Conservation

The bottom line on residential conservation is that it is cheap and easy, and the water savings are real and immediate!  Conservation is our cheapest, quickest source of additional water to support economic growth.  Think about this:  almost half of all the water we pump from the Aquifer is used outdoors in the summertime, which is also the time when rain is scarce.  Since we also lack any storage for water when surpluses are available (usually in the winter when demand is low), it's easy to see why almost every summer we get in a "water crunch" and mandatory restrictions have to be imposed.  For those that adopt it, conservation is an attitude and a way of life.  It is a way that YOU can make a personal statement about being committed to helping the San Antonio region and South Texas solve its water problems while continuing to grow economically, and it also shows your concern for the environment and the natural systems we depend on. 

There are lots of ways to conserve water, and residents of San Antonio have already come a long way.  In 1984, each person used about 179 gallons of water per day.  By 2001, that had been reduced to 133 gallons per day.  

In January 1997, the San Antonio Water System convened a committee of community representatives to evaluate conservation programs already in place and recommend new ideas.  It was a broad coalition of over 200 volunteers representing community groups, neighborhood associations, environmental groups, and business and military institutions.  The consensus of the group was the fairest way to get all SAWS customers to conserve water would be to revise the rate structure to allow for lot size, reward water savers, and raise rates for those who waste water.  Revised rate structures are still being worked at the present time.

The reasons for conserving water and the impact of doing so are a little different in San Antonio than in most places.  Lots of places get their water from surface reservoirs and when users conserve, the water remains in the reservoir for later use.  In contrast, when users in San Antonio conserve water, all of the water conserved does not remain available for use tomorrow.  Some of the water not pumped in San Antonio emerges as springflow at Comal and San Marcos springs.  By conserving, users in San Antonio are helping to maintain springflows, recreational economies, endangered species habitats, and downstream flows.  In this way, conservation benefits the entire region, not just users in San Antonio. 

One of the main culprits in high water use households is St. Augustine grass.  Other grasses like bermuda and zoysia will turn brown and dormant without water, but St. Augustine will die.  It has been widely used in San Antonio for decades because it will grow in the shade, is easy to install, is relatively inexpensive, and it just sort of became a traditional, fashionable grass.  Even though San Antonio sits on the edge of the vast Chihuahuan desert, the widespread use of St. Augustine has given the city the appearance of a green oasis.  Changing the face of the city so that it looks more like a town on the edge of a desert will go a long way toward solving our water problems.  And residents are finding there are many ways to create landscapes that are much more colorful and interesting than plain expanses of green lawn.  People might still want small areas of turf for kids and dogs, and they even might want small areas of St. Augustine in shady areas, but xeriscaping and wildscaping are becoming much more popular.  Xeriscape plants are ones that can survive with little or no water once established, and many are native to the San Antonio area.  Wildscaping usually involves mostly native plants, and the landscape is planned with the goal of attracting urban wildlife such as birds and butterflies.  These landscapes can even include lots of edible plants!  There is plenty of  help available to people who want to undertake a xeriscaping or wildscaping project.  Free brochures are available at most local nurseries, and the San Antonio Water System offers a water bill rebate of up to $500 to customers who install water-saving landscapes.  The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has some excellent material online about creating Texas Wildscapes and registering your wildscape with the Wildlife Diversity Program, and the National Wildlife Federation will certify your landscape as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat!

The area below the porch in front of this house in Helotes is a xeriscape.  It contains over 60 different types of flowering, low-water using plants, and it is ablaze with color almost all year round.  When this photo was taken it was 103 degrees and the area had not been watered in 4 days!

Outside the house, you can also use mulch around trees and plants to slow evaporation, and you can spread compost on turf areas.  You can also consider driving a dirty car to be the water-saver's badge of honor!  If you have to wash it, you can save water by using a bucket instead of a hose.

There are also a lot of things that individuals can do to conserve water inside the home:

In agriculture, there are many ways that farmers can conserve Edwards water, and the water saved becomes another "cash crop" for them which they can sell.  They can install high-efficiency sprinkler systems, use drip irrigation instead of sprinklers, use mulch, install devices that measure potential evapotranspiration to get a better handle on irrigation needs, use precision land leveling to improve irrigation efficiency, and plant more water efficient crops.  The San Antonio Water System has an Agricultural Conservation Program that features innovative water saving efforts including Direct Conservation, Research and Education, and Regional Partnership Projects.  The Direct Conservation component involves working to provide agricultural users with the technology and equipment to improve irrigation efficiency.  SAWS will provide cost sharing for more efficient irrigation systems in exchange for acquiring a comparable amount of the conserved water rights.  Their Research and Education efforts are focused on studies involving brush management and developing greater accuracy in determining crop irrigation demands.  They are also working with regional partners to develop an Irrigation Technology Center, which will be a facility for education, testing, and applied research to promote efficient irrigation, water conservation, profitable agricultural production, and quality urban landscapes.  For more info contact SAWS Water Resources Dept. at 210.704.7346.

Another agency that is very active in promoting conservation in the Edwards region is the Texas section of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.  Their primary purpose in life is to conserve soil and water, and this organization has saved more acre feet of water than any other group or individual in the State.  They have technical resource management information available for the Edwards that is available to the public and is the basis of all Best Management Practices (BMPs) available.  The USDA's Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) is currently in the allocation process to distribute approximately $$1.5 million for long term conservation contracts for 2000.  This is the fourth year that $1.5 million has been used to get more water into the Edwards aquifer.  Check out their page for more info on this and many other conservation related programs.