The Current: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 - Issue LVII

The WaterSense Current is a quarterly update dedicated to news and events related to WaterSense. Sign up to receive The WaterSense Current and get WaterSense news delivered right to your Inbox. 

In This Issue:

• And the Winner Is…WaterSense Partners!
• Home Is Where the Water Savings Are
• Boo-tify Your Bathroom This Fall Remodeling Season
• Harris-Galveston Schools Its Residents on Water Savings
• Houston, We Have Water Savings
• Tarrant Ups Its Water-Saving Game

And the Winner Is…WaterSense^® Partners!

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its more than 2,100 partner utilities, manufacturers, retailers, builders, governments, and other organizations have been encouraging consumers and businesses to look to WaterSense and save water for 17 years. Our partners work together to produce and promote WaterSense labeled products, programs, and homes. WaterSense recently recognized top partners for their water-saving work in 2022. Thirteen in particular were honored for their continued commitment to the program as Sustained Excellence Award winners:

Athens-Clarke County (Georgia) Public Utilities Department hosted a trip to a local brewery for its “Imagine a Day Without Water” Tappy Hour. Several games were set up throughout the brewery, including a Water Bingo Scavenger Hunt, where guests searched for a WaterSense logo that Water Conservation Office staff had hidden around the brewery.

Citrus County (Florida) Utilities had 20 school classes in its service area participate in the Classroom Toilet Leak Detection Challenge by testing over 300 toilets for leaks. As a result of the challenge, students identified 32 leaks to fix, resulting in savings of more than 6,400 gallons of water per day.

The City of Charlottesville (Virginia) held a youth art contest focused on the value of water to promote their “Imagine a Day Without Water” campaign. The city also posted weekly on social media with their #WTW (Water Tip Wednesday) highlighting water-saving actions that aligned with WaterSense’s monthly water conservation themes.

The City of Durham (North Carolina) Water Management celebrated Fix a Leak Week in 2022 by giving away free WaterSense labeled showerheads, offering three virtual Fix a Leak workshops, organizing a virtual scavenger hunt, and creating ads and infographics in both English and Spanish.

The City of Plano (Texas) expanded its water conservation reach to children in 2022 by partnering with the North Texas Municipal Water District and the Texas Legends basketball team to conduct water efficiency education during local youth basketball clinics.

The City of Sacramento (California) Department of Utilities held its first Water Conservation Showcase since 2019, hosting local irrigation vendors, landscape professionals, and conservation experts. Over 300 attendees received information on water-wise landscaping and native plants and could win rain barrels, smart controller systems, and other prizes.

Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Fix a Leak Week Water Drop Dash with an in-person and virtual 10k race; over 700 runners participated! At a post-race Water Festival with utility and community partners, attendees received free tools to help find, fix, and prevent leaks.

Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District collaborated with two nonprofits who installed low- or no-cost toilet, showerhead, and faucet aerator replacements, expanding their reach and the use of water-saving fixtures, and resulting in an estimated 5.1 million gallons of water savings.

Upper San Gabriel Valley (California) Municipal Water District engaged the public in water efficiency and raised awareness about WaterSense labeled products by bringing back their annual WaterFest event. Approximately 1,000 people participated in the event and learned about WaterSense through various booths and activities.

KB Home built 1,760 WaterSense labeled homes in 2022, representing 13 percent of the homes they constructed that year. Additionally, 100 percent of KB Homes incorporate WaterSense labeled plumbing fixtures, and about 60 percent of the irrigation controllers they install are WaterSense labeled.

Fulton Homes built 796 homes designed to meet the WaterSense specification, and 92 percent of those earned the label. Fulton ensures that 100 percent of the homes they build contain WaterSense labeled products, along with ENERGY STAR appliances, smart irrigation controllers, and water recirculation and leak detection systems.

Kohler Co. used EPA's WaterSense Partner Savings Calculator to estimate that its KOHLER, Sterling, and KALLISTA brand products saved an estimated 88 billion gallons of water, avoided two million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and helped customers save over $1.35 billion on water, sewer, and energy bills in 2022 alone!

Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership (California) offered virtual, in person, and hybrid courses for its Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper course and certified 766 professionals in 2022—200 more than were certified in 2021! In addition, over 1,400 professionals maintained their certifications in 2022 by meeting continuing education requirements.

In addition to the Sustained Excellence Award winners, nine partners were named WaterSense Partners of the Year for 2023 and will be highlighted in this and future issues of the WaterSense Current.

• Promotional Partners of the Year: Harris-Galveston (Texas) Subsidence District; Houston Public Works; Rancho California Water District; Santa Clara Valley (California) Water District; Tarrant (Texas) Regional Water District; Vallecitos (California) Water District; and the Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership for their promotional efforts.
• Manufacturer Partner of the Year: Niagara^®
• Retailer Partner of the Year: The Home Depot

To read more about WaterSense Award winners visit www.epa.gov/watersense/watersense-awards.

Home Is Where the Water Savings Are

To reduce the burden of growing communities’ needs on local water supplies, newly built homes can earn the WaterSense label. If you are in the market for a new home or looking to build your own, look for a builder who can meet WaterSense criteria for water efficiency and performance. In 2022 alone, nearly 2,300 WaterSense labeled homes were constructed and certified by WaterSense builder partners.

Labeled homes feature WaterSense labeled toilets, showerheads, and bathroom faucets installed and are required to be free from water leaks. Each labeled home is also required to demonstrate that it is at least 30 percent more water-efficient than typical home construction. Installing features such as ENERGY STAR appliances, more efficient hot water distribution, WaterSense labeled irrigation products, or reducing the need for irrigation altogether are all strategies that contribute to meeting the efficiency requirement.

EPA completed a pilot study in coordination with the Southern Nevada Water Authority on homes certified under Version 2 of the WaterSense labeled homes program. The study found that in the Las Vegas area, WaterSense labeled homes reduced water consumption by 44,000 gallons per year, or 45 percent compared to a recently constructed homes in that area.

More municipalities are taking notice of the benefits of WaterSense labeled homes. In the City of Phoenix, Arizona, a measure was adopted to require homes in new developments to earn the WaterSense label to help lessen the impacts of drought in the Colorado River Basin.

To learn more about WaterSense labeled homes visit www.epa.gov/watersense/homes.

Boo-tify Your Bathroom This Fall Remodeling Season

Is your bathroom a nightmare? Start dreaming of Your Better Bathroom with WaterSense! Chase away “phantom flushes” and other sources of water waste with new WaterSense labeled products that match your style and offer scary-good savings! Bathrooms are by far the largest water users in the home, accounting for more than half of all the water that families use indoors, but WaterSense labeled toilets, showerheads, and faucets are certified to use 20 percent less water while maintaining or exceeding the quality and performance you expect from your plumbing fixtures.

By renovating your bathroom with WaterSense labeled products, you’ll get all of the style and substance—and save nearly 10,000 gallons of water, 370 kilowatt-hours, and $150 on utility bills annually. And if one in every 10 American homes upgrades a full bathroom with WaterSense labeled fixtures, we could save approximately 93 billion gallons of water and about $1.3 billion on utility bills nationwide per year!

Send your old, inefficient bathroom fixtures to the graveyard and upgrade to WaterSense labeled models and get a better bathroom. Use the WaterSense Product Search to find the fixtures in any style you want to fit your budget. Save even more by using the Rebate Finder to locate incentives for installing for WaterSense labeled products from your local utility. To learn more about these products and get started on your better bathroom, visit the WaterSense website: https://www.epa.gov/watersense/your-better-bathroom.

Harris-Galveston Schools Its Residents on Water Savings

Harris-Galveston (Texas) Subsidence District (HGSD) won its second Partner of the Year Award following a year of consistently promoting WaterSense and water efficiency. In 2022, HGSD launched a new and improved school program, called H2O Lab!, that provides third through sixth grade students in Harris, Galveston, and Fort Bend counties with water education and a free water conservation kit that includes a toilet flapper, toilet leak detection tablets, a toilet tank bag, faucet aerators, a sprinkler gauge, a shower timer, and more. Teachers accessed on-demand teaching tutorials, slide decks, and classroom lessons for more than 34,000 students.

Using the WaterSense 2022 Editorial Calendar, HGSD spent the year sharing valuable water conservation tips, tools, and resources through its SmarterAboutWater.org website, blog, and its social media channels, garnering over 11,000 impressions. The blog had over 3,000 readers and included several water efficiency themes, one of which educates children using WaterSense's “Save Water at Home” coloring booklet.

HGSD promoted outdoor water efficiency through their Water Conservation Grant Program. In 2022, HGSD awarded $450,000 in matching funds spread across five local projects, including efforts to develop advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), implement water loss control focusing on leak detection in main water lines, and replacing showerheads with WaterSense labeled models.

Houston, We Have Water Savings

Houston Public Works (HPW) promoted water efficiency across its service area and collaborated with partners across Texas in 2022, winning its second Partner of the Year Award. For Fix a Leak Week, HPW organized a virtual workshop series with two half-day indoor and outdoor trainings in conjunction with WaterSense partners in the Texas cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Round Rock and the Tarrant Regional Water District, another WaterSense Partner of the Year Award winner. Nearly 750 participants registered for this event, and the virtual trainings were viewed an additional 242 times.

To share the importance of saving water further, HPW promoted water conservation education and WaterSense labeled products to youth through their summer outreach with scout camps, Houston Parks Department summer camps, and local STEM camps. In collaboration with 53 Houston community centers, churches, temples, associations, health centers, and other organizations, HPW distributed water conservation tip cards that included WaterSense information.

For commercial customers, HPW partnered with another utility group to provide one year of free professional water, electricity, and gas utility assessments to nine buildings. HPW also collaborated with 15 of its wholesale utilities through the Wholesale Water Conservation Dashboard Program, which allows utilities to analyze costs and quantify potential savings for over 70 water conservation activities..

Tarrant Ups Its Water-Saving Game

After winning an Excellence Award for its education and outreach in 2022, Tarrant (Texas) Regional Water District (TRWD) ramped up its water conservation promotion to win its first WaterSense Partner of the Year Award. To celebrate Fix a Leak Week, TRWD supported the cities within their service area with four do-it-yourself (DIY) Sprinkler Repair and DIY Home Plumbing Repair workshops. Both workshops provided tools and demonstration materials for participants to look at and touch for a more hands-on experience, and participants were provided with either an indoor leak kit or a sprinkler test kit to take home.

To help residents save water and energy, TRWD provided free home sprinkler system evaluations to Tarrant County residents. This program aims to save water by having a licensed irrigator audit the participant’s home sprinkler system to identify and educate homeowners on inefficiencies and water waste. If the resident was in need of a new sprinkler component, the district suggested WaterSense labeled irrigation products. In 2022, this program reached over 1,900 participants.

TRWD also helped people give the gift of water savings through their Water Conservation Holiday Conservation Gift Guide, which included ideas for indoor and outdoor water conservation gifts such as rain barrels, smart irrigation controllers, and WaterSense labeled faucet aerators. TRWD used the December 2022 edition of the Save Tarrant Water Monthly Drop e-newsletter to advertise the guide.