Use public financing to spur water efficiency across state

Gov. Jerry Brown’s unprecedented call for cities and towns to cut water use by 25 percent was a vital response to California’s extreme drought. However, it stopped short of providing the vision and support necessary to finance a new decentralized water efficiency industry the same way we created a now-thriving clean energy industry.

We know what a decentralized energy system looks like — solar panels to harvest the power of the sun, windmills to capture the breeze, and Smart meters to encourage energy-efficient behavior. Public financing programs, including property assessed clean energy (known as PACE) and investment tax credits, provided much needed support to accelerate the growth of these industries.

So, why don’t we do the same for decentralized water programs?

Decentralized water efficiency solutions have enormous potential to provide greater water security and protect environmental health. Gray water systems recycle relatively clean wastewater from our sinks, showers and washing machines for our gardens. Water meters, paired with water-use monitoring software, notify residents of wasteful use and damaging leaks. Low-water landscaping reduces the amount of precious municipal water used to grow lawns. All these advances lower the amount of water we use at home, and soon, we will have homes that capture and recycle all the water they use.

To accelerate this shift, the state should support the type of public financing mechanisms that built our centralized water storage and distribution networks in order to pay for the next generation of water conservation systems. Utilities won’t be able to do it on their own.

Nationwide, our water infrastructure is paid for by public funds, primarily through municipal bond offerings along with limited but important state and federal assistance. The cost of our dams, reservoirs, treatment facilities and pipelines is amortized over decades across large populations.

When it comes to water conservation and efficiency programs, however, expenses are borne primarily by individual home and business owners. They are cost-effective only when they provide a positive return on investment for those individuals in a short span of time.

Sure, some utilities provide rebates for low-flow toilets, shower heads and landscape irrigation. Others go so far as to pay homeowners to tear up their water-thirsty lawns. But these programs are a proverbial drop in the bucket.

To date, California has not fully tapped the considerable opportunities to conserve water in urban areas, where single-family homes present the biggest target for water conservation. While the manufacturing industry uses 6 percent of total urban water supply, residences account for a whopping two-thirds of urban consumption, most of this used outside.

Consider that we are sprinkling about 1 trillion gallons of high-quality drinking water on our lawns, gardens and sidewalks. While no one suggests doing away with landscaping in the Golden State, replacing just 25 percent of our outdoor water use with gray water or captured rainwater, and implementing water-use monitoring software to encourage behavior change, would conserve enough water to provide for more than 3 million people each year.

The homeowners who replace their turf, reuse their gray water and change water-use behavior save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and make it easier for us as a state and a nation to adapt to changes in weather and climate that have led to drought in some areas and flooding in others. They also collectively avoid, delay or reduce the costs associated with new water supply development, including costly desalinization plants, which would otherwise be borne by ratepayers.

There is no meaningful difference in terms of protecting water reliability between conservation and a reservoir. As these policies provide equivalent benefits, they should have the same access to public financing.

Local water efficiency and conservation solutions are integral to efforts to secure a more stable water future for our communities, cities and towns. The state should step up and make public financing options substantially more available than they are today.

The time to invest in water efficiency is now. Let Gov. Brown know you support increased public funding for sustainable water solutions in your community. E-mail the governor at https:// govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php.