In some parts of the United States, water is often treated as an infinite resource, but in the southwest, the truth is different. Conserving that natural resource to ensure the faucets keep flowing is more of a priority there and in cities like Flagstaff, Ariz., efforts have been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The city of Flagstaff’s Erin Young, water resource manager, and Tamara Lawless, water conservation program manager, shared the efforts and successes the city has had.

Young explained how it all started. “The water conservation program we have in place today was made mandatory by our city council in 2003 after a couple of dry years dried up the surface water in Upper Lake Mary and caught us without enough straws in the groundwater table of our C aquifer (Coconino Aquifer).”

This aquifer covers all of northeastern Arizona.

“We had to go into emergency water conservation and water curtailment, and this was a tough exercise — it was hard to get the word out to customers not to water lawns, and we had no staff to enforce the code of only watering on odd or even days or no outdoor watering.”

This event made city officials realize they needed to have a water conservation program.

“In a 20-year period, we’ve built quite a program and a lot of conservation success in the community,” Young said.

While Young believed conservation efforts were happening all along, efforts became more formal in 1999 when the city adopted tiered water rates, increasing rates with more water used. The city has a four-tiered rate. The first two tiers are about $4-$5 per 1,000 gallons used, then the rate jumps up to $8-$12 after that.

“They’re really focused on reducing outdoor water consumption,” she said.

Young shared that in 2000 the city made a community-wide effort to reduce GPCD — measured gallons per capita per day. It is a metric to compare community to community or conservation efforts in a community and is determined by the population served divided by how much water is used each year by residents, hotels, restaurants, universities, etc.

In Flagstaff in 1999, the gallons per capita per day were 189 gallons. Young noted, “Now we’re under 90 gallons per capita per day. We’ve had a huge savings of water since 1999.”

The city adopted a water curtailment city code in 2002, which states if it hits a drought, the city has to curtail water use.

“But we didn’t have staff to enforce it, and we don’t have a local news station, so it was harder to get the word out,” Young said, noting the city’s current conservation program was put into place in 2003.

Conservation program and award

Young said Flagstaff first started its toilet rebate program in 1999. Through the program, the city paid people to replace their old toilets, which flushed 3.5 gallons a flush, and install ones that flush 1.6 gallons per flush. Currently, the city requires 1.28 gallons per flush.

That requirement was made a part of the city code in 2011 for existing homes if upgrading the toilet and for new development, according to Young, who added that in 2015 the council decided to add money so they could “buy water” from customers through savings.

Lawless explained further. “When we ran the numbers and looked at water savings, it showed an investment on our end pays off in water savings.”

She said switching a regular faucet to a more efficient aerator, especially in the bathroom where someone is not filling a pot, just washing their face or brushing their teeth, saves money for the utility. By placing these features in bathrooms customers won’t notice any lack of performance.

For long-term water planning, Lawless said, “If we can delay the investment of future water supply until later, it’s worth the money.”

Young shared it could cost $5 million to drill a new well because the aquifer is so deep. “We’re at the base of a volcano,” Young said.

Lawless and her team conduct water audits where they visit a home or business to determine where they could obtain water savings by retrofitting new shower heads, faucet aerators and toilets at no charge to the customer.

This is what Young considered buying water back from the customers because installing efficient fixtures results in savings for the utility.

Lawless said she has a showerhead in her home that pauses while she suds up and shampoos her hair.

Lawless also noted Flagstaff has a lot of commercial partnerships with hotels and restaurants where her team will show up and look at fixtures and some are retrofitting all their showerheads, aerators and toilets. Working with that industry is important because Flagstaff has a lot of tourism, either from other areas or people from the Phoenix metro area who come up for a weekend. She said it’s important to communicate to visitors the importance of the water conservation efforts.

“We’re glad you’re here and here’s what we’re doing,” she suggested they be told.

Having the backing of the EPA’s WaterSense products “provides a ton of value for us,” according to Lawless, because EPA tests the products not only for water savings but also for efficiency.

According to the EPA’s website, www.epa.gov, products bearing the WaterSense label perform as well or better than less-efficient counterparts; are 20% more water efficient than the average product in that category; realize water savings on a national level; and achieve water efficiency through several technological options.

Flagstaff received the WaterSense Excellence Award this year for the second year. Lawless said the latest excellence award was for the year 2022, and in order to receive it, Flagstaff had to demonstrate it was “doing a good job getting the word out to customers, installing efficient fixtures and offering rebates.”

According to the EPA, in 2022, the city conducted 53 public outreach events, reaching over 4,000 people, where it provided WaterSense-labeled showerheads and aerators and educated people about WaterSense. Through the events held, water audits and mailings, Flagstaff distributed over 450 showerheads and more than 1,200 aerators. It also offered free Home Water Check-Up kits to customers to check for leaks.

Lawless said there’s also a Sustained Excellence Award the city would like to achieve, and it has applied every year for the award.

Other efforts

Lawless said the city is really focused on reducing outdoor use, and it determined that 24% of the water is used outdoors.

“We look at that as a luxury use. We want to see a park or school have nice green lawns where people are going to play or sit on it. We don’t want to see ornamental lawns in front of a business or commercial building or in a median where no one is going to enjoy it,” she said.

Flagstaff offers commercial and residential irrigation consultations where it inspects the irrigation system to make sure there are no leaks and that it’s working at the right time. She said Flagstaff has laws that state customers can’t water between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — “the highest evaporation time” — and can only water every other day depending on the address. The city ensures customers are adhering to the law, and it can also assess overwatering. She said many overwater by 20%.

“We can dial back irrigation control to 20 minutes, which is more appropriate,” she said.

A program that creates a smaller water savings is a grant program Flagstaff launched which fixes leaks and replaces fixtures for low-income customers or seniors on fixed incomes.

“We look at all the fixtures and may say, ‘Your toilet is from 1980; let’s replace that’ or ‘Your washing machine is old too; let’s replace that,’ and we provide high-efficiency washing machines with the grant money.”

Lawless said about 20-30% of the water could be surface water in a given year, and the other 70% is groundwater and their wells are 2,000 feet deep, so very energy-consuming to pump.

Another program that is popular with residents, but which Lawless has mixed feelings about, is the rainwater collection program. She said Flagstaff gets barrels from an old ice cream cone manufacturer and holds workshops, turning them into rain barrels. However, she noted the program is a “great gateway to talk about replacing fixtures — rainwater harvesting is not as efficient as you might think.”

She explained that’s because what often happens is people add landscaping and then end up watering more in dry seasons.

Lawless said Flagstaff does a lot of public outreach events, especially in April, which is Water Awareness Month in Arizona. The city holds events at the library or rec center where staff can have “in-depth conversations with people asking what’s going on at their house, meeting people where they’re at and see if there’s anything we can provide.”

Reclaimed water, long-term planning and challenges

When asked about reclaimed water, “purple pipe,” or water that is reclaimed from wastewater, both women said the city has been doing that for many years. Lawless said many of the city’s parks and schools are on reclaimed water and golf courses, too, but noted there are places in some universities that are not on reclaimed water. Flagstaff has three universities.

Lawless said part of the city’s long-term planning is to look at how it can turn the reclaimed water into drinking water.

Young explained further that the state of Arizona is about to adopt regulations permitting advanced water purification, which would make it the third or fourth state to allow treatment of wastewater to clean water. Young said there’s several polishing treatments, so that nothing is detected, and the water is very pure allowing the water to go into the drinking water system.

“It’s something we’re watching to see how the state develops the rules and how other communities handle it.”

Young said El Paso, Texas, is the first city to do direct potable reuse, and San Diego, Calif., and Scottsdale, Ariz., are conducting pilot programs. Part of the pilot program is having customers tour the facilities to see the treatment process and drink the water at the end of the tour. She said once they see the process, they are more open to it.

She said they realize “water is recycled on the earth; this is just shortening the time.”

Young said brewers travel to Scottsdale to get the purified water. “Brewers love it because they start with a base water.”

According to Lawless, another part of long-range planning is whether to make regulations for showerheads stricter. She said they already “push the envelope” on having stricter regulations for toilet flushes.

The way landscape requirements are drafted discourages installing new lawns and encourages using more native plants.

“Native ponderosa pines are the predominant species,” she said.

Flagstaff has a lot of new multifamily developments, and Lawless said they actually consume less water than single-family homes because of shared outdoor spaces, whereas single-family homes each have their own lawns.

Each neighborhood is different and some, especially those on golf courses, might require that they have lawns.

“I hope in time that changes, and (homeowner associations’) allow for more flexibility in water-efficient landscapes and not require lawns,” she said.

When asked if the conservation efforts are well received by residents, Lawless responded, “People who choose to live in Flagstaff tend to have an environmental mindset and want to be close to nature and to hiking so it’s an easy sell in some ways.”

She said Flagstaff has a population of 75,000-80,000, and 30,000 are students in the universities.

“They’re more transient, may come from areas where the water is not such an issue, so we partner with the universities to make sure they’re hitting that message, too, because they’re a big part of our community,” Lawless said.

Flagstaff also has a large second-home population where people only reside part of the year in the city and may forget it has different laws.

Both women said most of the savings come from more efficient fixtures. “If we can replace showerheads using 3 gallons versus one using 1 gallon, it’ll cut consumption by 50%, and they’ve not changed their behavior,” Lawless said.

Advice to help conservation efforts

Lawless suggestion to start conservation efforts in a community is “start with the basics — how old is your toilet? If it’s from 1980, it’s using 3 1/2 gallons per flush, and new ones use less than a gallon per flush — that alone saves a ton of water,” she said. “Be mindful of leaks — a running toilet can use up to 40,000 gallons in a month. Run full loads of laundry and full dishwashers — and use the dishwasher! People mistakenly think they use a lot of water when they actually use 4 or 5 gallons a load, and the sink running uses 2.2 gallons every minute it’s running — a dishwasher is more efficient. These are easy places to start.”

Young suggested evaluating the water use of your community and said, “Establish a program where rates incentivize that people use less and hire someone whose job it is to go into restaurants and businesses and point out where there are water savings.”

Whether you live in the Southwest or the Midwest, it can have an impact.

“Since we don’t see infrastructure and the aquifers that feed lakes and rivers, we forget what comes out of the tap does have an impact,” Young said. “You don’t want to underfund your water and sewer utility. People have to trust us. We have to protect the water quality that comes into our homes and businesses.”

Next Article: Lincoln, Nebraska, provides incentive to encourage energy-efficient choices