I’d mentioned previously that “Peak water use is what drives the supposed need for Water Treatment Plant 4,” and that modest conservation efforts could reduce water use on those few hottest days of summer when when we use – and waste – the most water.

In times of extreme drought (like last summer) the City’s rules call for once-per-week watering instead of twice-per-week. However, that schedule still had half of all residences watering on the same one day per week (and half of all businesses and apartments).

Peak summer water use could be further reduced by splitting a once-per-week watering schedule so that roughly one quarter of homes would be watering on any given day, instead of half of the homes. For example, houses with even addresses north of the Colorado River could water on Sunday, while even numbered houses south of the river could water on on Thursdays. Odd numbered houses north could water on Saturday, south could water on Wednesday. Same for businesses and apartments.

It is not only possible, it’s extremely inexpensive to reduce our daily summer water use to below 200 million gallons per day or MGD, which would be 85 MGD’s below our current treatment capacity of 285 MGD. If our most intense days of water use result in a cushion of capacity that almost doubles what Water Treatment Plant 4 would provide, how does it make sense to commit $1.2 BILLION to the Mistake on the Lake?