Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

Water Matters: Thinking Locally About the Water Crisis

Story by Kathleen McFadden

Editor’s Note: Last week, High Country Press introduced its three-part series on water and the statewide drought with a look at how much water we actually use—and waste. This second installment focuses on the ways we can act individually and collectively on a local level to raise our awareness, think creatively, reduce our consumption and avert a crisis.

One of the factors working against water conservation is that water is just so darn cheap. The prices that local municipalities charge for water reflect neither its value nor its necessity.

Other necessities aren’t such values. For many of us, saving electricity by turning off lights and appliances has become an engrained habit because electricity bills—especially during the winter—can be real budget busters. The $3.06 price of a gallon of regular gas is another budget hit that has made folks think in terms of consolidating trips and using alternative transportation.

But you don’t get the same kind of immediate financial payback for reducing your water use, partly because of the way water is billed and partly because of its low cost.

In the Town of Boone, a residential household pays just $28 for 2,000 gallons of water/sewer service per month.

In Blowing Rock, residents get 5,000 gallons for a $63 fee every two months.

In Beech Mountain, households pay $55.72 every three months for 6,000 gallons.

If you exceed the billing allotment, you’ll pay between $4.15 to $4.50 for every additional 1,000 gallons, depending on where you live. A price of $0.00415 per gallon provides no incentive to conserve.

And for households drawing water from wells, the water costs nothing at all once the system is installed.

Given these financial realities, the decision to conserve water has to based on thinking in much broader terms than the monthly financial outlay. It requires a communitywide approach that stretches from every individual household to every business location to every development decision to every local government.

The concern is real. The simple fact is that North Carolina is experiencing its worst drought in recorded history, Watauga and Avery counties have been in the most severe drought category for months and the experts are not predicting any significant relief in the coming year.

But by thinking and acting locally, despite the lack of immediate financial payback for conservation, communities in the High Country can potentially avert the nightmare of water rationing—or worse.

What Can Individuals Do?

Reading lists of conservation tips is boring. But incorporating conservation measures around the house can be satisfying in an I’m-doing-my-part kind of way, as well as good opportunities for sharing and learning with children. Some water conservation measures are absolutely free; others require a capital outlay.

Absolute tops on the individual conservation list is finding and fixing leaks in pipes, drips in faucets and running water in toilets. These measures alone can save incalculable amounts of water over time throughout a community.

Check with your municipality to find out if the utilities department offers water conservation kits. The Town of Boone, for example, has kits with easy-to-install water-saving devices, leak detection tablets and conservation tips that town residents can pick up for free.

If your municipality doesn’t offer such a kit and you aren’t prepared to spend money on new fixtures, appliances or toilets to save water, just adopting a majority of the free suggestions will add up to big water savings over time.

How To Save Water for Free

You can find hundreds of tips for saving water on the Web with a simple search, so instead of compiling a list of suggestions so long that nobody would read it, this list focuses on everyday household activities and easy ways to save water that might not have occurred to you. More tips and the amount of water you can save are listed in the sidebar on the front page of this week’s paper.

To become even more of a conservation warrior, run a Web search for more ideas.

• When washing dishes by hand, don't let the water run while rinsing. Fill one sink with wash water and the other with rinse water.

• Wash produce in the sink or a pan that is partially filled with water instead of running water from the tap.

• Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway or sidewalk.

• Adjust your lawn mower to a higher setting. Longer grass shades root systems and holds soil moisture better than a closely clipped lawn.

• When you clean your fish tank, use the water you've drained on your plants. The water is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, providing a free and effective fertilizer.

• Don't use running water to thaw food.

• Soak your pots and pans instead of letting the water run while you scrape them clean.

• Bathe your pets outdoors in an area that needs water.

• When you give your pet fresh water, don't throw the old water down the drain. Use it to water your trees, shrubs or houseplants.

• If you accidentally drop ice cubes when filling your glass from the freezer, don't throw them in the sink. Drop them in a houseplant instead.

• Fill the sink with a few inches of warm water for rinsing your razor.

How To Save Water by Spending Some Money

You can spend a little or spend a lot, but even small expenditures can add up to big water savings in the course of a year.

• If your shower can fill a one-gallon bucket in less than 20 seconds, replace it with a water-efficient showerhead.

• In the average home, the toilet accounts for 28 percent of water use. Installing low-volume toilets can save 5 gallons or more per flush.

• Install an instant water heater on your kitchen sink so you don't have to let the water run while it heats up. The added bonus is a reduction in water heating costs.

• Insulate your water pipes with pre-slit foam pipe insulation to get hot water faster and avoid wasting water while it heats up.

• Install aerators on all household faucets. This single best home water conservation method is also the cheapest and is an easy do-it-yourself project.

• When you shop for a new appliance, consider one offering cycle and load size adjustments. They are more water and energy-efficient than older appliances, and new water-saving washing machines can save up to 20 gallons per load.

• Install a rain barrel to catch what precipitation we get this spring and summer, and use the rainwater to water your plants and wash your car.

What Can Businesses and Developers Do?

Many of the same tips that apply to homeowners apply to businesses and developers, just on a larger scale.

Water usage, of course, differs by the type of business, and so does the potential for conservation, but all the steps—big and small—add up to big water savings.

In offices, business owners and managers can encourage employees to save water at work in the same way they save water at home.

Hotels and motels can offer guests the option to reuse towels and sheets, can install water-saving devices in bathrooms and can implement water-saving cleaning procedures.

Restaurants can look for ways to conserve water in dishwashing, cleaning and serving, while still complying with health and safety requirements. Restrooms can be fitted with low-flow toilets and faucets that dispense timed amounts of hot water for hand washing.

Developers can build water conservation systems into new office buildings, apartment complexes, homes and other facilities—and use the systems and their personal and community benefits as a powerful marketing tool.

What Can Municipalities Do?

Municipalities have the oversight of public water systems and the de facto leadership role in reducing municipal waste, encouraging conservation, monitoring water availability, addressing code restrictions and educating the public.

Reducing Municipal Waste

Governor Mike Easley has called on all water system administrators to find and fix leaks in their systems as a primary water conservation method.

According to Boone Public Utilities Director Rick Miller, a meter at the water treatment plant records the volume of water treated and released into the municipal system every day. Once per month, those readings are compared with utility billings to determine how much water the town sold. The difference between the amount of water treated and the amount of water sold is the town’s “unaccounted gallons.”

Those unaccounted gallons can be lost to leaks, theft—just this week, Miller’s staff caught someone filling a small tanker truck with water from a municipal fire hydrant—or “stopped” meters, meters that are not registering water flow.

The state considers unaccounted gallons of 20 percent or less acceptable, and Miller said the Town of Boone is within the 15 to 20 percent range.

Encouraging Conservation

Last year, Boone declared a Stage I water shortage condition to encourage voluntary conservation, and the Boone Water Committee is currently considering changes to the requirements for declaring successively acute conditions that would make it easier for the town manager and public utilities director to step up the conservation requirements and the penalties for noncompliance.

Monitoring Water Availability

At each month’s Boone Town Council meeting, Miller reports the previous month’s average daily water demand.

In addition, the town’s Ordinance 05-01 allocates a specific amount of water for new accounts per year, and once demand for new tap-ons reaches a certain threshold, all subsequent requests must be considered and decided by the town council instead of the utilities staff.

Addressing Code Restrictions

For new construction, gray water reclamation offers significant water-saving potential, but until recently such systems have not been on the radar locally. Initial plans were to build the new Watauga High School with a gray water reclamation system, but the Town of Boone does not allow for permitting such a system. So instead, the high school will have a rainwater reclamation system.

Gray water refers to the reuse of water drained from baths, showers, washing machines and sinks—anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of the water swirling down our pipes. Gray water does not contain wastewater from toilets or urinals.

While one potential gray water application is toilet flushing—and that reuse could save loads of water in a school, an apartment building, a hotel or an office complex—another is its use for subsurface landscape irrigation. Not only would using gray water on landscapes conserve treated tap water, but gray water can also benefit plants because it often contains nutrients such as nitrogen or phosphorus.

At this time, neither the town council nor the water committee is considering code changes that would permit gray water system permitting.

Educating the Public

The Town of Boone has a full-time water conservation coordinator who coordinates events in the schools and for the community, dispenses water-saving kits and provides conservation information.

The Final Word

The ace up the sleeve for municipalities, however, is the ability to set the water rates. And if voluntary water conservation methods fail to reduce consumption to necessary levels, the drought worsens and water supplies get tighter, town councils across the High Country may face the unavoidable necessity of pricing water according to its value and its necessity.