Through conservation of water, plumbers could seal prosperity for Wisconsin contractors for years to come. But unless the state creates a viable incentive to reduce water usage, the chance of gaining an economic advantage over the rest of the country could become a pipe dream.

Conserving more than water

Story by Dustin Block
Photos by Scott Anderson

Rainwater collected off a portion of the roof at the Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Place in Milwaukee, is used to flush the center’s toilets. These bathroom facilities conserve water further by providing the user with the ability to choose a lesser amountof water to flush.

Wisconsin’s prosperity hinges on the seats of our toilets.

While the Middle East rests atop pools of oil, Wisconsin sits between some of the Earth’s largest bodies of fresh water.

Lake Michigan, to the state’s east, contains 1.4 quadrillion gallons of fresh water, and to the north, Lake Superior holds 3.4 quadrillion gallons of fresh water. The state also sits on billions, if not more, gallons of fresh water in its four aquifers.

Access to fresh water provides the state with an economic advantage, said Sammis White, urban planning professor and associate dean of continuing education at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Water shortages are starting to make waves around the country and the world, he said, and proximity to fresh water should attract new businesses and commercial development to the area.

Wisconsin’s abundance of fresh water, however, could be what causes the state to flush its economic advantage down the tubes.

Some believe Wisconsin should conserve its water like a bank saves money.

Unlike energy though, water is, for lack of a better word, cheap.

Convincing people that water is valuable — and should be conserved — means overcoming a lifetime of paying little attention to the resource’s use.

In most cases, water utility rates drop as usage increases.

But efforts are under way to give Wisconsin residents and businesses financial and other incentives to reduce water usage.

Water conservation, after all, is relatively simple.

Low-flow toilets — that work reliably — have been available for years.

It’s convincing people such plumbing fixtures are the worth the additional cost that proves difficult.

“We really need to do more to build on this advantage,” said White. “If we don’t, our head start will be wasted.”

Overflow from a rainwater collection system in place at the Urban Ecology Center spills down a network of troughs to a rain-fed pond outside the front of the center.

The Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee already conserves water like a bank saves money.

The environmental community center funnels rainfall off the roof of its building into cisterns that flush toilets, water gardens and replenish a waterfall that pours into a pond.

Earth planted with native flowers or covered with porous concrete absorbs rain falling elsewhere on the property.

But unlike a bank’s efforts to hoard cash, there’s no profit in the center’s devotion to water conservancy.

The center’s collection system cost at least $50,000 to install, and with water being second only to air as a readily available natural resource in southeastern Wisconsin, it’s unlikely the organization will see a return on its investment in the near future.

“We have tons of water; that’s not the issue,” said Ken Leinbach, executive director of the center, which is dedicated to teaching children about the value of water. “We wanted to be the model for what’s right.”

Rainwater collected at the Urban Ecology Center can bediverted from the main system and fill rainbarrels that areused to water the center’s gardens.

Ideals drive groups like the one managing the Urban Ecology Center to conserve water. But for anyone who doesn’t have the mission of environmental education, there’s little incentive to monitor use of the natural resource.

The biggest barrier is cost — as in water costs too little. Water costs the typical urban customer only about $61 a quarter, according to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

But water use already is creeping up in importance.

Water rates more than tripled throughout the state since 1983, and cities such as Waukesha are experiencing real shortages that impact what can be built and how residents are allowed to use water.

“Water is still relatively cheap, but it’s a rising-cost industry,” said Jeff Ripp, water resources manager for the PSC. “If you look back over the last 20 or so years, water rates have increased at twice the rate of inflation. In certain communities, it has become very expensive, particularly where there are water supply concerns.

“It’s more and more expensive to develop new wells and it’s more expensive to site wells,” Ripp said. “Water is still fairly cheap today, but costs are expected to continue to increase.”

Cost isn’t the only reason water is becoming increasingly important.

White said he believes water abundance also could lead to a wave of economic development throughout Wisconsin.

He identified 120 companies in southeastern Wisconsin with water as the basis for their businesses in his “Water Summit White Paper” released in June.

Companies such as GE Water, Procorp Enterprises and Aquarius Technologies are developing products to desalinize saltwater, clean polluted drinking water and treat wastewater, he noted in his report.

The Urban Ecology Center is changing perceptions about water by focusing on Milwaukee students. The center, founded in the 1990s to turn around a crime-ridden park, helps children understand the connections between rain outside and water used in a kitchen sink or bathroom.

If successful, they could tap worldwide markets that would bring jobs to the state, while addressing severe water shortages around the world.

Wisconsin may even be able to lure water-intensive companies to the state from water-starved regions, White said, and, during the long term, a bounty of freshwater assures developers that new buildings can be built without running out of water.

It may be difficult to comprehend in Wisconsin, but water shortages, like one in Atlanta, are killing local economies because water is such a critical resource for human comfort.

But taking advantage of these opportunities means preserving our resource for future use, White said.

“We have to look at it like a bank,” said Jeff Beiriger, executive director of the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association. “If we can save $20 in water today, we’ll have that amount to spend in the future. We can invest that water savings into a company that needs it, and turn our $20 into $120. They can’t do that in Atlanta because they don’t have the water.

The Urban Ecology Center is changing perceptions about water by focusing on Milwaukee students. The center, founded in the 1990s to turn around a crime-ridden park, helps children understand the connections between rain outside and water used in a kitchen sink or bathroom.

“The goal of conservation is not just to use less water. It’s to grow the economy.”

Efforts have been under way in other parts of the nation and world to conserve water usage for years.

Australia, out of necessity, practiced water conservation for decades, and for many years had the only companies in the world that manufactured water-efficient toilets.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. government followed Australia’s example by implementing a mandate that all toilets flush with 1.6 gallons of water — down from 2.5 gallons.

That effort actually set back the water conservation movement in the U.S. though.

Low-flush toilets worked poorly when the regulation was first put in place.

The toilets sometimes increased water use, because, at times, it took at least two flushes — using a minimum of 3.2 gallons of water — to get all of the waste out of the bowl.

But companies did go back to the design stage to develop better products.

Today’s toilets generate greater force that suck waste out of the toilet at a faster rate than old toilets, said Craig Effinger, a plumber with Brookfield-based Alpine Plumbing LLC. He said new toilets compensate for the loss of water with steeper bowls and stronger water jets.

The rainwater collection and distribution systemat the UrbanEcology Center collects, filters and distributes rainwater throughoutthe building

U.S. companies also began offering dual-flush toilets that allow the user to press one button to use 0.9 gallons of water for liquid waste, and press a second button to use 1.6 gallons for solids.

Previously only manufactured in Australia, the domestic products made dual-flush toilets more affordable and popular, said Effinger, while installing a dual-flush toilet in a Caledonia home.

“They definitely work,” he said. “Someone should have thought of this years ago.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense Program is another example of an effort to conserve water. The program was created to rate toilets, faucets and other water products to avoid another debacle like the one over low-flush toilets in the early 1990s.

To earn a WaterSense label, products need to use 20 percent less water than standard fixtures and meet certain performance criteria.

In similar fashion to EPA’s EnergyStar, the program gauges energy performance and goes a step further by verifying products do what they say they’re going to do, said Shane Judd, senior product manager for water conservation and with Kohler Co., which helped launch the WaterSense Program.

But even with improved products, consumers still have little incentive to install them. Because of the most of the state’s water-rate structures, a new low-flow toilet amounts to small savings on water bills, even though the toilets cost up to $3,000, plus the price of a plumber for installation.

That’s why at least one Wisconsin city is doing something more by rethinking its water rates.

Almost every utility in the state uses a decline scale to charge for water. The first tier encompasses residential, commercial and industrial users and charges the highest rate. The second tier is aimed at commercial and industrial users, who use more water, and charges a slightly lower rate.

The third tier is aimed at larger industrial users, who use the most water, and charges the lowest rate.

Ripp said the declining scale is based on how much it costs to pump water to customers. Since most of the cost goes to running the plant and maintaining pipes, it is cheaper to use more water, Ripp said.

Waukesha’s water utility recently implemented a different approach.

The city started using a three-tiered fee structure in June 2007 that charges more as water use increases.

Under the plan, customers pay $1.95 per gallon of 1,000 gallons of water up to 30,000 gallons, $2.20 per 1,000 gallons for the next 10,000 gallons and $2.70 for anything more than 40,000 gallons.

Along with changing its rate structure, Waukesha residents only can water their lawns two days a week. After three warnings, residents can be fined for breaking the rule.

The initiative has proven results.

Water use in the city dropped 47 million gallons during a two-year period ending April 30 despite an increase of 5,100 customers during the same period.

“People have responded,” said Dan Duchniak, general manager of the Waukesha Water Utility. “The message is getting out that water conservation is important.”

That message spread to other municipalities.

Madison officials are so convinced toilets can have a big impact they’re considering $100 rebates for city residents to replace old toilets with high-efficiency ones. If everyone in the city goes along with the plan, it would save 2.3 million gallons of water per day – equivalent to the amount of water pumped from one of the city’s wells per day, according to the City of Madison’s “Water Conservation and Sustainability Plan.”

Madison is the first community in the state to request PSC permission for a toilet rebate program, Ripp said. Kaukana is considering a similar program and Waukesha is trying a pilot program.

While toilet-rebate programs are common around the country, Ripp said it’s difficult to gauge support in Wisconsin because the PSC has yet to approve a program.

“In some communities with older housing it could make sense,” he said. “For newer communities with a lot of new construction, it may not save that much water.”

People will change their toilets and take additional steps to save water when they realize water has a value, Beiriger said.

“People start making smart economic decisions when they see it,” he said. “People are trading in their SUVs [sport utility vehicles] now because they’re seeing higher gas prices. They’ll fix their leaky toilet and turn the water off when they’re brushing their teeth when they realize they’re buying water that they’re not using.”

Of course, economics isn’t the only way to get people to use less water.

The Urban Ecology Center proves education can change perceptions.

Water from the center’s rainwater and snow-melt collection system is used to flush toilets 80 percent of the time and keep the grounds freshly watered. A typical home goes through about the same water annually as the center, which hosts 60,000 students a year.

Judy Krause, director of finance and operations for the center, said the center helps children make the connections between rain outside and water used in a kitchen sink or bathroom.

In the end, Krause said, toilets make the biggest difference.

“They really get it when they go into the bathroom,” she said. “Outside they see the gardens and the ponds and think that it’s neat, but when they go in the bathroom they really know something is different.”