LeakBird

(May 7, 2009, The San Diego Tribune)
The city of Escondido is considering stepping up its water-conservation efforts from the current Level 1, voluntary water conservation, to Level 2, mandatory restrictions, starting July 1.
That could mean watering lawns only three days a week, Escondido’s utilities director Lori Vereker said.
The City Council is expected to decide [...]

(May 4, 2009, KPBS)

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders wants the city council to approve his call for mandatory water restrictions. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Sanders says voluntary water conservation has saved about 5%, but he says that isn’t enough to meet the water restrictions coming this summer.
He wants to impose Level 2 mandatory [...]

(April 22, 2009, WorldChanging)
Location is a big deal when it comes to water. If you live in Seattle, like we do, it’s plentiful enough that we don’t need to worry too much about wasting it because there is always enough for all of us to use as we please. But in most places, water still [...]

(April 22, 2009, GlobeAndMail)
“We have to say kudos to the province for recognizing our rivers face challenges from withdrawal,” he says. But it also brings challenges for towns like his that rely on rivers for water. For most of the last decade, Okotoks has been Canada’s second fastest-growing municipality and expects to add another 9,000 [...]

(April 22, 2009, The Sacramento Bee)
Hoping Californians can save water like they did energy, the state on Tuesday launched a conservation campaign to nudge all residents to take simple steps to help each other through the drought.
Dubbed “Save Our Water,” the program is modeled after the highly successful “Flex Your Power” campaign that helped California [...]

(April 23, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
DWP has a water conservation team whose members drive through neighborhoods in Los Angeles checking for water waste. If your sprinkler is running on a Wednesday, they can cite you for violating the conservation measures. For a first citation, you will receive a warning. Subsequent citations are subject to [...]

(April 20, 2009, The Mercury News)

Water users in Antioch will be asked to cut their consumption by 15 percent this summer.
The mandatory reduction comes because the Contra Costa Water District, from which Antioch purchases some of its water, has notified its customers of a decrease in available water this year, according to a city news [...]

(April 21, 2009, Aguanomics)
Southern Californians use about 350 gallons of water per day per household (of 3). That’s about 110 gallons/capita/day (gcd).
People in San Francisco use about 63 gcd, and people in the Bay Area use about 97 gcd.
(Original Post Here)

(April 19, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
“We’re out there telling people to use less water, and yet a lot of the revenue we have is based on what people use,” said Gary Breaux, finance director for the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.3 million people in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. [...]

Want to use more water?  Pay for it.
David Zetland, Aguanomics.com
The Water Myth is the myth that we have an endless water supply, renewing itself ad infinitum. How can we not believe in this myth when even our cats can drink from the potable water in our toilet bowls, for which we pay less than [...]

(April 14, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
It would be nice if only the overusers picked up that higher tab, but without a further, and very time-consuming, overhaul of the city’s rates, those higher prices would be borne by everyone. The council should take up that challenge too, but for now, the drought-year rates and the [...]

(April 8, 2009, Reuters)
Despite dire warnings of water shortages due to prolonged drought, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday rejected a plan to ration water in the nation’s second-largest city for the first time in 18 years.
The unanimous 15-0 vote against the plan marked a surprise setback for Los Angeles water managers, who like [...]

(April 6, 2009, The Houston Chronicle)
A joint report from the University of Texas and an environmental group urges state planners to conserve both water and energy.
The report released Monday claims that improving water conservation will cut power demand and that upgrades in energy efficiency will decrease water needs, allowing Texas to utilize “finite supplies of [...]

(April 5, 2009, The Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Two years ago, while metro Atlanta’s drought burned through the record book, Karin Guzy of east Cobb turned off her in-ground sprinkler system.
It hasn’t been on since.
Instead, she waters her garden from two 250-gallon water cisterns. The large buckets easily fill from light rain collected off her roof.
Guzy doesn’t [...]

(April 2, 2009, The Mercury News)

There’s appears to be plenty of snow in the Sierra Nevada, but California water officials said Thursday it falls short of the amount needed to replenish the state’s reservoirs.
Across the 400-mile-long mountain range, the snowpack is holding about 81 percent of its usual statewide water content, according to the fourth [...]

(March 30, 2009, BBC News)
Most meters use a positive displacement chamber which has a fixed amount of water flowing through it that turns a dial to measure water usage for a household.
Meters are usually installed in the most suitable location determined by the pipe layout, which may be in the road, garden or indoors.
You local [...]

(March 29, 2009, Tampa Bay Online)
On Friday, turning on your lawn sprinklers will become a crime in Tampa under the toughest water restrictions in the state.
Everyone else in the Bay area, meanwhile, will be allowed to turn on their sprinklers once a week. Their lawns may struggle and shrivel but likely will survive until the [...]

(March 23, 2009, The Mercury News)

Citing three dry years in a row, Silicon Valley’s biggest water supplier will vote this morning on whether to call for a 15 percent mandatory summer cutback, the first water rationing in Santa Clara County in 18 years. Yet, just over the county line, Fremont residents will face no restrictions.
On [...]

(March 22, 2009, The Mercury News)

As California’s drought continues, water rationing is becoming a reality in many cities — and Antioch is no exception.
On Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to weigh in on a water shortage contingency plan to cut consumption by an estimated 25 percent — the amount by which Antioch’s water [...]

Property managers, landlords and water companies or utilities consider two resources their most precious:

Money
Water

Without secure cash flows and water supplies, their businesses will be under water almost instantaneously.
Because 95% of landlords and property managers pay their tenants’ water bills, it’s natural that they’re interested in where they can most effectively manage and secure the [...]

(March 21, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
A statewide drought emergency has prompted San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders to propose a plan that would reduce the city’s water use by about 20 percent.
The plan announced on Friday would require residents to cut their outdoor water use by 45 percent, and their indoor water use by 5 [...]

(March 20, 2009, The Mercury News)

The pain of a full-blown summer drought came closer to reality Friday when the staff of Silicon Valley’s main water supplier recommended a 15 percent mandatory cutback.
If the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District — which is the wholesale supplier of drinking water for 1.8 million people from [...]

The Boston Globe recently ran an op-ed about water conservation in rental properties entitled, “Do Environmentalists Rent Property?“, which also has some fantastic comments from landlords and tenants in the greater Boston area.  The author wonders if she’s the only one who is a good tenant when it comes to not using more water than [...]

(March 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
ID asks:
One of the structural issues I see with regard to pricing water is metering.

I’m sure the technology exists or could easily exit to monitor my water usage tied to a dollar amount.
I would like an easy to read display: Gallons used, unit cost, total cost. Generally metering is on [...]

(March 16, 2009, The Water Blog, Portland Water Bureau)

March 16-20th is the EPA’s first, annual Fix A Leak Week.  Fix A Leak Week is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense program, which seeks to protect the nation’s water supply by promoting efficient products and services and educating the public about water conservation.
According to WaterSense:

11,000 [...]

(March 9, 2009, The Crunchy Chicken)
If you live in an area that experiences frequent droughts or you just don’t like paying high water bills, there are a number of ways you can capture or reclaim the water that your household uses for other purposes.
First, I want to state that the suggestions I make in this [...]

(March 8, 2009, TBNWeekly)
The latest report from The Southwest Florida Water Management District shows aquifer levels are continuing to fall.
According to the district’s March 6 Aquifer Resource Weekly Update, the central aquifer, which is a water source for the Tampa Bay region, is down to a negative 1.69 feet. Last week, the aquifer was at [...]

(March 11, 2009, Robert in Monterey, Calitics)
As someone who has written before of the water problems our state faces, and who has repeated the “omg worst drought ever” frame, it’s important that I give some necessary attention to Michael Fitzgerald of The Stockton Record, who called bullshit on the whole thing today:
California’s “drought” is overblown. [...]

(March 10, 2009, The Orange County Register)
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Californians to reduce water use in the face of severe drought conditions, 78 households in The Reserve neighborhood of San Clemente were resting easy.
Those residents had signed on to participate in The Reserve Outdoor Sustainability Project, a study measuring the effects of efficient [...]

(March 10, 2009, Aguanomics)
The title of this post is my reformulation of “missing the forest for the trees,” and the subject of the post is a new report from the Pacific Institute.
In Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors, the PI assesses the various risks to water supplies that companies should [...]

(March 8, 2009, The Fresno Bee)
It is China’s latest grand attempt to tame nature. Three canals will bring water hundreds of miles to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 350,000 people in the way will be forced to move.
For many in Zhangyigang, a village of 942 people in brick and mud [...]

(March 7, 2009, Amy Wang, The Oregonian)
I try not to waste water. I bathe my sons together and limit their baths to a couple times a week. I make them brush their teeth without running the water. When I caught one child filling his cup and then drinking half the water and pouring the rest [...]

As the growing demand for all things water escalates across the United State (hydrologists, water conservation systems, water lawyers, new sources of water, et cet.), the drought environment, such as regions in Georgia, Florida, Nevada and California, has the highest market demand water conservation technologies for three reasons:

 
Timeliness
Fast Payback
Higher Water Rates

 
Timeliness
This is perhaps the most [...]

(March 8, 2009, SramanaMitra)
While people focus on carbon footprints and potential ways to reduce the impact man-made CO2 emissions, the world is running out of another of its key elements: fresh water.
We use fresh water much faster than it can replenish: it is increasingly scarce and has no alternative.
Water is a strategic resource for countries [...]

(March 7, 2009, MSNBC)
Using the back yard of a Tierrasanta resident as a backdrop, Mayor Jerry Sanders called on San Diegans to get serious about water conservation.
Sanders revealed what he has done personally to conserve and showed clear disappointment in the overall efforts of San Diegans.
“Despite some successes, we still continue to fall shrt of [...]

Many landlords and property managers, such as Jeff Porter at USA Landlord, establish excellent “water conservation programs” for their tenants, involving a number of elements:

Tenant Education
Tenant Motivation
Installation of Water Conservation Devices

While it’s essential to have a conservation program for your buildings, being proactive with tenants who don’t foot their own water bills can take a [...]

(March 6, 2009, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
(via DW) The Mayor’s office sent out this press release [pdf] yesterday:
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is calling on all San Diegans to step up water conservation efforts in the wake of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state of emergency declaration for California’s water supplies.
“The Governor’s message is right on target,” said [...]

(March 5, 2009, Business Insider)
While we don’t have a smart grid for electricity in place yet, there’s already talks that we need a smart grid for water. Implementing a smarter system that could monitor water usage would save the the US as much as 30% to 50% of its water used each year, estimates Mark [...]

(March 5, 2009, The Sacramento Bee)
Sacramento leaders on Tuesday said the city’s enormous thirst for water does not mesh with its Earth-friendly aspirations, and vowed to change.
In a workshop on water conservation, a majority of the Sacramento City Council said aggressive new policies are needed to save water. This may include stronger enforcement of water [...]

(March 5, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
The ongoing struggles of managing California’s limited water supply to support our cities, farms and natural environment are well known. As we face what some are calling one of the worst droughts in California history, we must all learn to conserve water wherever possible. Just as the Bay Area [...]

(March 3, 2009, Dan Bacher, IndyBay)
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Department of Water Resources and corporate agribusiness have continually tried to frame the battle over restoring the California Delta and Central Valley rivers as one of “fish versus people.”
This false dichotomy was exemplified by an article published in the Sacramento Bee, “Delta cutbacks put Valley [...]

Acoustic water leak detection has been around a long time. It predominates in the water industry when it comes to listening for leaks in underground pipes, in order to protect and secure municipal water supplies from catastrophic underground leaks.  A couple of companies that come to mind are SubSurface Leak Detection, Inc, Davis-Inotek Instruments and [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, The San Bernardino Sun)
Water is one of California’s most vexing challenges.
Most of the state’s rainfall comes in Northern California and its snowpack is in the Sierra Nevada range. But most of the users are in Southern California and the Central Valley, where agriculture is the main consumer.
There are obstacles at every step [...]

There’s an excellent old article from 1997!?! on “submetering water” from the Journal of Property Management that’s surprisingly contemporary in its report, indicating how little has changed with regard to the promising yet cost-prohibitive installation of water meters per individual residential unit.
As I see it, the difficulties of water submetering in property management can be [...]

(Feb. 27, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
The company has a gallery in New York’s tony SoHo district; one of it’s recent releases is named “Gwyneth”; it has near-cult status among the eco-affluent (and Google).
We’re talking about a toilet here.
Specifically, the Toto toilet – a water-efficient commode made by Japanese company founded in 1917.
The [...]

 
I recently came across an insightful 2006 document (pdf) from New York’s Department of the Environment on water/ sewer billing, water metering and water efficiency, put together for New York landlords and property managers.
I know that it’s now three years old, so some of the information is perhaps dated, though in essence I would hazard [...]

 
One only need flip open their local weekly to come across countless, sometimes useful ways and means to save water, go green, reduce energy — let’s admit, thou shalt conserve is the eleventh commandment.
Often times, the toilet is mentioned once or twice, but usually in passing.  Hence, I thought it might be useful to create [...]

Chris Brown wrote a post on the economics of water for the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, in which he argues that water shortages wouldn’t exist in a free market. To put it another way, with government intervention, water shortages are virtually guaranteed.  I happen to agree with Mr. Brown, however, it’s easier to acknowledge what [...]

(Feb. 23, 2009, On The Scene, Fox News)

In case you didn’t know, the Southeastern United States has been in a drought for the last several years.  The City of Atlanta was in danger of losing their water supply and many small towns in Tennessee simply ran out.  To keep the Southeast from going completely dry, [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, Coloradoan)
Plans to ramp up water conservation efforts in Fort Collins include a couple of tried-and-true methods – education and financial incentives.
Putting those plans to work would likely mean higher rates for water customers even as average per capita demand for water decreases, officials say.
Using less water has broad impacts, including prolonging the [...]