Hot. Dry. Desert.
Locals will already know what these three words describe. The Valley of the Sun is known for its year round sunshine and hot temperatures. Phoenix is also known for being the least sustainable city in the world with a dwindling water supply.
The Water Conservation Ad Hoc Committee proposed recommendations to pursue in efforts to conserve more water on Wednesday afternoon within the ad hoc.
The task force has three different subcommittees, each focusing on water conservation in three areas: landscaping, codes/incentives and education/public outreach.
The ad hoc committee estimates that the new proposals could save Phoenix over 500 million gallons of water a year, in addition to existing water conservation programs.
“The city needs to lead by example,” Warren Tenney, representative of the landscaping subcommittee, said.
Tenney proposed to have “water conservation factored into the contract,” when it comes to the city’s landscapers.
“The current city landscape contracts do not have any component dealing with water conservation,” Tenney said.
The water service would suggest that in each landscape contract, there would be a water budget developed for each sit, a requirement the contractor would need to manage the site with the water available.”
“In other words, not just keep it green and beautiful, but do it in the most efficient way with the water that you have,” Tenney said.
Tenney also proposed to expand the Homeowner’s Association (HOA) audit program.
“The audits the city has done to date have been well received and found to be helpful to the HOA’s. There is a potential water savings of 4.5 million gallons per year,” Tenney said.
The landscaping subcommittee said they wanted to expand from six audits a year to 40 audits.
The next proposal was to “offer free standardized xeriscape plans for residential properties,” Tenney said. “The idea is the city would work with a landscape contractor to develop plans that could be standardized for yards.”
This proposal would offer an easy-to-access blueprint that homeowner’s could work off of or refer to, Tenney said.
Door hangers were the next proposal. The door hangers would be used by all city staff and distributed to inform any residents with noticeable leaks or damaged irrigation systems, Tenney said.
Another proposal from Tenney included partnering with Salt River Project (SRP) on a “subsidized smart irrigation controller program.”
“Smart irrigation controllers is technology that uses weather sensing and internet connection to make remote adjustments to the irrigation system,” Tenney said.
The last proposal from the landscaping committee was a city hall sponsored redesign contest.
“The city can offer a prize to help figure out a design to redo the water feature that’s at the entrance of city hall,” Tenney said.
The next subcommittee to make proposals for water conservation was the codes/incentives committee, represented by Christa McJunkin.
The first proposal was to expand the existing toilet retrofit program.
“The current program is limited to low-income applicants. It’s a program where the full cost of the toilet and installation is covered by the city,” McJunkin said. The expanded program would retain the existing program, but also expand to be a regular reaping program.”
In the expanded program, residents would purchase and install the toilet individually then show the receipt and would gain a rebate amount.
The next proposal was a website where residents could develop their own water budgets based on house size, house members and other customizable options. The website would be similar to Gilbert’s own water budget site.
McJunkin also proposed to develop a commercial cooling tower outreach program based off of the city’s technology at Sky Harbor.
The idea is to “provide financial resources for businesses to participate in adopting water saving technology,” McJunkin said.
The final subcommittee to propose ideas was education and outreach. The first recommendation is to provide revisions to “the state’s standards, specifically addressing water conservation,” Kate Studey, education and outreach subcommittee representative, said.
Since the state’s standards were recently revised, the subcommittee said they knew it would be a process and wanted to make sure the next time there were revisions, water conservation was a part of the changes, Studey said.
According to Studey, another proposal was “to establish a volunteer program to assist in expanding the water conservation” outreach to schools.
The education and outreach committee also recommended offering field trips to the Tres Rios Wetlands visitor center in order to offer “teaching and education opportunities” about water conservation.
The proposals in total were about $1.5 million to startup, and $1.3 million to maintain annually.
No action was taken with the proposals at the ad hoc, and the next meeting was tentatively set for Oct. 29.
Contact the reporter at kspottsv@asu.edu.
