In Portland, Oregon, rows of sedge plantings and aspen trees sit on what used to be an asphalt parking lot. In Las Vegas, homeowners trade their lawns for vast wads of cash. Birds flying over Chicago see fields of sedum on rooftops, and wastewater in Orange County is transformed into water that’s as clean as what comes out of the tap. The common thread to all of these examples? A desire to better manage water.
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A new report released last fall by consulting firm McKinsey & Company declares that by 2030, the world’s water demands will have increased by 40%. Add to that the fact of rising seas, droughts, and shrinking water sheds, and cities across the country are starting to respond with some particularly innovative solutions tailor-made to their varied water needs.
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A good case in point is Orange County, which has created the largest-scale program of recycling wastewater in the world. This part of Southern California had formerly relied on gleaning most of its water from a mix of ground water and two rivers (the Santa Ana and the Colorado). Anticipating increased land development, combined with multi-year droughts decreasing the river systems, the area was facing large water shortages. As a result, the water district came up with a way to recycle wastewater that would otherwise drain into the ocean. Called the Groundwater Replenishment System , it essentially diverts the wastewater from one of the area’s two sewage treatment plants to a system that cleans the water to drinkable levels through a three-step process. The purified water is then put back into the ground, where it trickles through the soil to again become part of the municipal aquifers. On track to process half of the total wastewater produced by the area’s 2.5 million residents, the system has been up and running for two years. That’s 34 billion gallons of water recycled for reuse. An added bonus is that the system conserves the energy otherwise used in importing water from various rivers, saving money in the process. Entirely successful, the program’s already planning to expand, and cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego are looking into emulation.
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Las Vegas, likewise, has focused most of its local water conservation efforts on one spectacularly successful program, although quite different in type from Orange County. Called the Water Smart Landscapes Program in which people are paid to rip out their lawns, “it’s our flagship conservation program and over 80% of what we do,” says Doug Bennett of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Initially launched as a five-year research project of 700 houses in 1995, the results of the study were startling: When people replaced their grass with native plants and xeriscaping, they reduced their water use on average by 75%. Not bad for a city where almost three-quarters of residential water use is outdoors. So in 1999, the area started the cash for grass program, available to all commercial and residential customers, scaling up the rebate amounts to its current level of $1.50 per square foot of grass removed for the first 5,000 square feet (larger conversions pay more in the $1 per square foot range, such as with golf courses and parks). Tiered water utility rate structures provide additional incentives to conserve, as do new city codes that prohibit grass in front yards and limit back yard size and outlaw nonfunctional grass in commercial developments.
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“No relationships have been forged over the roar of a lawnmower.
And when one neighbor takes out their lawn, often the rest of the street follows.”
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The measurable results of this program are impressive: Over 40,000 lawns amounting to 141 million square feet of turf are now decorated with Joshua trees and cacti instead of grass, with savings of more than 33 billion gallons of water over the past decade (almost 20% annually in water savings for the city). As for other results, Bennett asserts that taking out lawns has helped build community. “No relationships have been forged over the roar of a lawnmower,” he says. “And when one neighbor takes out their lawn, often the rest of the street follows.” His dream is that the program will one day put itself out of business. Los Angeles has recently instituted a more modest similar program , and the nonprofit Utah Rivers Council has created a suggestively-named Rip Your Strip program that offers tips and advice (although no money) to residents taking out grass.
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A world of weather away in Portland, OR, the issue is not scarcity, but rather how to manage a wealth of the wet stuff. With near-constant precipitation for much of the year, Portland has created a comprehensive approach that integrates various ways of dealing with stormwater and rain, so that it’s not all just draining into (and polluting) the Willamette River that runs through the center of the city. “There are much better solutions than just building big new pipes” says Linda Dobson of the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services. “You save money and enhance natural environments when you take a holistic approach and don’t just upsize pipes.” Perhaps the cornerstone of this effort is the Green Street Program that turns impervious roadways where water pours into sewer systems into streets where water naturally drains through soil and greenery, as well as creating curb extensions, permeable pavement, and pedestrian-friendly crossings in place of parking spaces. The city has resolved to remove 60 million gallons of stormwater each year from the sewer system by 2011, in large part through green streets. Already, 475 such streets have been created; another 500 are planned over the next two years, and most of the streets are already seeing more than an 80% reduction in water flow to the sewer system. Residents have bought into the program, helping choose plantings for their streets and being involved through a downspout disconnect program , that encourages rain barrel use and credits homeowners and property managers for managing their stormwater on site.
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It’s perhaps the most impressive example of stormwater management in the country, and one which other cities are starting to mimic. San Francisco is installing its first major green street by the year end on Newcomb Avenue in Bayview, a redevelopment area, and the city hopes to make the project just one of many to come. Chicago has also made impressive strides, concentrating their efforts on alleys rather than streets. With over 1900 miles of back alleys, the city created a pilot program in 2006 that replaces traditional concrete and asphalt with permeable pavers that allows 80% of rainwater to seep underground instead of into the sewers. More than 80 green alleys were created in the first two years of the program, and the city is forging ahead with more for the future . Even smaller localities, like the city of Toledo, OH, are jumping on the bandwagon: They’re planning a green alley project to break ground this spring that will incorporate permeable pavements and landscaping with free rain barrels and rain gardens provided by the city to the neighborhood’s low-income homes www.raingardeninitiative.org.
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Other cities are taking their green above street level. Chicago is perhaps the recognized leader in this area, with a green roof grant initiative program since 2005 of up to $5,000, a city hall topped with crabapple trees and honeysuckle vines included among its 20,000 plants, and more than 600 green roofs totaling 7 million square feet throughout the city. Seattle, Portland, Toronto, and New York are all ramping up their own green roof programs, offering tax incentives, code requirements, and building allowances through their various cities. At the same time, tree planting has become another popular move towards soaking up rainwater naturally—as well as beautifying streets. New York City recently launched MillionTreesNYC , an initiative that plans to put a million trees throughout the city’s five boroughs over the next decade, and Portland gives “treebates” and free trees through their city program , hoping to line streets with the waving branches of native alder, fir, maple, and madrone
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Then there are cities like Tucson which offer no flashy projects, no sexy PR, just solid, well-integrated water conservation programs that are quietly doing a good job. “In the 1970s, we ran into demand issues based on city growth,” says Fernando Molina of Tucson Water. “So we took an integrated research management approach for conservation, and we’ve sustained it since then.” From a peak period of average daily per capita use around 200 gallons a day in the 1970s, the city now boasts an average per capita use that hovers around 138 gallons (the national average for a family of four is over 240 gallons a day, according to the EPA). The city offers a long list of rebates from toilets to rainwater collection, has extensive public education programs on the importance of watching water use, maintains conservation ordinances from gray water to plumbing codes—including a new ordinance taking effect this June that mandates gray water plumbing be installed in all new construction—as well as an inclining block rate structure for water customers, and promotes a forward-thinking xeriscaping effort that began decades ago. “Phoenix likes to say that you can’t tell where the desert ends and Tucson begins,” Molina states of the other Arizona city, where lush green lawns carpet the landscape. Tucson residents are proud of that intended slur; it means they’ve been ahead of the water curve for years.
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As Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” It would be disastrous if we let ourselves get to that point. Perhaps if we follow these cities’ leads and look to the future, we will understand the value of water before it’s both literally and proverbially too late.
