Save money, be conscientious, and ensure water availability.
That's what the Water Research Foundation has identified as the top three messages to customers across drinking water utilities for promoting water conservation - all while managing shrinking revenues. Released this month, the report, "Water Conservation: Customer Behavior and Effective Communications," is the result of a survey of six public utilities in four states - Washington, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina - that began in 2006.
"We wanted to find where utilities would get the biggest bang for their buck," says Susan Turnquist, project manager with the foundation, of what is considered the first study of its kind. Customers prefer bill inserts and television ads and said that they trust utility managers the most (not surprisingly, elected officials and the media ranked as the least trustworthy).
More importantly, though, three messages have had the most impact:
"You can save money." The study found that each additional $1,000 of annual income added 0.3% more water use annually, so it only makes sense that the money-saving message works the best. But there's a downside: As conservation efforts reduce water use, revenues decline. The foundation will address the balance between water conservation and rate structures this fall in its Drinking Water Research Journal. "Water conservation goes against the grain of utilities' traditional practices," Turnquist says. "Until recently, conservation has not been built into the business model." Conservation does benefit utilities in several ways by both increasing the water supply and trimming increasingly costly treatment budgets. The cost of treatment chemicals such as alum, aluminum sulfate, chlorine have jumped in the last five years as worldwide demand - particularly in the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific nations - has jumped.
"It's the right thing to do." Seattle Public Utilities reported that the 61% of respondents who strongly agree that global climate change is an environmental concern had lower water use overall.
"Ensure water availability in water-short areas." In Phoenix's Water Services Department, water use among respondents who "took at least one action" was examined over the time period from 1996-2007. The conservation program has an annual budget of $1.9 million with $500,000 allocated to communications and education outreach and $150,000 allocated to the Water - Use It Wisely social marketing campaign. As a result of the city's mass media outreach, community outreach, and incentive programs to promote water conservation awareness, water use dropped steadily by 45 kgal from 1996 to 2007. "Water conservation programs are more acute these days because much of the U.S. population has moved into water-short areas like the Southwest," explains Rob Renner, the foundation's executive director. "When compared to water reuse facilities and desalination, the cheapest water you'll ever get is through conservation."
The foundation also reports that the median annual single-family water use across all six study sites was 99 kilogallons (kgal), the equivalent of 99,000 gallons.
Although water use patterns differ greatly by region end uses including toilet flushing, washing clothes, and irrigation remain consistent across the country, the survey found. That allows water utilities to promote similar behaviors (such as replacing inefficient toilets, improving irrigation efficiency, and eliminating single-pass cooling) no matter what their location is.
Other participating utilities were the City of Durham, N.C., Department of Water Management; the City of Tempe, Ariz., Water Utilities Department; JEA (formerly Jacksonville Electric Authority) in Jacksonville, Fla., and Orange County Utilities in Fla.
