How the Future of Water will Impact Businesses and Communities

Above – A water mechanical room, fully monitored with online controls, in a Santa Fe, NM home which integrates city water, gray water and rainwater into a system that distributes water inside and outside of the house. The system was designed by Doug Pushard of HarvestH20 and installed by 1st Choice Plumbing. The Libert’s Home Project won the WERS Award in 2023 for the Lowest Residence Water Use in the country.

Water is the essence of life, and yet it is almost universally taken for granted. This is at a time when we are seeing unprecedented and dire water issues crop up around the world. Here is a quick sampling of some of the headlines from this just this year… and it is only April:

Mexico City may be months away from running out of water

In winter 2021, more than 150,000 people living in Jackson, Miss., were left without running water and it has gotten worse

Agriculture built these High Plains towns in Colorado, now it might run them dry

Today, water is readily available to most of us, but not all. Per the United Nations, five (5) billion people, or 2/3 of the world’s population, will face water shortages by 2050. This is not just somewhere else in the world; it is also coming to the USA.

Most surprising is that the technology has existed to solve our most pressuring water problems for years, but impediments abound to prevent solutions from being implemented.

Water is managed as a resource (i.e., drinking water) and a waste product (i.e., stormwater). Water is managed as both a business and as a common good. Water is segregated into different operating silos to optimize differing business models. Yet, at the same time, an abundance of water in one operating unit is not considered a resource for another. Population growth and new housing development are two major issues underlying the need to find more water, yet water is not linked to land use management.

Balancing all these issues while ensuring safe, readily available drinking water, attracting and managing employees in today’s complex work environment, keeping both the sewage smell away from population centers and flood waters at bay, is enough to overwhelm most water professionals.

Yet, cracks in the dam are beginning to appear that will dramatically change how we view water.

Business and the Importance of Water

• General Mills has recognized the importance of water to its businesses and includes the risks to this critical business component as a strategic component. They have committed to advancing water stewardship plans for their most material and at-risk watersheds in their global value chain. They are also exploring, through research and farmer pilots, regenerative agriculture as a means to improve water quality and quantity impact.
• The Google water stewardship strategy is centered around assessing and addressing water-related risks to their business and the opportunities we have to not just mitigate those risks, but also create solutions that can be scaled beyond our own corporate footprint and to partner with others to address this shared challenge. Their stated goal is to replenish 120% of the freshwater volume they consume, on average, across their offices and data centers, and help restore and improve the quality of water and health of ecosystems in the communities where they operate.
• More and more businesses now have an executive in charge of Sustainability, and water is managed as critical to the core business.

New Views on Water

Efforts like One Water, National Blue Ribbon Commission, the International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials’ (IAPMO) Water Demand Calculator, and water ratings are pushing new views on water:

• The US Water Alliance’s “One Water” approach manages all water—whether from the tap, a stream, a storm, an aquifer, or a sewer—in a collaborative, integrated, inclusive, and holistic manner. One Water can change and regenerate how we live, our opportunities, our environment, and our society. This initiative pushes for a new way of viewing and managing water from a utility perspective.
• The National Blue Ribbon Commission advances best management practices to support onsite, non-potable water systems within individual buildings or at the local scale. They assist code officials in updating building codes to enable new uses for existing and previously untapped water sources.
• Pipe sizing curves for sizing the pipes installed in every US building have not been updated since the 1940s! Every new building using these antiquated curves is putting in tremendously oversized pipes and costing everyone money. IAPMO has released a Water Demand Calculatorthat accurately sizes the required pipes and is working with permitting agencies to ensure these new pipe calculations are accepted by permitting agencies.
• A water rating is a performance-based methodology that qualifies and, in some cases, incentives, water efficiency. Applicable for single-family and multifamily residential properties, water ratings can project future water usage while preserving design and product choice freedom. Land use departments could use a water rating, such as the Water Efficiency Rating Score (WERS), to help communities enable sustainable growth while ensuring adequate water supplied for existing residents.

New Water Technology Companies

New water technology companies are beginning to push into areas that will cause code officials to become very uncomfortable but will save water and eventually find a way into the market.

• Orbital graywater recycling shower recycles shower water while taking a shower. This type of device will reduce potable shower water use by 70-80% and is not allowed by current plumbing codes in the United States. Products like these are being installed in Europe today and will eventually find a way into the US.
• Tiny homes come equipped with graywater systems, which includes kitchen water in the waste stream. Graywater codes exclude kitchen waste from graywater discharge in almost all state and national plumbing codes, yet thousands of these new units are being sold and installed across the country.
• Treating blackwater to drinking water quality is a known science. Other countries have been doing this for over a decade. Yet only California now has standards to enable water utilities to begin the years-long process of bringing this ‘new’ source of drinking water online.
• Smart Water meters, both whole house and landscape meters, are becoming widely available. These meters increase homeowners’ awareness of water and directly attack the 10%+ water leakage reported in end-user water usage studies. This will give homeowners newer, more accurate meters than the utilities have installed. The data from products like these will drive increased awareness, because now awareness is down to the fixture level. That was impossible just 10 years ago.
• Google is partnering with the state of New Mexico using satellite imagery to locate leaking water pipes. New Mexico loses between 40-70% of treated drinking water in some older systems due to breaks and leaks. This new partnership and technology will drive future water savings in New Mexico and hopefully in other states in the near future.

As the above illustrates, technology, policies, and perceptions are changing, water source uses are changing, and weather patterns are changing. All things water are beginning to change and will drive how we view and manage water.

Communities and Water Management

Communities will need to rethink how they manage water. No longer as a silo (i.e., a potable water company, a sewer company, a land use and planning department, etc.), but instead as one collective effort. Water conservation will no longer be a revenue-reducing effort, but a water-producing department. Stormwater and blackwater will be considered potable water sources, not waste streams. Onsite residential reuse (i.e., rainwater, graywater, and/or blackwater) will become commonplace and part of a community’s sustainable growth plan. Integrating management of all water resources and future water demand management through land use codes.

The Next Generation Water Summit (NGWS), held annually in Santa Fe, NM, brings together the building and development community, water reuse professionals and water policymakers in a collaborative setting to share and assist in pushing these efforts forward. Workshops, presentations, tours, and networking have been part of the NGWS since its inception almost ten years ago. The theme of the 2024 Next Generation Water Summit is: Solutions for a Changing World. Join us for this event on June 20^th and 21^st, live or virtually. Many of the topics in this article will be featured at this year’s NGWS. Join us in creating the water future we all need. 

 

Article by Doug Pushard, the founder of KuelWater. He also founded  HarvestH2o.com over 20 years ago as a personal expression of his interest in the subject of rainwater catchment, water reuse and water conservation. Doug has been published and featured in several magazines, including: ARCSA Newsletter, BUILDERnews, New York Times, High Country News, Back Home, EcoStructure, Green Fire Times, Home Power, Lowe’s Online, OnTap, Plenty, Santa Fe Real Estate Magazine, Santa Fean Magazine, Smart HomeOwner, SUN Monthly, Sustainable Santa Fe, Sustainable Taos, Timber Home Living, Taos News, Turf Magazine, Water Today, Fox News, Green Patriot Radio and others. Additionally, Doug has presented on rainwater, water reuse and water conservation at conferences around the United States.

Doug is an active participant on several code committees, works with communities to update the land use and water codes, teaches water courses at Santa Fe Community College and Red Rock Community College, is a technical advisor to the Water Efficiency Rate Score development team (WERS), a performance-based home and multi-family water efficiency measurement system, a WERS certified instructor, a Qualified Water Efficient Landscape (QWEL) irrigation and graywater certified instructor, a life-time member of American Rainwater Catchment System Association, and is a co-founder of the Next Generation Water Summit.