EPA Takes Action to Promote Water Conservation

EPA Considers Water-Efficient Product Labeling
It its effort to raise public awareness about wise water use, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering establishing a water-efficient product labeling program based on its Energy Star program. An Energy Star, which has consumer recognition value, is earned by an electric-using product if its energy use meets certain EPA standards.

What Energy Star does for efficient energy use the proposed program is expected to do for water conservation.

Tom Babcock, water conservation coordinator for the Phoenix Water Services Department, says “We have been pushing for a long time for some sort of similar standard, a promotional icon, if you will, for water efficiency. A lot of players have been involved to get somebody at the federal level to initiate this, and the Office of Water at EPA was the first to move forward and say this may be a good idea.”

Many Arizona water providers have been promoting the program including the Tucson and Phoenix water utilities. The Conservation Committee of the American Water Works Association has taken the lead nationally to coordinate support for the program.

In setting water use standards for such a program, EPA has the option to review and possibly adopt the standards already existing in other federal programs. For example, the Energy Policy Act of 1990 includes water-using standards for certain types of products and appliances, with the rationale that energy is required to pump, treat and deliver water.

Babcock says, “We managed to get standards into federal code through the energy side, and now EPA is looking to do something on the water side.”

A water efficient product labeling program, however, will go beyond setting and listing of such standards to include their promotion, with consumers encouraged to look for a designated symbol or logo when purchasing a water using appliance. What water consuming information is currently provided often is included within fine print and/or is expressed in a formula difficult for the layperson to decipher.

Sheila Frace of EPA says at this point nothing is chiseled in stone. “We will be meeting with stakeholders, conducting research of product areas and product lines and doing some of the marketing research that is part and parcel of a labeling program. ... We want to be sure we are hearing all the pros and cons, all the pitfalls to avoid in the design of such a program.”

Australia might provide a model for the U.S. effort. It has recently taken steps to implement an efficiency labeling system for appliances that is expected to reduce domestic water use by five percent and save $600 million a year.

EPA to Promote Tenant Wise Water Use

EPA is proposing a regulatory change intended to encourage apartment dwellers to conserve water by having them billed for actual water usage. This seemingly obvious strategy is discouraged by present regulations that may impose a burden on apartment building owners who install submeters and bill tenants separately for water.

The present EPA policy derives from enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under the SDWA, national primary drinking water regulations apply to public water systems (PWS) having their own water sources, or if they treat or sell water.

EPA has previously issued guidance stating that building or property owners who meet the definition of a PWS and receive water from a regulated public water system, with their tenants billed separately for the water, are in fact selling water. They are thus independently subject to safe drinking water requirements.
Applying a basic water conservation tenet, that consumers use less water if they are billed for what they actually use and not on just a flat rate, is thus discouraged

The EPA now proposes to change the policy to have a more limited application to submetering and the direct billing of residential tenants, thereby better promoting full cost and conservation pricing, with the result that more water will be conserved.

About 15 percent of Americans are apartment dwellers.

The proposed policy change is undergoing a 60-day comment period which began with an announcement in the Aug. 28 Federal Register.

Seventy-five volunteers from seven European countries were recruited and assigned the task of washing dishes. Each volunteer washed a typical family load of 140 pots and plates coated with hardened egg, spinach and margarine. They found that handwashing used between about five and 86 gallons of water compared to the water consumption of a conventional European dishwasher that uses about four to five gallons of water.

(Americans were not included in the study, but the American Water Works Association web site provides information about hand washing dishes in this country. According to AWWA information an automatic dishwasher uses approximately nine to 12 gallons of water while hand washing dishes can use up to 20 gallons.)

The German study noted differences among nationalities in dish washing methodologies. Professor Rainer Stamminger, author of the study, states, “Whether it be a housewife or househusband, a Spaniard or a Turk, they all have different ways of doing the washing up.”

He noted that German and British handwashers did the job more economically than did their Spanish and Turkish counterparts, though the Spaniards ended up with the cleanest dishes. The Germans produced surprising results. Despite their reputation for cleanliness, their dishwashing performance was merely mediocre.

Stamminger’s tips for environmentally friendly hand dishwashing include prevent the food from hardening on plates, soak dishes prior to washing and use a main hot water bath followed by a cold wash rinse.