18 Aug Water Conservation vs. WTP#4 – The Unexplored Territory

Appeals have been put out by three environmental organizations to urge city council not to commit funding to Water Treatment Plant #4 at this point, rather to increase the city's commitment to attaining more water conservation gains. As a political statement, that's fine for them to urge, but the real issue is HOW to attain them. That is where the substantive, meaningful discussion will begin.

The actions that are the stock in trade of "normal" water conservation efforts do not address the fundamental ways we manage water, rather they only tinker at the margins, remaining entirely WITHIN presently prevailing practice. And in the main they depend on myriad actions of individuals, so consistent delivery of a "firm supply" requires a vigorous outreach, surveillance and enforcement effort, a "meddling" in activities being carried out on private property which this city government has thus far not evidenced the stomach for. But what we NEED to achieve are dependable, sustainable, long-term savings that are inherent in our water management processes.

So we must look beyond these "normal" strategies if we expect to actually take a meaningful step up in water conservation. To get there, we must reform our water management practices. These systems are rooted in 19th century issues and conditions – they are largely focused on making a nuisance go “away”.

We NEED systems rooted in the realities of the 21st century, that address all water as a RESOURCE. This is indeed an emerging awareness within the water engineering community, as set forth, for example, in Cities of the Future by Paul Brown of Camp, Dresser, McKee – a voice from the very heart of the mainstream. Key quotes: “… no matter how much money is spent to reduce controllable regulated sources of pollution, the integrity of water bodies has been severely impaired and will remain so if the fast conveyance, end of pipe treatment paradigm alone continues to be the prevailing model.” “[In the future] all components of water supply, stormwater, and wastewater will be managed in a closed loop. … Closing the water loop may require decentralization of some components of the urban water cycle in contrast to the current highly centralized regional systems employing long distance water and wastewater transfer.” Some ways that we can do this include:

• Hook up supplies more directly with demands, through strategies like building-scale rainwater harvesting and project-scale "waste" water reclamation and reuse, tightening up the loops of the water cycle. New developments – both infill and out in the hinterlands – should use project-scale "waste" water systems that cost efficiently maximize reuse of "waste" water in or near the development. Do this instead of spending ungodly amounts of money on pipelines to make the loops larger, to make resources that are being perceived as nuisances go "away", and then spending even more on reclaimed water pipelines to get that resource back again.

• Design water management strategies that focus on efficient utilization of water into the very fabric of every development – green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting, project-scale "waste" water reuse, etc. – instead of appending on, as if an afterthought, management strategies that focus most of the investment on just moving water to and away from the development. If we do this, we may never have to build another trunk main, saving untold amounts of public money.

• For example, there is no reason why every commercial building shouldn't be required to derive all their non-potable water needs from project-scale rainwater harvesting and "waste" water reuse, as for example is absolutely required by the Living Building Challenge.

• Stormwater must be managed to hold at least as much water on the land as remained there under natural conditions, by using Low-Impact Development (LID) strategies that focus on retention and infiltration, rather than running it to an end-of-pipe pond, and thence to "away". We need to stop, and reverse, the "desertification" of the city.

• Many of these actions will also have a great impact on the energy required to run the water management infrastructure, producing significant savings. This will also provide significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, most likely greater overall reductions than it is claimed will result from implementing WTP#4.

In short, to get to "deep conservation" – the sort of thing that really can, as one activist organization put it, "keep our water use flat for years to come" and so perhaps put off the need for WTP#4 for a DECADE or more, even in the face of the growth expected here – we have to fundamentally alter the ways in which we address water resources.  We indeed have to stop addressing so much of the water that flows through this community as a nuisance, to be made to go to that magical place we call "away", and start addressing it as a RESOURCE. By doing so, the water conservation we can obtain would dwarf the savings expected from “normal” conservation programs.

That fundamental alteration of the form and function of our water resources infrastructure will be a generational change, happening one project at a time over many years. But we are dealing here with infrastructure that has a very long service life, and the decisions we make today will be with us for decades to come.  So we have to start making those changes now, in every project going forward, to get on that path to deep conservation.

Instead of funding further work on WTP#4 at this point, City Council should explore how they can lead this community on the course to deep conservation. The water realities of this region demand that this community embark down that path NOW.