash 5K during Fix a Leak Week a completely virtual event and invited nearly 30 local high school and college graphic design programs to participate in a T-shirt design competition for the race. The District also developed Be a Leak Detective as a digital learning tool for students to complete at home.
Sonoma-Marin (California) Saving Water Partnership has earned an impressive fifth WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award as a professional certifying organization, for continuing to make their Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper trainings and certification accessible to a wide audience. In quick response to the pandemic, the Partnership was able to offer virtual courses by May 2020 and coordinated with WaterSense to develop online classes, virtual irrigation audits, and online test proctoring for professional certification.
KB Home, for the seventh year in a row, has earned another Sustained Excellence Award for building and promoting WaterSense labeled homes. In 2020, KB Home built over 250 homes that earned the WaterSense label, representing 2.5 percent of the homes they built throughout the year and an 8 percent increase in their WaterSense labeled homes compared to 2019. KB Home also installed WaterSense labeled faucets and fixtures in all the homes they built in 2020.
Kohler Co. is on a roll, winning its seventh WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award this year, as it continued its commitment to promoting WaterSense and producing labeled products. In 2020, Kohler launched a collection of new WaterSense labeled fixtures, including 14 new toilets, 36 faucets, 25 showerheads, and 20 new urinal/flushometer toilet bowls and valves.
In addition to the Sustained Excellence Award winners, 12 partners were named WaterSense Partners of the Year for 2021 and will be highlighted below and in future issues of the WaterSense Current.
- Promotional Partners of the Year: Big Bear Lake (California) Department of Water and Power, the Broward Water Partnership (Florida), City of Durham (North Carolina) Water Management, Irvine Ranch (California) Water District, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, Regional Water Authority (California), City of Sacramento (California) Department of Utilities, Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (California)
- Professional Certifying Organization Partner of the Year: City of Aspen (Colorado)
- Manufacturer Partner of the Year: Orbit Irrigation Products, Inc.
- Retailer Partner of the Year: The Home Depot
- Builder Partner of the Year: Fulton Homes
Learn more about the 2021 WaterSense Award winners.
Making Water More Affordable With Efficiency Efforts
Water is essential for life, but as water costs steadily rise, some families are finding themselves having to make difficult decisions about whether they can pay their utility bills or other expenses. Utilities often help their customers with bill payment assistance based on income, temporary need, or other factors. Many utilities are coupling water efficiency efforts with their customer assistance programs to help residents save water and keep bills lower in the long term.
Lowering water bills is often about curbing unnecessary usage and detecting leaks. Many utilities use Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology to allow staff and customers to track water use trends in real time and spot possible water waste. If you suspect a leak may be driving up your water bill, your utility may offer free home check-ups or offer resources to help you identify sneaky leaks inside and out. Some water providers have programs to repair leaks, install WaterSense labeled toilets, and make other plumbing and irrigation system repairs free for their customers who need these services the most.
Many utilities offer free WaterSense labeled faucet aerators and showerheads during home check-ups that also help customers save energy. To make new WaterSense labeled toilets available to all residents, utilities will often provide rebates to incentivize the replacement of older, inefficient models. Check with your utility to see if they have a direct install program where the cost of the removal of an old toilet and installation of a new toilet are covered for customers who would ordinarily be unable to afford the swap.
If you find yourself looking for more ways to lower your utility bill and increase the overall affordability of your water needs, contact your water provider today and learn more about the customer assistance programs offered. Interested in seeing what other communities are doing to help customers save? Check out the new WaterSense report on affordability and efficiency, Assistance That Saves.
Leave Landscape Water Waste Behind
In many parts of the country, summer brought dry weather, drought, or water shortages. If you are planning to spend time this fall making improvements to your yard, consider making changes that will save water and make your landscape more drought-tolerant. Fall is a great time to reimagine how your landscape can better serve your lifestyle, while reducing maintenance, chemicals, and water needs.
Turfgrass areas are great for kids to play on, but they often require quite a bit of water to maintain. Replacing some turf areas that aren’t being used for play with bushes and mulched flower beds filled with native, drought-tolerant plants can add beauty to your landscape while reducing the need to irrigate. Because these plants are acclimated to the local weather conditions, they require little watering beyond normal precipitation. You can also add drip irrigation that delivers water slowly to the root zones of plants—right where they need it—to avoid water waste.
Once you have selected local plant varieties to add to your flower beds, do some homework to learn the best conditions for those plants to thrive. Group plants together who require similar soil, light, and watering needs and avoid overwatering. Adding mulch to your flower beds will further reduce waste by keeping the soil moist and prevent water loss due to evaporation. Mulch also inhibits weed growth and helps keep plants healthy.
If your area is facing a dry spell, check your local utility website to see if they have watering restrictions or suggestions for reducing water use. Your utility may also offer rebates to replace equipment in your sprinkler systems with WaterSense labeled components.
The City of Durham Is No Stranger to Stopping Leaks
When 2020 brought a halt to in-person events, the City of Durham (North Carolina) Water Management Department’s quick thinking and creative approaches earned the organization its first WaterSense Partner of the Year Award, after several years of winning Excellence Awards. First, the City showed residents how to find and fix leaks by producing five episodes of “Leaky Things,” a parody of the popular television series Stranger Things.
Durham Water Management held its popular social media contest, “Where’s Wayne Wednesday,” during the first three months of 2020. Followers were asked to guess the location of mascot Wayne Drop for a chance to win free WaterSense labeled showerheads and faucet aerators.
The City navigated pandemic restrictions to continue offering water efficiency education to its residents through four virtual events, including two teacher workshops and presentations to school science clubs. Durham shared its lessons learned with WaterSense during a partner roundtable to help other partners successfully hold virtual education and outreach opportunities.
Durham even managed to reassess its water use audits, providing nearly 60 phone consultations in place of in-person assessments while under pandemic restrictions. To read more about the City of Durham Water Management and other WaterSense Award winners’ efforts to promote water conservation in 2020, visit www.epa.gov/watersense/watersense-awards.
California Regional Water Authority Takes Savings to the Big Screen
The Regional Water Authority in California got its big break this year, as it earned its first WaterSense Partner of the Year Award for water-saving outreach in 2020. During Fix a Leak Week, the Authority challenged local middle and high school students to create public service announcements (PSAs) as part of the Through the Water Spots Video contest. The contest received 90 video submissions, and the winning PSA was played during the “coming attractions” on six different movie theater screens viewed by over 140,000 people!
In 2020, the Regional Water Authority Water encouraged its 19 water provider members to promote WaterSense campaigns such as Fix a Leak Week and Sprinkler Spruce-Up. It even created a shareable online library with customized WaterSense tools to help local agencies with their outreach. Water efficiency was also on full display at the new Museum of Science and Curiosity in Sacramento, as the Regional Water Authority funded several exhibits to teach younger residents about water efficiency, including examples of WaterSense labeled products.
Learn more about the Regional Water Authority and other 2021 WaterSense Award winners by visiting www.epa.gov/watersense/watersense-awards.