City tries to draw commercial customers into low-usage effort
Businesses, bring on that new low-usage water irrigation system.
Santa Fe officials are working to improve on past efforts to expand the city’s water-efficiency rebate program into the commercial sector.
A slew of proposed changes to a city ordinance would allow officials to work with businesses, a group of water customers that hasn’t really been addressed in the past, city officials say.
“We’ve had great success in the residential area in terms of incentivizing conservation through the various retrofitting and rebate and credit programs and the desire was to figure out a way to do that better on the commercial side,” said City Councilor Peter Ives, a sponsor of the ordinance.
Santa Fe has had success with an augmented water rebate program, started in 2010, that provides cash for water-efficient washing machines and other smaller-scale appliances.
That program conserved 32.5 acre-feet of water in 2010 and 9.04 acre-feet of water in 2011, according to city officials. An acre-foot is equal to about 326,000 gallons.
The rebates are linked to a city plan designed to allow Santa Fe to bank the water saved from the rebates and offer it, for a price, to builders who need to offset water for use in new development. Eventually, builders’ payments are expected to provide funds for new rebates.
The city has historically provided some incentives to commercial water customers, such as rebates for installing a certain percentage of low-flow fixtures, but they haven’t been all that popular.
According to city officials, possible beneficiaries of a new commercial water rebate program could range from a hotel or restaurant that installs air-cooled rather than water-cooled systems, such as for an ice machine, or a laundromat using a reclaimed water system. Schools and governmental entities could also take advantage of the program.
City water conservation manager Laurie Trevizo said individual businesses and other entities could bring ideas to the table that city officials haven’t considered – and she expects and hopes that will happen.
“The commercial rebate program was a way to sort of inspire different types of commercial applications to come up with ways to save water,” Trevizo said. “We’re not experts in every commercial business so we’re relying on people who are in those industries.”
Rebate possibilities listed in the proposed ordinance include exchanging water-cooled for air-cooled equipment, water reclamation systems, cooling tower modifications, large scale irrigation improvements, eliminating water-intensive phases of industrial processes and industrial laundry equipment upgrades or reuse. Landscaping changes may also qualify for a rebate, Trevizo said.
Once the new system and/or equipment has been in place for a year and city officials have documented that water has, indeed, been conserved, the customer gets a one-time rebate applied as credit to their water bill.
The amount of the rebate is based on how much water the participant has saved as well as what the city is paying for water rights. Estimates are still rough but “there is a big financial incentive,” Trevizo said. A device that saves, for example, 100,00 gallons of water would be worth a rebate of around $4,764.
Applicants will need to work with city water officials before and after they install a new system or equipment, and city officials will regularly monitor applicants during the first year to ensure less water is being used.
Applicants must also make sure that at least 80 percent of their fixtures are water-efficient and free of leaks.
“Commercial users get blamed for lots of high water use, but they’re not wasting water, they just happen to have an industry that happens to use a lot of water … this is a way for them to be more efficient at what they’re doing,” Trevizo said.
A city memo written by Trevizo earlier this month says offering a commercial water conservation rebate program will help reduce the city’s overall per capita water consumption levels, “solidifying the City of Santa Fe as a leader in water use and conservation.”
The City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on whether to publish notice of the ordinance. The council will vote on the measure in June.
Speak Your Mind