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KN: Hi everyone. My name’s Katie Newcomb, and I’m excited to present this webinar today. The topic is ‘Water Conservation, the Water Footprint Team, and the Status of the Top Ten Actions Letter.’ Today we’ll be talking about irrigation conservation, rainwater harvesting, water efficiency measures, top ten actions results and tips for success. And we’ll begin with an introduction to the Water Footprint Team. So I’m happy to introduce Dan Golub, he’s a biologist for the team’s enterprise unit in Pennsylvania, and he’ll be giving you guys an introduction to the Water Footprint Team. So Dan, whenever you’re ready.
DG: All right, thanks. You can go ahead and move to the next slide there. So, I’m going to talk a little bit about the Sustainable Operations Collective Water Footprint Team. The purpose as you can see on the slide is to provide a more accurate estimate and account of water consumption nationally. Currently we only pay for and meter some of our water and the water that we report to USDA and then up to CEQ and the Department of Energy are all based on the water that we paid for. But we know that we have in some cases some fairly large buildings that have their own wells that may be metered but are not being paid for, and therefore are not considered when we submit this estimate upwards to [CUOCA]. So that’s a little bit about the state of our estimate.
So for this team we’ve got three outcomes and corresponding measures of success. First outcome is to develop a water use estimation tool for these buildings that are supplied by Forest Service-owned water systems, as opposed to municipal systems. A couple years ago, Sarah Baker and I, who we co-lead this Water Footprint Team, we have been working on this water estimating tool for a couple of years. About two years ago we got data from about 45 buildings that were 5,000 square feet and larger, that were metered and on municipal systems, so we have good data for those buildings. And the types of buildings spanned from bunkhouses and offices to visitor centers, warehouses, and whatever type of buildings we have that are over 5,000 square feet. I think in the end we got rid of warehouses because I, there’s very little associated water use. But we did have a couple of fire related units that we included in there. So we used this data and determined what kind of water saving measures they had in place, such as low flow toilets or low flow faucets, or rain barrels, or any of the kind of water conservation measures that facility managers and building managers can take. And we got full time equivalents for the population of the building, water cost and consumption, square footage of the building and building type. And sort of separated everything out that way and tried to develop sort of like a baseline use by square feet, and then figure out which of the water conservation measures were in place, and how much those measures could eventually save.
But because we only had 46 buildings and we didn’t have all data from all buildings, it, we just didn’t have enough data to really make a tool that was robust that would really reflect any real use by other people that are trying to use this tool to estimate. So we have kind of a plan to use data out of [INFRA] and data out of the National Financial Center for a larger number of buildings, and to get better estimates for these water conservation measures, and take another go at this tool. I know last year, and Sarah, if she were here, could probably talk with more detail to this, but last year she did sort of iteration number two of this tool, and it was a little more focused and I think it, it was a little bit better but still not what we wanted. So as outcome number one, we want to try to tackle this water estimation tool and get something out there for folks to use. It’s not perfect, because a lot of times when things are based on population, the only way that you can really show savings is by reducing the population in the building. And so it’s not a very good way to show the results of these efforts that we’ve been making, agency wide. But maybe with the, with a better way to get estimates out of the water conservation measures that people implement, we can start seeing some results that are not just based on employee populations, you know, in order to show some real reduction.
All that said, there really is no substitute for getting a meter reading. That’s really the best way to see how much water has been used in an individual building. But sometimes these buildings are fairly rural and you know, may take a half day’s trip or more for someone to go out and read this meter. So that’s not always feasible. So having an estimation tool like this, we’re hoping may be useful for folks out in the field.
Outcome number two is to have this outline put together of a water consumption reduction strategy. And this will be very similar to this energy consumption reduction strategy that we’ve been on, or that I’ve been working on with a slightly different group, although there’s a lot of overlap in the participants. And for the energy reduction strategy, which this water strategy will reflect, we get [deputy] areas together and figure out what outcomes we want, what are the goals of the strategy; how, what individual actions do we want to take to reduce consumption. And that’s sort of just a brainstorming session where we come up with some actions. After we get these actions together then we assign deputy areas and staff areas within those deputy areas, with individual names connected to them so that it’s very clear who’s responsible for making sure these actions happen. And then below the staff level we identify an individual, and that ends up being someone like me, who is kind of at the worker bee level, where we get these actions sort of assigned according to, you know, the, what is our subject matter of expertise, and as these actions are implemented, the, it’s, the plan moves forward. And we’re starting to see some movement with completion of some actions on the energy plan and it seems to be working well. So with luck the water consumption strategy will do the same thing, and as some actions start being implemented we can really start to make some strides in reducing water consumption. And then the third outcome there is just to coordinate with the communications team. That’s fairly self explanatory. We just want to get these tools and the strategy out to people so they can see what’s going on and, you know, even provide some input if people are interested.
You can go ahead and go to the next slide. So this is, I just wanted to show everybody the numbers that we’ve been recording [up] in the past few years. This is water cost. And so this is at a fairly accurate reflection of costs. I don’t know where the ’07 numbers came from but I got the numbers together for the 2010, ’11 and ’12. And you see that there is an increase in consumption each year. It should be said, though, that I cannot really vouch for the accuracy of these numbers, because the invoices that come in are, they can include everything that’s on a bill from a municipality, in the cases where the water is from a municipality. And so that can include trash, sewer charges, administrative charges, as well as actual charges for water consumption. And the way that, the way that the NFC system works right now is that they get these invoices in, take the entire cost of the invoice, don’t break it out by water, trash, sewer, or whatever. And just apply a cost per unit factor to the number, and that’s how they report consumption. So the costs do reflect the invoices, but the invoices don’t show only water consumption. So you really have to keep that in mind when you’re looking at these numbers, because you know cost per gallon or, there are so many things that can affect this number that really don’t relate in any way to water consumption. But all that said, again, this is what has been reported because this is the best we’ve got at this point. Next slide please.
And so this is the agency-wide gross square footage of our facilities that we’re reporting water usage for. That’s relevant because we are ultimately judged on a water use intensity number, which is gallons per gross square foot, and so our, the gross square footage makes a big difference in that. In 2007, USDA gave us the number for the Forest Service but in the other years, ’10, ’11 and ’12, that number came from Washington Office Engineering. And so in 2007 that number was a little bit higher and so the water use intensity was kind of spread out a little thinner over, over a larger number of gross square feet. But in ’10, ’11 and ’12 that number has stayed fairly consistent. So if you go to the next slide, Katie, we can see that this water use intensity was higher in ’07, which may have been due to costs or, you know, again I’m not sure where that cost number in ’07 came from. But ’10, ’11 and ’12 we’re seeing that water use intensity increasing because of the cost increase, while the gross square footage stayed consistent.
So that’s where things stand from, up to now. In about, we’re thinking about five months or so, there’s a new invoice management system that’s coming online where they will have the ability to differentiate on those water bills between actual water consumption and those other charges, like administrative, trash and sewer, and others. And so in the future, we, I think this gross square footage number is pretty good. It’s pretty accurate. But our water costs and with that cost per unit factor applied, therefore our consumption, has been going up and we just don’t know how to really interpret those numbers in the future, starting, well, starting hopefully this year, we will be able to really get I think a better picture of our actual water use for those facilities where we are actually paying a metered cost per gallon. And then with this estimation tool, if we can get that fairly well put together and feel good about the number of its outputting, we, I think, in just, starting with this fiscal year onward, we should have a much more accurate picture of our water consumption. And as, you know, if people do connect meters to some sort of a web based system or if people are feeling compelled to go out and read these metered systems that we’re not paying for and we can actually get them real numbers, that’s only going to help improve our estimates in the future. So it’s, in the past we’re, I’m not real happy or confident with the way that the numbers look, but from now on I think we’re going to have a much, a much nicer picture. And we can really make the more informed decisions about where and how to implement some actions that are going to make a real difference in our overall consumption.
And that’s it for me.
KN: Great. Thanks so much, Dan. It’ll be exciting to see what your team, how your team’s deliverables progress. So thanks for your time.
DG: Sure thing.
KN: If you guys have questions for Dan, we’ll take questions about halfway through and at the end of the webinar. So if you have questions please just note them. You will have a chance to ask those in a little bit.
Now I’d like to present our next speaker. It’s Michael Alexander, the Assistant Forest Engineer at the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, and he’ll be talking about irrigation conservation. So whenever you’re ready, Michael.
MA: All right, well, thank you. I’m just going to present a little information about one of our buildings here at the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. It’s our supervisor’s office, and it housed a good portion of our employees. If you want to go to the next slide please. So the – our supervisor’s office was constructed in 2003. The consumption at our facility was primarily for the office employees. There’s not a really large field contingent at the office, it’s mostly the hundred or so employees that use the break room and the occasional shower. And also the irrigation at the facility. Beginning in about 2008, about five years after construction, the irrigation in the parking lot and around the grounds began to deteriorate and become more prone to leaks, although the leaks that were observed generally weren’t that alarming. They were at times of course spraying into the air, and those are the types of leaks that we were able to respond to quickly. But it generally was just deteriorating, even after only five years. Next slide, please.
So we fortunately are metered at the building and by the utility district, and so we were able to track with the meter water consumption. And generally we observed obviously that in the summer the consumption was getting worse and worse each year, so in 2008, in the summer, we were using on average 33 gallons per person per day. In 2009 that jumped up to 47. And in 2010 it became 143 gallons per person per day of occupying the building. So obviously during the winter and spring and fall the consumption was, was much lower. And so if you go on to the next slide. We looked into the Federal Energy Management Program Water Use indices and they suggest that at an office facility we should be consuming approximately 15 gallons per person per day. That’s not to be confused with say residential consumption, when people are at their homes. Those are usually in 150 to 200 gallons per person per day, but just the consumption in the office should be in the 15 gallons per day, per person, which is similar to what we had been metering in the off season.
It’s pretty obvious to us that it was our irrigation system that was contributing to the, essentially the wasting of water, as it become, as it became deteriorated and exceeded its useful life. So in 2011 we simply didn’t turn the irrigation system on during the summer. And if you go to the next slide, this shows our water consumption in the summer of 2011, in 2012 it essentially eliminated the wasted water. We went down to around 13 gallons per person per day, or 11 per person per day during the summer of 2011 and ’12. So we’re in line with what we’d expect to consume at a facility such as this. Do you want to go to the next slide?