What Your Community Can Do

• Run an Efficient Water Supply System
• Encourage and Practice Water Efficient Landscaping
• Manage for Drought
• Use Conservation Pricing
• Reduce Water Use
• Educate the Public
• Manage Development

There are many things communities can do to manage water use to protect rivers. Most public water supply systems are community owned and operated. The manner in which they are operated and managed can have a significant effect on how much water is used.

Water System Efficiency
Communities that ask residents to conserve water should also make sure that their public water supply system is operating as efficiently as possible. This involves many measures, including good accounting of how much water is used. This can be accomplished through metering of all water services, including schools and other municipal buildings and frequent leak detection and prompt leak repair. The Massachusetts Water Conservation Standards provide guidelines for the types of water system efficiency measures communities should implement. For details see Massachusetts Water Conservation Standards.

In general, the following management and efficiency measures and practices should be implemented by all water systems:

• Conduct regular water system audits to determine where the water goes, and who is using it. All water services should be metered and annual use by category (residential, commercial, municipal, institutional, agricultural, etc.) should be determined and monitored.
• Frequent customer billing. Monthly is best, but at least quarterly. Frequent billing, especially during the summer when use is highest, provides feedback to customers and encourages them to conserve.
• Leak detection surveys should be conducted regularly. Communities should strive to keep the amount of unaccounted water to no more than 5% to 10% of total system use.
• All public buildings should be equipped with water saving plumbing fixtures.
• A drought management plan and local bylaw and regulations providing the authority to manage outdoor water use should be adopted. See Drought Management.
• A comprehensive public education and outreach program on water conservation and efficiency should be developed and implemented. See Public Education.
• Programs to encourage and support water conservation efforts in the community, such as rebates on water-saving plumbing fixtures and technical support to large water users to help reduce their water needs. See Retrofit Programs.

Encourage and Practice Water Efficient Landscaping
An important way in which communities can manage demand is by requiring or encouraging more efficient landscapes. If new development is done in a manner that builds water conservation and efficiency into the landscape, the need for large volumes of irrigation water to support unsustainable landscapes will be avoided.

A significant driving force behind the growth in summer water use in many suburban communities has been a common pattern of development in these areas that involves large lot subdivisions. All too frequently, residential house lots are largely cleared of vegetation and stripped of topsoil during the development process. The natural vegetation that is removed is then replaced with lawn, and often seeded with grass species poorly adapted to Massachusetts summers and without an adequate soil base. As a result, these lawns require heavy inputs of water and fertilizer to keep them growing during the hot and frequently dry months of July and August.

The approach to commercial and industrial development often follows the same path, with the result being expansive areas of turf. In recent years, it has become common to install in-ground sprinkler systems during the development process to make the task of keeping these lawns growing as easy and simple as possible, even in the hottest and driest of summers.

There are alternatives to this pattern of development. Communities can discourage the construction of large lawns during the development process and reward developers for adopting a more environmentally-friendly approach. This approach involves a focus on leaving as much land as possible in a natural state, using grass species adapted to local climate conditions on lawn areas, adequate site and soil preparation for landscaped areas, and using native plants adapted to conditions of the specific site to the greatest extent possible for landscape plantings. See the landscaping section of our resources page. The adoption of this approach builds water efficiency into the landscape and can greatly reduce the need for summer lawn irrigation. It has additional environmental benefits as well, such as preservation of wildlife habitat, reduced fertilizer and pesticide use, and reduced energy used to operate lawn care equipment. This type of approach is being encouraged in a number of Massachusetts communities through a process known as Open Space Residential Design.

Communities have used various methods to encourage more environmentally friendly and water efficient development. For more information, see the Model Bylaws and Regulations section of our Resources page. Information on efficient landscape design is also available in the draft Guide to Lawn and Landscape Water Conservation, developed by Massachusetts Water Resources Commission.

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Drought Management
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency have recently prepared a draft Drought Management Plan for Massachusetts. This plan identifies data gathering responsibilities to monitor conditions to determine drought status, establishes drought action levels and responses, and identifies the responsibilities of various state agencies and departments in dealing with drought conditions.

Individual municipalities should also establish drought management plans to be better prepared to deal with drought conditions. Local plans should be structured to closely monitor conditions, and to implement a phased response long before drought conditions reach a critical state. In developing drought management plans, communities should consider not just the amount of water left in their reservoirs, or groundwater levels adjacent to their municipal wells. They should also consider the effects of drought on rivers, streams, and wetlands. When droughts occur, people may be inconvenienced with restrictions on outdoor water use. Fish and other aquatic life may be killed outright. Drought management plans should take the extreme impacts drought may have on aquatic life into account, and reduce water use in a manner that preserves flows in rivers and streams to the greatest extent possible.

If you would like some additional web sites devoted to the subject of drought management, visit the drought section of our resources page.

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Conservation Pricing
Water is essential for life, and as such, should not be very responsive to cost. While this is true for some uses of water, such as basic human health and safety needs, it is not true for non-essential uses of water, such as lawn irrigation. Although water is considered “inelastic” in price compared to many commodities, water use does drop as price increases. Studies of the relationship between price and water use have shown that residential water use is reduced in response to price increases, although the reduction in water use is less than the amount of the price increase.

Today, many communities in Massachusetts have flat rate structures, where the first gallon of water used costs exactly the same as the last gallon used. In these situations, water used for basic human needs, drinking, cooking, bathing, and waste disposal, costs the same as the water used for lawn irrigation or hosing down a driveway. Since water is typically inexpensive, flat rate structures provide little incentive to conserve water.

There are a number of water rate structures that can be used to encourage water conservation. These include:

• Increasing block rates: In this type of rate structure, the cost of water increases with the amount of water use. For example: the first 5,000 gallons per month might cost $3.00 per thousand gallons, the next 5,000 gallons per month $5.00 per thousand gallons, and all additional water $8.00 per thousand gallons.
• Seasonal rates: In this type of rate structure, which may be combined with an increasing block rate structure, the cost of water is increased during summer when water use increases.
• Second meters: Some communities have a practice of allowing the use of second meters where sewer use charges are based on the volume of water used. These second meters separately measure the volume of water used outdoors, and sewer user charges are not assessed against this water use. This tends to discourage water conservation by keeping the cost of water used outdoors low. Where second meters are used to measure non-essential outdoor water use, an appropriate rate structure should be applied to encourage conservation.

You can find additional information on conservation pricing from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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Water Use Reduction

Indoor Water Use

There are many things communities can do to help reduce indoor water use. One of the most basic is educate water system customers about the need to conserve, and how to do it. For more information on water conservation education materials and methods, see Public Education.

Another way that communities can help to encourage water conservation in the home, as well as in businesses and commercial establishments, is by adopting water rate structures that encourage water conservation. Many variations on water rate structures may be used, and rate structures can be implemented that provide a reasonable amount of water for normal household use at low rates while charging much more for non-essential uses and water waste. For more information read Conservation Pricing.

Communities can also help water users conserve by making water conservation devices, such as high efficiency showerheads, faucet aerators, and toilet tank displacement devices available for free or at wholesale cost. In addition, communities should make sure that all municipal buildings, including schools, are equipped with water-efficient plumbing fixtures.

One of the most effective measures that communities can take to reduce indoor water use is to provide financial incentives to customers to replace old plumbing fixtures and appliances with more modern, water-efficient models. Many communities across the United States have implemented programs to offer free replacement toilets and showerheads, or to provide rebates on these fixtures and for the purchase of high efficiency clothes washers and dishwashers. Although this may sound like an expensive proposition, often communities will save money with these programs by avoiding the need to develop new water supplies, water distribution systems, sewage collection systems, and wastewater treatment plants. Since less water is used when efficient plumbing fixtures and appliances are used, less water is needed, and less sewage is generated. For more information read about Community Water Conservation Incentive Programs.

Outdoor Water Use

Communities can implement measures to control outdoor water use, but to implement mandatory restrictions, they must first have a bylaw in place authorizing these restrictions, or be operating under a declaration of a water emergency by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP has developed a model bylaw to serve as a guide to communities in developing their own bylaw. To obtain a copy of this model bylaw, see Model Bylaws and Regulations.

Bylaws should provide for a hierarchy of water use restrictions, with more stringent restrictions mandated as drought conditions worsen. Communities should link the implementation of water use restrictions to drought indicators in their drought management plans. As drought conditions begin to develop, the first step may be to call for voluntary conservation. If the public fails to respond adequately, or conditions continue to deteriorate, the next step may be to limit the days or times when outdoor water use is allowed. The next step may involve increased restrictions on the time of day and length of time outdoor water use may occur, followed at last be a mandatory outdoor water use ban. For outdoor water use restrictions to be effective, they must be enforced. Failure to enforce places all the burden of water conservation on those who voluntarily comply and is usually unsuccessful.

In addition to bylaws to restrict outdoor water use, communities can adopt other types of bylaws and regulations to encourage water efficiency and discourage outdoor water use. These include such measures as restrictions on the installation and use of in-ground irrigation systems, requiring such systems to be equipped with soil moisture sensors and/or rain shutoff devices, and requiring second meters for irrigation systems and charging higher rates for water used for this purpose. More information on these measures can be found in the draft Massachusetts Guide to Lawn and Landscape Water Conservation.

Adopting the proper bylaws and regulations needed to manage outdoor water use is extremely important, but communities should combine these measures with an effective and ongoing education campaign to explain to water users the need for and benefits of reducing outdoor water use.

Public Education
Public education and outreach regarding the effects of excessive outdoor water use and the benefits of conservation is a key element of community efforts to reduce summer water use. Water users cannot be expected to conserve unless they understand the reasons why water conservation is important. Few people recognize the potential environmental, economic, and public health and safety issues that are associated with high levels of summer water use. For example, few people realize that pumping of municipal wells to meet high summer water demands may have severe impacts on rivers, streams, and wetlands.

To be effective, education and outreach should be an ongoing program. Ideally, each community should have a water conservation coordinator responsible for implementing water conservation education and outreach. Education and outreach efforts should include a wide variety of activities, such as:

Educational materials regularly included with water bills School programs Public service announcements and press releases on local radio, television, and print media Direct outreach to large users Information on how to reduce indoor and outdoor water use

Public space advertising Direct outreach to civic and professional organizations and garden clubs Cooperative efforts with local watershed associations Demonstration projects that provide examples of water-efficient landscapes and buildings

For more information on education and outreach programs and materials, visit the educational links section of our resource page.

Manage Development - Open Space Residential Design
Recently, the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s North Shore Office has been spearheading efforts to encourage communities to adopt a new approach to development, known as Open Space Residential Design (OSRD)."

"Through a collaborative design process towns can manage growth in a manner that protects local values and provides equitability to developers. Open Space Residential Design is a technique to build desirable neighborhoods and to maximize the amount of preserved open space without reducing the number of homes built."

"With Open Space Residential Design, at least as many houses as a conventional subdivision are located on approximately half of the property, while the remaining land is conserved as open space for the neighborhood to enjoy."

"Open space priorities are identified early in the design process based on community and environmental values. Homes are then carefully situated to maximize their views, protect land and water resources, provide common spaces, and create a strong neighborhood feel. The result is a subdivision that protects and connects the most important conservation interests rather than just setting aside an arbitrary percentage of land.”

--From Green Neighborhoods: Open Space Residential Design — A Community Choice by the North Shore Alliance for Green Neighborhoods: Open Space Residential Design

For more information, contact: Massachusetts Audubon Society, North Shore Office, 978-927-1122 or e-mail endicott@massaudubon.org.