Industry touts pools as a way for Californians to save water
Some conservation experts question industry’s math
ORANGE, Calif. — Leigh McDonough stood in her backyard on a hot spring day and listened to the steady shush-shush-shush of two garden hoses filling her new pool and hot tub with water. Her family installed the 21,000-gallon pool despite a state mandate to cut overall water consumption by 25 percent amid a crushing, fouryear drought.
McDonough wasn’t worried: She was told her pool would actually help save water that would otherwise go to her lawn.
It’s a mantra being pushed by the California pool and spa industry in recent months, as water-conservation campaigns have placed residential pools and other conspicuous water users in the crosshairs.
As residents struggle to cut waste at the tap, the California Pool and Spa Association is lobbying water districts to quash proposed bans on filling pools and spas. The industry cites an inhouse study that found that a standardsized pool, plus decking, uses one-third the amount of water of an irrigated lawn after an initial fill.
“We’re not saying, ‘Solve the drought, put in a pool,’ but the bottom line is people who put in a pool are making a decision to do something more water-efficient with their backyard. They’re saving water,” said John Norwood, the California Pool and Spa Association’s president. “Pools are landscaping.”
Some water-conservation experts question the pool industry’s math and say, at best, residential pools and lawns use roughly the same amount of water after an initial fill. There are 1.18 million residential pools in California, according to Metrostudy, which tracks housing information.
And at least a dozen cities and water districts in the hardest-hit areas of the state have passed bans on new swimming pool permits, filling new swimming pools and draining and refilling existing pools.
The South Coast Water District,