Presentation by John Sutton of the Texas Water Development Board's Municipal Water Conservation Program for the 2019 Gulf Coast Water Conservation in Houston, Texas.
Fuel Cells and Hydrogen in Transportation - An Introduction
Water Conservation & Water Loss: What are you doing?
1. Water Conservation & Water Loss
- what are you doing?
Gulf Coast Water Conservation Symposium
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John T. Sutton
Texas Water Development Board
Unless specifically noted, this presentation does not
necessarily reflect official Board positions or decisions.
2. Who Needs to Submit?
≥3300
connections
Financial
obligation
w/TWDB >$500k
Surface water
right w/TCEQ
Wholesale
customer
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3. When to Revise?
Every five years
Due May 1
More often if needed
Helpful Hint: Plan year is considered the year it was
adopted, not drafted
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4. The Facts…
• One size does not fit all.
• What is our water story?
• What have we accomplished?
• Who uses water?
• Who/what drives peak demand?
• Are we growing?
• What do we value?
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5. Starting with the Basics
DO
• Other departments
• Involve customers
• Use the data
• Be realistic
• Set goals
• Provide details
Don’t
• Copies of TWDB
materials
• Complete text of
Texas Code
• General statements
• Copy other plans
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9. Requirements
Texas Water Code 16.0121
• 2003 - Required every five years
– Include in region water plans
• 2011 – Loans submit annually
• 2013 - >3,300 connections submit
annually
– Thresholds for loan applicants
– Report in CCR or next bill
• 2015 - Threshold waiver
• 2017 - Training required
10. Why Complete an Audit?
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• System efficiency
• Extend supply
• Target asset upgrades
• Saves money
• Required
- Loan/Grant
• Regional Water Planning
11. What is Water Loss?
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A: Unaccounted for water
B: Water In - Water Out
C: Both A & B
D: System Input - Total Authorized Consumption
E: Real Loss + Apparent Loss
F: Both D & E
G: All of the Above
13. Operational Performance in Water Loss
Apparent Losses Normalized
= Apparent Loss Volume / # of Connections / 365 days
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Real Losses Normalized
= Infrastructure Leakage Index (if 3,000 or > connections and 16 or >
connection density)
[ ILI = Real Loss / UARL ]
and one of the following
= Real Loss Volume / # of Connections / 365 days
or
= Real Loss Volume / Length of Main Lines / 365 days
14. Validation of Data
• Validation is:
– A process to identify and evaluate uncertainty in
water loss audit data
• Validation provides:
– A separate set of eyes
– Accurate assessment of data collection
procedures
– Assurance to effectively set targets and control
measures
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17. Tracking Performance - Percentage
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Field on Audit 2015 2016
Total System Input
Volume
2,000,000,000 gallons 2,100,000,000 gallons
Total Authorized
Consumption
1,650,000,000 gallons 1,750,000,000 gallons
Total Water Loss 350,000,000 gallons 350,000,000 gallons
Percent of Water Loss 17.5% 16.7%
Real Loss per
Connection per Day
56.7 gallons per
connection per day
56.7 gallons per
connections per day
Apparent Loss per
Connection per Day
9.8 gallons per
connection per day
9.8 gallons per
connection per day
22. Requirements
Evaluation of w/ww
system, this
includes UP
5 & 10-year goals
for Total,
Residential, and
Water Loss GPCDs
Implementation
schedule to achieve
goals
Method for
tracking
implementation
and effectiveness
Master meter and
universal metering
information
Measures to
determine water
loss
Leak detection,
repair, and water
loss program
details
Non-promotional
water rate
structure
Means of
implementation
and enforcement
Documentation to
regional water
planning group
Copy of Drought
Contingency Plan
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24. Conservation Tool
• Pre-loaded data for 462 water utilities
• Alternative base and projected data can be
used
• Menu of possible conservation activities
• Develop and save different scenarios
• Estimate water savings and costs
• Estimate water savings for annual report
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25. A Best Management Practice
• Why this strategy?
• How you plan to implement it.
• What you hope to accomplish.
• How you will evaluate if it is working.
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26. Best Management Practices
• Probably Doing
– Conservation coordinator
– Pricing/rates
– Metering all connections
– System audit & loss control
– Public information
• Strongly Consider
– Pricing/rates
– School education/public info
– Partnering with nonprofits
– Prohibiting water waste
• Need to Consider
– Cost effective analysis
– Athletic field, golf course, and
park conservation
– Landscape irrigation conservation
and incentives
– Residential irrigation audits
– ICI programs
– Incentive programs
– Graywater
– Rainwater harvesting and reuse
programs
– Wholesale agency assistance
– Small utility outreach
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27. Coming Soon…
• Customer Characterization
• Plumbing Assistance Program for Economically
Disadvantage Customers
• Outdoor Water Schedule
• Enforcement of Irrigation License Standards
• Custom Conservation Rebates
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28. Customer Characterization -
Analysis to Prioritize BMP Selection
• Should be called: DO THIS FIRST!
• Asks about patterns in housing, water usage of
customers, challenges of your system.
• Fundamental: Why do conservation at all?
What does our community need?
• THEN: pick the BMP’s that will get you there
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29. Plumbing assistance for economically
disadvantaged customers
• Water & sewer costs are going up
• Leaks account for on average 12% of
household water usage
• Households in poverty may not be able to
afford leak repairs or the water bill
• A defined assistance program mitigates rate
increases
• Conservation for everyone
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31. Enforcement of Irrigation License
Standards BMP
• Develop enforcement program
– fees for irrigation permits that cover costs of
checking plans and inspecting systems
– Make local ordinance against systems without
permits and without proper irrigation design and
irrigator oversight during installation
– Inform Customers of their rights
– Work with local irrigation association that will
applaud this effort!
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32. Custom Conservation Rebate
• How to craft a rebate offer based on
confirmed water savings by big customers
• Savings agreement negotiated and assured
with a contractual agreement
• Example program protocol
• Example contracts
• Case Study Examples: types of industry and
what they can do to save with a little help
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39. In Summary…
• Address the minimum requirements
• Consider best management practices
• Incorporate projects/activities
• Provide details!
• Utilize available resources (new tool!)
• Request an early review of draft
• Use plan as a beneficial tool
• Surface water right holders follow TCEQ
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40. Resources
• Historic report data
www.twdb.texas.gov/apps/wcreps/wcreports.aspx
• Online reporting application (LUC)
• Water Conservation Planning Tool & water
conservation resources
www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/municipal/plans/index.asp
• Best management practices
www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/BMPs/Mun/index.asp
www.savetexaswater.org/bmp/municipal/index.asp
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41. And More…
• Quantifying Conservation Report
www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/doc/StatewideWaterCons
ervationQuantificationProject.pdf?d=8371.500000008382
• Regional water plans
www.twdb.texas.gov/waterplanning/rwp/index.asp
• Water Loss Auditor Training
www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/municipal/waterloss/audi
tor_training.asp
• Us!
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42. John Sutton
Municipal Water Conservation
john.Sutton@twdb.texas.gov
512-463-7988
Travis Brice
Water Conservation Specialist
travis.brice@twdb.texas.gov
512-475-1639
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Notas do Editor
How many of you have a WCP?
How many of you are involved with their WLA?
Today, I hope to share with you info on WCP and WLA, and how you may find some of this information helpful whether you have a plan or not.
There are 3 instances when you are required to submit a WCP to the state:
having 3,300 or more connections
having received financial assistance greater than $500,000, or
having a surface water right with TCEQ
With the first 2 instances you need to submit a copy to TWDB for review.
With the third, you need to submit your plan to TCEQ for review and provide a copy to us.
It is important to note that if you are required to submit your plan to TCEQ, you need to follow their guidelines and use their UP form. However you may find some of the data we will have on-line helpful.
The is another instance when you may be required to develop a WCP, and that is part of a service agreement from a wholesale provider.
Conservation plans are a big deal. Approximately 13 percent of future water needs will need to come from active municipal water conservation efforts.
Most utilities will be required to submit a revised WCP in 2019.
WCP are to be updated every five years, and the 2019 date aligns with the RWP process, which is a bottom-up approach to identifying long-term needs in the state.
You are to provide a copy of your WCP to your RWPG for their consideration when identifying long term needs and the strategies to meet those needs.
When getting started:
Involve other departments, billing, operations, public information, parks.
Reach out to your customers: home owner associations, civic groups, trade organizations. This not only provide you input and ideas, but also provides an opportunity to educate and engage your customers.
Use historic data and planning data that is available.
Be realistic. DO not over program or under program.
Set achievable goals based on your program and needs.
Provide details: Do not just say you will have a public education program. Include information such as how are you going to do it, what will it be comprised of, and what do you plan to achieve.
You may be familiar with our on-line reporting application – Loss, Use and Conservation. Data you enter in you WUS then auto-populates into your WLA and AR.
Now, your five-year historic data will be auto-populated in your UP.
Using data in your UP will help you identifying possible BMP or conservation activities you may consider to include in your WCP and help you set your targets and goals.
This is what your application page looks like typically. You need to first complete the WUS, then the WLA, followed by the AR.
The LUC application streamlines the reporting and shows what reports you can or need to do yearly, along with if your WCP is due to be updated.
Note that the UP and WCP will only show starting on Jan. 1 of the year it is due.
I want to show you the WLA page as well. WLA are now required to be completed by a person trained to conduct a WLA.
We now have a training video available through our website that meets this requirement. Training participants receive an acknowledgement of training after watching the one-hour video that they can down load and keep in their own files. TWDB will not be keeping records of training. When submitting the WLA you will be asked to upload your Acknowledgement of Training.
This is a copy of the Water Balance report you can get through our web page. This shows the data submitted through the 2015 WLA for this region.
The Water Balance shows the categories of water use and of water loss and demonstrates how the volumes al add up.
Performance Indicators recommended for tracking water loss
Recommend real/connection/day or real/mile/day for CCR
After January 1, the year you have an AR, UP and WCP due, your page will look like this. You will need to complete your WUS, WLA and AR in order for all the data to be in your UP.
The LUC program provides the previous 5 years of data if you currently have a plan on file and you’ve completed the yearly reports (WUS, WLA and AR) including 2018.
This saves you from having to go back and find five years’ worth of data. Just as with the WUS, WLA and AR, the application also calculates certain areas of the UP and the goals table for you.
As you can see here, it brings in the customer category data for the previous five years.
So, how can you use the data in the UP?
Who are your high users?
Which category uses the most?
You can use the summary to identify user groups to target and then also identify which BMPs to implement in helping reduce use in those categories.
Do you have a high seasonal use? Is it possibly due to outdoor irrigation? Then you should consider implementing the residential landscape irrigation evaluation and/or the landscape irrigation conservation and incentives BMP.
Here we see that commercial customers are 6 percent of the total and use close to 16 percent of the use. Who are those customers?
What opportunity is there for efficiency programs.
Maybe consider focusing on conservation programs such as for hospitality.
Once you complete the UP and identify BMP, you need to include detail in your WCP.
There are several required areas that need to be addressed in your plan:
Two areas where WCP can be approved on are Tracking Implementation and Effectiveness and Water Loss Programs and the Leak detection, repair, and water loss program.
Don’t say meters will ne maintained with industry standards. Outline how you will do that. – testing/replacement by age/volume of flow?
I want to add one more – proof of adoption of your plan.
Here are some resources that can provide multiple levels of information that would be useful to your plan.
Your RWP provides data for population projections, demand projections, and is useful in providing insight into what the RWPGs are discussing in relation to conservation and strategies.
The BMP Guide has 26 Municipal BMPs that provide overviews of water conservation activity program structure and potential savings.
If you were one of the 170 or so participants, that participated in the 2017 Statewide Water Quantification Conservation Study you can see the potential for types of strategies. This Study estimated the water savings from the current conservation activities of 170 water utilities, and compared those savings to the utilities’ own conservation goals and to the municipal conservation water management strategies in the 2017 state water plan.
And of course your own historic data.
We now have a Conservation Tool available that provides utility staff with an estimate of water savings from various activities when developing their conservation plans, as well as assist Regional Water Planning Groups with calculating the potential volumes for municipal conservation water management strategies.
We were really pleased to be able to work AWE on this project.
This Microsoft Excel application
• includes pre-loaded population, water use, and water loss data for 462 water utilities that allows for the quick generation of projected water savings and cost estimates;
• allows for alternative base and projected data to be used in lieu of pre-loaded data or for utilities without pre-loaded data;
• allows users to view a menu of possible municipal conservation activities (best management practices) which users can use to select activities and the levels of participation;
• allows users to develop and save different scenarios based on base data, projected data, selected activities, and levels of participation;
• generates an estimate of water savings and costs of the selected conservation activities for 5- and 10-year increments (2024 and 2029) and decadal increments out to 2070; and
• generates an estimate of water savings from conservation activities implemented in the previous year for use in the utility’s annual conservation report.
You may have all ready implemented some BMPs.
Others, if you haven’t already adopted them, are easy to implement at little or no cost to the utility.
And then there are those BMPs that may or may not cost (much) money depending on how extensive you choose to go in your program and activity efforts…
3 BMPs have been updated by the WCAC and will be available in time for inclusion in your 2019 WCP.
Work with agencies that already qualify households in poverty
According to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies , annual average water service charges have been increasing faster that the consumer price index since 2000, and are projected to continue to do so.
Use contracts and firm program protocols to help… with limits
Includes sample contracts, protocol documents, waiver of damages forms & more
Can talk with other utilities doing this program area
Data shows that Households with automatic irrigation systems use more water.
Determine what keeps landscapes healthy and what is excessive
Work with stakeholders like HOA’s, landscape and irrigation professionals, and other community groups
Develop a schedule that sets and enforces reasonable limits on irrigation for landscapes
Irrigation systems can and should be better!
TCEQ licenses ALL who do professional irrigation work in Texas
It is not legal to do irrigation work for pay without a license!
Water efficiency rules are baked into that license
Cities “shall” require permits of all systems with plans
HB 1656 (2007) Texas Occupational Code Section 1903.251
ICI customer count may be small, but they are important
Standard rebates may not work for the companies that create jobs and use large amounts of water for operations
As stated earlier - provide details! Who, what, when, where, why?
Who is doing what? What are you doing and why? Where are you doing it…in the area of water loss, public education and outreach, system auditing, etc.?
Again provide an overview of the activity. Don’t just say meters will meet AWWA standards.
State what the program consists of and how you are implementing it. Be proactive. Replacing meters only a customer complains is not necessarily a meter replacement program. How many meters do you plan to test a year. How many will be replaced. What is the funding source. Will meters be replaced when they reach a certain age or level of use.
We now have historic data from your AR online. This graph shows your Total GPCD per year, Your residential GPCD and your WL GPCD. It also shows your 5 and 10 goals.
So take a look at this. How are you doing. We all know water use can vary greater from year to year for a lot of reasons.
The doted lines show your baseline and 5 and 110 year goals.
The solid line shows year to year.
Might you adjust your baseline, or maybe your targets.
Remember, do you have BMPs and conservation activities in place to help you achieve those goals.
All three of these goals look like there is opportunity for revising.
The Conservation Plan section has 3 pages. The contact information page as you see here. You are now required to designate a WC Coordinator.
If you click “no” you are not the conservation coordinator, a box will open for you to provide the contact information for the CC.
This page is already populated with your five-year historic GPCDs for Total, residential and WL. You need to include your baseline, often utilities use their 5-year average, and enter your 5 and 10- years goals.
I also suggest that you include this table in you WCP.
Now, you just need to upload your plan into the data base.
The screen will now show what files you have uploaded.
We will contact you if we have any questions.
Remember, your WCP is a guidance document, a path through Candy Land if you will, on how you plan to meet your targets and goals. Use it to prioritize activities and programs, to understand what areas need more assistance, and to track your progress over time.
Understandably things may change and take the utility in a different direction than when you wrote the plan, but that’s okay. It can still guide you in the new direction…and if not, the plan itself can be updated so that it does. Nothing says that you have to wait five years…you are only required to every five years.
Make sure you address the minimum requirements. We still get plans that do not do this even when we provide a checklist.
You can never provide too many details…
Make use of the new water conservation tool!
We are available to review a draft of your WCP if you like. Just give us some notice and time.
Call us whenever you may have a question.
Surface water right holders – be sure to follow TCEQ requirements.
Here are links to the resources I mentioned earlier.
