The WaterSense Current

Fall 2024 - Issue LXX

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:

• WaterSense Award Winners Made It Easy for Consumers to Save Water
• Helping Homeowner Associations Conserve Water and Costs
• Don’t Get Spooked by Your Shower’s Water Waste
• City of Bend Takes a Turn Toward Savings With Its First Partner of the Year Award
• Monte Vista Water District Ascends to Partner of the Year

WaterSense Award Winners Made It Easy for Consumers to Save Water

Since 2006, WaterSense and its more than 2,200 partners have been making it easy for consumers and businesses to save water. By promoting and producing WaterSense labeled products, homes, and programs and encouraging consumers and businesses to adopt water-saving behaviors, WaterSense partners helped save 1.2 trillion gallons of water in 2023 alone, and some of those partners stood out for their efforts to promote WaterSense and water efficiency. In September, WaterSense presented 51 awards to partners for their creative communications, product innovation, and water conservation education. Nineteen partners in particular were honored for their continued commitment to promoting WaterSense and water efficiency as Sustained Excellence Award winners.

Athens-Clarke County (Georgia) Public Utilities Department earned their eighth WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award thanks to their engaging water conservation outreach efforts, including a unique “Ode to the Commode” poem that encouraged customers to show their toilet some love by checking for leaks. They also hosted a water-themed trivia night, where attendees competed using their water knowledge and received free toilet dye tablets.

Big Bear Lake (California) Department of Water and Power won its first Sustained Excellence Award for its promotion of WaterSense. To celebrate Fix a Leak Week, Big Bear Lake created a sweepstakes where participants watched an educational video to find the WaterSense label for a chance to win a WaterSense labeled irrigation controller. They also co-hosted the annual Xeriscape Garden Tour where attendees learned about water-smart landscaping and received free WaterSense labeled faucet aerators and showerheads.

Citrus County (Florida) Utilities continued to help customers save water with WaterSense, earning its sixth Sustained Excellence Award. Citrus County kicked off its new Be a Smart Irrigator campaign, which encouraged customers to upgrade to WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers and adopt water-smart landscaping practices. They also distributed 1,300 dye tablet cards through events and as part of their Classroom Toilet Leak Detection Challenge.

The City of Charlottesville (Virginia) received its seventh Sustained Excellence Award for its creative and engaging outreach. New television and digital commercials featured three water characters singing about the woes of wasting water and incorporating messaging on finding and fixing leaks and replacing plumbing fixtures with WaterSense labeled models. The City also developed a new video about actions people can take to save water and the City’s rebates for WaterSense labeled products.

The City of Durham (North Carolina) Water Management won its second Sustained Excellence Award by participating in 36 public outreach events and reaching over 4,300 customers with messages about WaterSense and water efficiency. For Halloween, Durham Water Management released a film trailer on social media—The Haunting of Dripmore Manor—featuring a comically spooky narrative to highlight the consequences of wasteful water habits.

The City of Sacramento (California) Department of Utilities won its third Sustained Excellence Award for encouraging customers to save water outdoors by mailing 5,000 letters to single-family homes with high water usage with the goal of encouraging customers to complete a Sprinkler Spruce-Up. The Department of Utilities also conducted a campaign to educate Sacramento residents about its rebates on WaterSense labeled products and rebated nearly 600 WaterSense labeled smart irrigation controllers.

Fulton Homes won its second Sustained Excellence Award for its commitment to building WaterSense labeled homes. In 2023, Fulton closed on over 350 homes, all of which were WaterSense labeled, and Fulton has committed to continue to build 100 percent WaterSense labeled homes in all new communities.

Harris-Galveston (Texas) Subsidence District earned its first Sustained Excellence Award for its continued water conservation outreach efforts, including creating a dedicated presentation for homeowner associations with an interactive water conservation Jeopardy game to put their knowledge of water conservation to the test. They also produced informational handouts with instructions on how to detect toilet leaks using toilet tank leak-detecting tablets and included resources promoting WaterSense labeled products.

Irvine Ranch Water District (California) (IRWD) received its second Sustained Excellence Award for its education and outreach initiatives, such as a contest for residents to submit photos of themselves repairing leaks in their homes. To help homeowners get their irrigation systems ready for summer, IRWD held a Fix Your Sprinklers workshop that highlighted irrigation maintenance and water-smart practices and worked with a local supplier to offer a 50 percent discount on mulch to help reduce evaporation in local yards.

KB Home won its 10th Sustained Excellence Award for its long-standing leadership in building WaterSense labeled homes. KB Home built 2,806 new WaterSense labeled homes in 2023—over 50 percent more than the number of labeled homes built in 2022. The company also collaborated with WaterSense on a case study of more than 200 WaterSense labeled homes, which evaluated the impact that water savings have on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions compared to similar communities with typical new home construction.

Kohler Co. earned its 10th Sustained Excellence Award thanks to its extensive contributions to manufacturing WaterSense labeled products. Kohler introduced 120 new WaterSense labeled products in 2023. Kohler also donated 200 products, including WaterSense labeled showerheads and toilets, as part of the Alliance for Water Efficiency Partnership for Water Affordability, Long Beach Program in California.

Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District earned its seventh Sustained Excellence Award for efforts such as attending the Summer Adventures Day at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, where they educated residents about water-efficient irrigation, and the Trick or Treatment Fall Festival, where they promoted the WaterSense Flip Your Flapper campaign. In 2023, the District launched a Smart Leak Detector Rebate Program, through which they rebated over 35 leak detectors.

Niagara® earned its first WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award; the company launched its new WaterSense labeled Phantom One Piece toilet at the 2023 Kitchen and Bath Industry Show and promoted the WaterSense label to over 40,000 attendees. The manufacturer also hosted 41 courses with over 430 attendees and conducted product training for over 100 wholesalers and distributors that highlighted the benefits of WaterSense labeled products.

Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (Northern Water) focused on outdoor water conservation, winning its second Sustained Excellence Award. Northern Water developed six complete residential water-efficient landscape design plans to assist homeowners in rebuilding after the December 2021 Marshall Fire. Northern Water also hosted three Irrigation Association classes and one certification testing day with about 100 attendees; attendees learned about WaterSense labeled controllers and sprinkler components, as well as the benefits of being a certified professional.

Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership (California) has earned its first Sustained Excellence Award as a Promotional Partner. As part of their Fix a Leak Week celebrations, the Partnership held a Dye Tab Challenge where they distributed dye tablets at 15 locations in Sonoma and Marin counties. The Partnership collaborated with Sonoma Clean Power and the Sonoma County Library to make water-efficient information and fixtures available to library patrons through a Do-It-Yourself Toolkit that contains WaterSense labeled showerheads and aerators.

Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership also won its eighth Sustained Excellence Award as a professional certifying organization. In 2023, through its Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper (QWEL) program, the Partnership issued 791 new certifications, while 1,990 landscape professionals maintained their certifications for a renewal rate of 90 percent in 2023. To expand the reach of certification classes and testing, the Partnership began offering an English/Spanish combination exam.

The City of Plano (Texas) received its fifth Sustained Excellence Award after ramping up its outreach and education efforts in 2023; for example, the City conducted individual outreach calls to residential customers with high water use or continuous use issues, offering these customers solutions to reduce consumption, such as replacing fixtures with WaterSense labeled products. The City also hosted an online contest promoting Sprinkler Spruce-Up; participants completed an interactive learning module focused on leak repair and the cycle-and-soak method.

The Home Depot earned its first Sustained Excellence Award; 100 percent of the toilets, bathroom faucets, and showerheads featured in Home Depot stores have earned the WaterSense label, and over 7,000 WaterSense labeled product models are offered through the store’s website. To make products more affordable, consumers could earn instant rebates on over 140 different WaterSense labeled products, and Home Depot stores offered over $50 million in WaterSense labeled product markdowns and discounts in 2023.

Upper San Gabriel Valley (California) Municipal Water District received its third Sustained Excellence Award thanks to its creative outreach, including a “Droughtbusters” Halloween video focused on WaterSense labeled products, leak detection skills, and water-saving techniques. The District also increased the reach of its Sustainable Watershed Education program by 30 percent in 2023, with over 2,700 students participating in a Use Your WaterSense activity.

WaterSense recognized 10 of its promotional partners with Partner of the Year Awards, which will be highlighted in this and future issues of the WaterSense Current:

• Broward County Government (Florida)
• City of Bend (Oregon)
• City of Flagstaff (Arizona)
• City of Round Rock (Texas)
• East Bay Municipal Utility District (California)
• Monte Vista Water District (California)
• Moulton Nigel Water District (California)
• Rancho California Water District
• Santa Clara Valley (California) Water District
• Tarrant (Texas) Regional Water District

Helping Homeowner Associations Conserve Water and Costs

Looking for a way to keep your homeowner association (HOA) dues low and conserve water in your community at the same time? To help HOAs reach their outdoor water efficiency and cost-saving goals, WaterSense created a new web page with tips, tools, and resources for HOA leadership to use as a guide for community planning and contractor selection. Start with the HOA Outdoor Water Efficiency Roadmap to figure out where you are on your water efficiency journey and see what steps you should take next to ensure a beautiful, water-smart community.

When trying to save water outdoors in your community, you first need to understand how much water your association currently uses. Look at your water bill and work with your local water utility to learn about your rate structure and understand your HOA’s water use for common areas like pools, fitness centers, and landscaping.

In order to make substantial changes in water use at your HOA, you may need to encourage support from your HOA Board and community members. To help, WaterSense created a template presentation on outdoor water use, which includes information about why HOAs should be water-efficient and details on WaterSense resources that can help. Once you’ve taken the steps to understand your HOA’s water use and talked to your HOA Board, it’s time to start taking action. The HOA roadmap includes guidance for improving pool efficiency, using WaterSense guides and labeled products, working with contractors, and more.

Don’t Get Spooked by Your Shower’s Water Waste

Showering accounts for nearly 17 percent of residential indoor water use, adding up to nearly 40 gallons per day for the average family. While older, inefficient showerheads give cause to be scared, you don’t have to let water waste haunt you. Get peace of mind and shower better by switching to a WaterSense labeled showerhead. Standard showerheads use 2.5 gallons of water per minute (gpm), but a WaterSense labeled showerhead is independently certified to use no more than 2.0 gpm, while providing the same satisfying spray and water coverage.

Not only will you save up to 2,700 gallons per year by installing a WaterSense labeled showerhead, you’ll also save energy. By using less water, WaterSense labeled showerheads also require less energy to pump, treat, and heat water. WaterSense labeled models can save the average family 310 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, enough electricity to power a house for 11 days. No tricks here—with the water and energy savings from a WaterSense labeled showerhead, you can save more than $75 in energy and water costs every year, giving you an excellent reason to celebrate Energy Action Month this October.

You don’t even need to hire a plumber to replace your old showerhead. Watch this WaterSense Showerhead “bath hack” video to learn how easy it is to replace your showerhead with a WaterSense labeled model. When you’re ready to scare up some savings this fall, use the WaterSense Product Search tool to find the right WaterSense labeled showerhead for you.

City of Bend Takes a Turn Toward Savings With Its First Partner of the Year Award

The City of Bend (Oregon) took outdoor water conservation to new heights, earning their first Partner of the Year Award for their water conservation outreach and programs in 2023. More than 200 people attended the City's annual WaterWise field day event in June 2023 to watch educational seminars presented by local green industry professionals and live irrigation demonstrations promoting ways to save water outdoors. The City also collaborated with WaterSense partner G3, Green Gardens Group, to present multiple webinar workshops on outdoor water conservation topics, including drought-proofing landscapes, fundamentals of drip irrigation, and a garden design workshop.

Outdoor education was also featured in the City’s quarterly newsletter, the Conservation Connection, with an article on the benefits, application, and performance of WaterSense labeled sprinkler nozzles for residents and green industry professionals. The City also encouraged residents to use irrigation professionals certified by a WaterSense labeled program. To promote water savings indoors, the City held a social media raffle contest during Fix a Leak Week; participants who submitted photos of themselves checking for leaks had a chance to win a WaterSense labeled toilet, showerhead, and faucet aerators. 

The City of Bend continued to offer rebates on WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers, spray sprinkler bodies, toilets, and showerheads in 2023—more than doubling the number of rebates they issued in 2022. The City advertised its rebates on local television network affiliates and promoted the WaterSense label with point-of-sale signage at stores such as The Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Ewing, and Horizon Distributors.

Monte Vista Water District Ascends to Partner of the Year

Monte Vista Water District in Montclair, California, earned their first Partner of the Year Award by implementing WaterSense campaigns and water conservation initiatives throughout 2023. During Fix a Leak Week, for example, customers were provided information on the District’s rebate programs to replace inefficient outdoor watering products with WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers and spray sprinkler bodies. In collaboration with EcoTech Services, the District introduced a new Indoor Leak Repair Program to help customers find and fix leaks in their homes. And during a Leak Repair 101 Workshop, attendees received hands-on instruction on fixing leaks, efficient irrigation maintenance tips, and leak repair kits.

The District hosted its first-ever Waterwise Expo in April 2023, showcasing the benefits of California native plants, efficient irrigation techniques, and strategies for maximizing water savings. For Sprinkler Spruce-Up, they promoted their Sprinkler Timer Program, Nozzle Retrofit Program, and Irrigation Tune-up Program. A partnership with the Monte Vista Chamber of Commerce also helped spread WaterSense messages to the business community. In June, Monte Vista Water District hosted a Sustainable Landscaping Lunch & Learn to help property managers and maintenance teams work together to improve commercial landscape water use. 

On social media, the Monte Vista Water District promoted Water Tip Wednesdays and their Water Watch campaign in response to ongoing drought conditions. They also encouraged customers to commit to water conservation through the I'm for Water Pledge, which received over 550 pledges. The District also celebrated Fix a Leak Week with social media posts and a raffle for the installation of a WaterSense labeled toilet.