Monday, Jan. 17, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.
Water smart
For homes or developments to receive the "Water Smart" label, requirements would include the following.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Southern Nevada Home Builders Assocation will roll out a proposed program this week that would dramatically increase the efficiency of water use in new homes.
The goal of the program is to shave 30 percent or more from the amount of water used in a typical home, a total of about 75,000 gallons per year for each new home. Participation in the program in the home building industry has been broad, with at least nine companies of various sizes involved in the year-long discussions to prepare the "Water Smart" program.
Pat Mulroy, water authority general manager, said the effort is modeled after a successful energy conservation drive familiar to many through the "Energy Star" label attached to homes and appliances.
Energy Star is a partnership between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and industry that allows businesses to brand energy-efficient products with the label. The goal is to save energy, protecting the environment and saving consumers dollars on their energy bills.
In the case of the Southern Nevada water conservation drive, the brand would be "Water Smart."
"This gets right to the heart of sustainable housing in Southern Nevada," Mulroy said. "This is the water version of it. From what we can tell, there is no program like it in the United States."
Home builders would target water use for irrigation and swimming pools, the outdoor uses that have been sources of significant losses to evaporation, for conservation measures.
Also included in the program would be indoor uses, which have not received the attention of other water authority conservation programs in the past.
Water used indoor mostly goes back through the sanitary sewer and treatment facilities to Lake Mead, where it is treated and for which the water authority gets a "return flow credit" to take an equal amount out of the lake. Because water used indoors has not been lost to the system, the focus has been on water used outdoors.
Mulroy said that will change as the agency works to bring more ground water from rural Nevada to Las Vegas. The water authority hopes to as much as double the amount of water it now takes from Lake Mead, 300,000 acre-feet annually, with additional groundwater resources.
Under federal rules, the water authority cannot win return flow credits for groundwater.
With a thirsty population growing by about 80,000 people a year, access to water has been a real concern for the future. The water authority's efforts to augment Lake Mead's supplies is expected to buy the region decades of breathing room, but the availability of those groundwater supplies is not assured.
Mulroy said the effort helps to ensure that Las Vegas' powerful home building industry is not imperiled. She said desire by the home builders help make the program, if as expected approved at the water authority board meeting next week, a reality.
"It isn't whether you grow, it's how you grow," said Mulroy, who has said she does not believe the availability of water, despite concerns, will be a factor constraining growth in Southern Nevada.
"When they (the home builders) look out at the long term and they look at the economies of the West, they know that change has to be occurring," she said. "They realize that an era of shortages or tightness of supply is on us in the long term. The more changes we make now, the less retrofit costs that everybody will have to bear in the long term."
She predicted that customers will look for the Water Smart label as a way to save money in the long term. The home builder "know there's a demand out there in the valley, that customers want it because water prices are going to continue to go up."
Irene Porter, executive director of the home builders association, said the program would benefit both those consumers and her members.
The economics of the effort make sense for the industry and the community, she said.
"It's not just homes," Porter said. "If you're going to have a viable economic base in your community, you're going to have to have water. It's not a growth issue as such. It's an economic issue for the community and it's a social issue as well
"People can't live without water. We also think it's good social consciousness to look at the right kinds of programs for sustainability."
She said about two-thirds of new homes carry the Energy Star label, and expects similar numbers with the water conservation brand.
"We know it's going to be a great program, and I think it will serve as a model for other communities," she said. Her association has already been contacted by the group's sister association in Phoenix, Porter added.
Porter said a typical home in the Las Vegas area now uses about 240,000 gallons annually, or about 75 percent of an acre-foot. Trimming 75,000 gallons from that total would be about a third of the water typically used.
Last year, the region saw about 26,000 new homes come on the market. If all the homes were able to save 75,000 gallons, it would total 1.95 billion gallons, or about enough water for 8,000 more homes each year.
Mulroy said one of the advantages of the conservation program would be that it is cumulative, since the water savings carries through year after year.
Porter said she expects many, perhaps most, builders to eventually construct homes that can carry the Water Smart label. Nine builders, including national and local companies of all sizes, were involved in drafting the certification criteria, she said.
"We've been working on this program with the water authority for almost a year," she said.
The effort is a continuation of cooperation between the home building industry, which employs an estimated 70,000 people, and the water agency, she said.
"Over a period of the last 20 years, the home builders and the water authority have partnered on a lot of programs," Porter said. "If you don't have the private sector buy in, it's not going to go anywhere. It is extremely important that it be a public-private partnership."
One of the companies involved in drafting the certification criteria was Pardee Homes, the Los Angeles-based company with more than 50 years experience building homes in Las Vegas. Kathy Hilte, Pardee regional marketing director, said her company has long had an interest in building energy and water efficient homes, but the new program "takes it to the next level."
The cost for most home buyers will probably be a few hundred dollars, Hilte said.
"We already do some of it," she said. "We may be able to do it for less as it becomes a standard feature in our homes."
Hilte predicted a market for the label, which could go on homes by the time the hot summer months roll around.
"People used to say that people in Las Vegas didn't care, but the truth is people do care," she said. "If we're going to continue growing, we have to be great partners with the water authority and to be better environmental stewards.
"Environmental stewardship wasn't something you used to hear about in Las Vegas, but the truth is that the desert is very fragile and very precious."
Not everyone is as upbeat about the environmental aspects of the effort. Hermi Hiatt, a longtime environmental activist in Las Vegas, said the goal may be laudable, but the end result will be more homes in the desert.
"Obviously, the interest of the home builders is to build more homes," Hiatt said. "More homes means more people, more traffic, more air polltion, more dust,you name it.
"It's a nice gesture to try to save water, but that really is a passport to build more homes in the long run."
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