CORRECTED — Greenprint Denver: Conserving water
By Tillie Fong 
| September 4, 2009 | 7:01 AM
Note: The original version of this story that ran Aug. 25, 2009, presented incorrect information about Denver Water’s conservation programs. Because the corrections are substantial, we are publishing this revised article Sept. 4, 2009.
Greenprint Denver is halfway through its four-year plan to make Denver more sustainable. This is the second in a series looking at specific goals in the plan and the progress that has been made.
Maybe it’s because of the drought in recent years, or maybe it’s just that Denver residents are environmentally conscious. Nevertheless, the city is on track to reduce water use by 22 percent by 2016 as part of Greenprint Denver.
“We’re around 18 to 19 percent reduction. Denver Water customers are doing a great job of conservation. It’s great to see,” said Stacy Chesney, spokeswoman for the utility.
Greenprint Denver’s conservation goals are based on a 10-year plan developed by Denver Water. In 1997, the utility set a goal of reducing water use by 22 percent by 2050. In 2007, that target was moved up to 2016.
Reductions are measured in gallons per capita per day, or GCD. In 2000, water use averaged 211 GCD, but Denver Water hoped to cut that to 165 GCD in 16 years.
From 2005-2008, Denver residents reduced water consumption to 172 GCD and saved 42,000 acre-feet of water, enough to serve more than 100,000 families for a year.
Figures for this year’s GCD and water savings were not available, but Chesney said that customers have been using about 18 percent less water.
“This year is a bit of an anomaly because this summer’s unusually wet weather has had many people shutting off their lawn sprinklers to take advantage of the rain, so water use is down,” Chesney said. “Some of the reductions we are seeing this year are permanent water savings; some are due to the unusually wet, cool weather.”
Denver Water has implemented several programs to encourage water conservation. In 2006, it launched the “Use Only What You Need” campaign, which it deemed a success because 80 percent of the utility’s customers are aware of it.
“It’s a major part of our conservation message,” Chesney said.
This year, Denver Water began running “Grass is Dumb” ads as part of the program.
“Every year we look at what areas could use more attention in terms of conservation,” Chesney said. ”We did an analysis and found we could save nearly 1 billion gallons of water this year if everyone cut back on their watering time by two minutes per zone.”
Other programs are designed to encourage home builders to put in water-saving features, and commercial and industrial customers can receive incentives to improve water-use efficiency.
“We offer rebates on high-efficiency toilets, washing machines and outdoor watering devices,” Chesney said. “The residential rebate program has been really popular.”
Last year, Denver Water paid out $1.5 million for more than 10,000 residential rebates. The majority — 7,400 — were for installing water-efficient washing machines, while another 3,100 were for low-water toilets.
Under one of Greenprint Denver’s 2007 goals, “city agencies were to set the standard for water conservation and lead in early adoption of Denver Water’s new conservation programs.”
According to Denise Stepto, spokewoman for Greenprint Denver, it was only proposed in 2006 that the city take such actions.
“That proposal did not result in having goals,” she said. ”We don’t have a city government water conservation goal. We are following the Denver Water Tap Smart program.”
Chesney said the Tap Smart program is essentially Denver Water’s conservation plan. She noted that there are differences between the focus of Greenprint Denver and Denver Water.
“Greenprint partners with agencies or groups and piggybacks on their existing programs (sometimes it can develop into new programs, too),” she said. “Denver Water developed and maintains its conservation plan for its customers as part of its plan to ensure water for its customers in the future. So, Greenprint’s water conservation efforts have been in a partnership relationship with Denver Water.”
Stepto also said that the Greenprint Denver Web site needs to be updated. However, as of Sept. 3, 2009, the information on the site listing the goals for conserving water resources has not been changed. It still lists a number of Denver Water programs that the city should adopt, with specific targets.
One of them is the Commercial and Industrial Incentives program, in which businesses can get up to $80,000 to improve their water-use efficiency. Projects have to meet the minimum savings potential of 300,000 gallons per year in order to qualify. The goal was for 60 such contracts to be completed.
Denver Water offers up to $40,000 to commercial and industrial customers to make changes that would save a minimum of 300,000 gallons a year. ”We’re not wasting time on little projects,” said Melissa Elliott, manager of conservation for Denver Water.
It was not clear where the $80,000 incentive cap or the requirement for 60 contracts came from. Those were not part of the Denver Water conservation plan, according to Elliott.
“Our folks get as many as we can in the door,” she said. ”There’s a lot of identifying the customers and working with them and identifying the processes. Sometimes there is a significant cost to the process. This could be a multiyear thing before we do a contract. It’s not usually done the first time we call.”
Customers who have signed contracts with Denver Water have included bottling plants, hospitals, laundry services, restaurants and a snack chip company.
Since 2007, Denver Water has paid more than $709,000 for 26 completed projects and is expecting to shell out another $115,000 for five ongoing projects under this program, Chesney said.
The 26 completed projects have resulted in water savings of 311.5 acre-feet annually, or about 108 million gallons a year. When completed, the remaining five projects will save 20.4 acre-feet annually, or 6.6 milion gallons a year.
“We’re getting really good savings from the commercial and industrial incentives in place,” Chesney said.
Elliott also noted that companies do not get paid the incentives until a particular project has demonstrated water savings for 12 months.
Other Greenprint Denver water conservation goals for 2007 included:
- Implementing Denver Water’s Time-of-Purchase Retrofit program. This requires a retrofitting process for indoor fixtures to meet current efficiency standards and leak repair for all existing single family and mutlifamily homes at time of purchase. Denver Water rebates would be available to help offset these costs.
This program has not been implemented.
“It’s a great idea and it’s been done in other parts of the country,” said Elliott. ”We know it will save water over time, but we will delay it until all the parties agree that it’s the right thing to do.”
If implemented, the program could save 7,000 acre-feet of water annually. However, ”we don’t have the authority to make property owners do this,” said Elliott.
- Expand the Denver Metro Home Builders Association’s Built Green program to include a point system for water efficiency. New homes would be required to achieve a minimum number of points before water service was started.
The 2008 Built Green Colorado checklist does require at least one option be selected under water conservation measures, and points are awarded for some of these measures. But there is no minimum number of points that must be earned in any particular category.
Denver Water also does not require homes to participate in the Built Green program in order to get service.
“This is not a program being implemented by Denver Water, and we do not have the ability to control what builders do at the property before we turn on the water,” Chesney said.
However, Denver Water does impose some requirements on new developments.
In August 2008, the utility started to require builders of new homes, including scrape-offs, to amend the soil of all landscaping areas with compost before new water meters are set.
“Amending the soil with compost retains moisture in the soil, allowing water to go to plants for longer periods of time,” Chesney said. ”Compost provides small amounts of important plant nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, which improves root growth. It also opens clay soils for better drainage and closes sandy soil to prevent water from leaching away too quickly.”
Another new requirement was the one-acre rule, which says that developers of new properties with an acre or more of landscaping must submit a landscape plan and a water budget for it. This rule typically would apply to homeowner associations or commercial buildings.
- Require the city irrigation system to be maintained for efficiency and to meet accepted standards for efficiency in water use.
It is not clear how this goal is tracked.
“The city is not required to have irrigation systems that meet accepted standards for efficiency (as is true for our other customers, but we do provide incentives for upgrading to efficient irrigation systems for all of our irrigation customers,” Chesney said.
Denver Water has a Water Waste hotline, 303-628-6343, for people to report malfunctioning sprinklers in the city. Chesney said that seasonal Denver Water employees who work during the watering months respond to those reports. Last summer, these water-waste monitors made 4,500 stops.
- The city of Denver will demonstrate wise water use. One way was to accelerate progress in bringing city facilities up to state-of-the-art standards for plumbing fixtures, irrigation systems, cooling towers, kitchen operations, swimming pool operations and laundries.
It was not clear where the city is in this process, since it does not track this information
“Denver Water has a strong partnership with the city and loans a Denver Water employee (fellow) in the Greenprint office,” Stepto said. “The Fellow works with each agency to help them meet the water conservation agenda goals.”
Denver Water does keep track of the projects that it works on with the city. In 2007, those included:
- Developing a sustainable landscape master plan
- Converting Ruby Hill and Milstein Grove parks and Montbello traffic islands to sustainable landscape, removing 27 acres of bluegrass turf in the process
- Conducting water audits of 27 Denver recreation centers and 22 branches of the Denver Public Library
- Replacing 183 toilets and retrofitting 25 urinals in the City and County Building
- Lining Grasmere Lake
- Starting work on “greening” the Democratic National Convention
- Installing three high-efficiency washers at the Family Crisis Center
Altogether, the cost of the city retrofits in 2007 came to about $625,000.
Are particular programs more effective in reducing water use than others? It’s hard to say.
“However, what is important is the overall goal we are trying to achieve, which is 22 percent reduction by 2016. That will always be our benchmark for our conservation goals,” Chesney said.
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conservation, Denver Water, Greenprint Denver, rebates
