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The city’s water-conservation policies have helped cut the demand on city water plants by 13 per cent in four years, the city’s water department says.
In 2005, Ottawa produced 124.5 billion litres of water with a peak demand of 509 million litres a day. By 2008, this fell to 108.5 billion litres total with a peak of 383 million litres a day, say city water consumption and conservation reports.
“Demand is at 1982 levels in total, and that’s not adjusted for growth,” said the city’s general manager of environmental programs Dixon Weir. “We’re seeing some good gains.”
The reports warn the drop in water consumption may be tied to wetter weather in recent years, but that even if this is factored out, serious progress is being made.
The city’s measures include a rebate program for replacing old toilets with new low-volume models, a drive to fix leaking pipes, and an advertising campaign.
In 2008, the toilet-rebate program’s second-year, more than 2,700 households applied and 2,282 were approved.
The numbers far exceeded the estimated 1,400 per year anticipated when the program began. There’s also a backlog of more than 300 applications.
Under the program, when homeowners replace old toilets that use a lot of water with new ones that use less, the city gives $60 to $75 rebates, depending on how little water the units use.
Water bills show households where the toilets have been replaced use about 51,000 litres of water less each year, saving approximately $130. The report says that, based on water-meter readings, it takes just over two years for the average homeowner’s water savings, plus the rebate, to pay for a new $340 toilet.
“I think that’s key to the popularity of this program,” Weir said. “The payback is pretty quick and people can see that.”
At the same time the toilet program started, the city began giving out residential water efficiency kits, which include a low-flow showerhead, a bathroom aerator and a flow-test bag to measure how much water a showerhead puts out.
The reports, to be discussed next week by city councillors on the environment committee, say money for the toilet replacement program will run out in July. However, Weir says funds will be used from other budgets to keep it going because it’s a good investment for the city.
The toilet program is part of an overall trend of conservation in the city, some of it driven by higher water bills and some driven by the city’s efforts to cut water waste in its own system and at its own buildings.
A big part of this success is a program aimed at repairing and replacing leaks in the city’s water distribution system, which contains 2,700 kilometres of pipes.
In 2005, it leaked so badly that the waste — 63 million litres a day — could fill about 1,000 regular-sized swimming pools. It was about 50-per-cent higher than what was considered “good” by industry standards.
At the time, the city inspected the entire system looking for the worst leaks, and followed with a plan to start fixing them. The work would be paid for by three years of nine-per-cent hikes in water rates, followed by three years of five-per-cent hikes, before returning to increases that would keep pace with regular inflation.
Testing last year shows the volume of water lost due to leaks has been cut in half, and is now better than industry standards. Weir said the city will keep up with this aggressive repair and replacement program, and losses could be reduced further.
Weir says, in the long run, all the spending will pay dividends to taxpayers.
“The more people we can serve on the same pipes means we avoid the significant capital cost of putting in new bigger pipes,” he said. “We’ve had some tremendous success.”
© Copyright 2009 The Ottawa Citizen