Who are the worst offenders when it comes to wasting water?

North Americans, without a doubt. And Canadians as a group waste as much water as Americans. But it’s important to put some perspective around that. North Americans use more water than anyone else on earth in their daily lives (and could reduced that use by at least half without any penalty in our quality of life). But domestic use as a category consumes only a small fraction of all the water ‘used’ in a country. Agriculture uses the greatest amount. In both the U.S. and Canada, some irrigation is highly efficient, some not. Industry also ‘uses’ a lot of water but returns most of that water to the environment. The issue there is how clean the water is when it’s returned, and by and large North American industries do much better on that score than factories in those countries to which we’ve outsourced our consumer manufacturing, places like China and Indonesia.

What is the key to preserving our water?

The place to start is to recognise that our economic life relies entirely on water delivered from natural ecosystems, and that we must begin to account for that value in all our economic choices. That means not only in what we build and where, but in what we buy and what gets included in the price of things. And that shift in thinking has to be put into action.

The practical place to start first is to insist all of us, families and industries alike, pay the full cost* of the water we use, whether it comes from wells or a community system. Communities that haven’t done so already should switch immediately to metered water service to homes and business and water rates that rise with the volume of water that either consume.

We also need to make every drop of water we do take from nature work as hard as it possibly can for us. We need innovators to discover ways to do more with less of it. And once individual needs are satisfied for water to drink, cook and wash with, we need to direct every drop to the most valuable, most productive end. The most powerful instrument we know of for motivating innovation and directing resources to their most productive use, is the marketplace. So we also need shed our exaggerated fears of allowing water and markets to mix.

*’Full’ cost means not only the cost of treating water for consumption or the cost of pipes to deliver it to homes and businesses. It also means the cost of protecting in perpetuity the headwater valleys and wetlands where nature’s water supply is gathered and delivered to streams and aquifers. It includes the cost of preserving the downstream ecosystems that remove from water the heavy metal toxins that elude our treatment plants in sewage effluent.

What should governments be doing?

Much of what we can do isn’t expensive or technically challenging, but it does require political leadership to change rules. Beyond installing water meters and volume pricing at the municipal level, most governments need to review their whole policy around water and the landscapes that provide it to ensure that the value of both is reflected in all the other activities government influences. That may mean instituting new rules for water ‘capture’ from the wild, or making special provision for the protection of wetlands that filter water and recharge wetlands. In many places, communities and governments are discovering that they need new forums for making decisions about water that take into consideration all of the interests in a watershed (the area drained by a single big river).

Can you share a success story?

Perhaps the most powerful example is New York City. In the 1990s it faced spending $5 billion on a new water treatment plant to meet its growing thirst, and another $1.5 billion on two additional sewage treatment plants that would be required when that new water worked its way through the city’s drains and toilets. Instead, its leaders opted to spend $500 million on a range of investments that improved the quality of water the city receives from the Catskill Mountains through better land-management practices there, and others to reduce water waste in the five city boroughs. Rebates got owners to replace nearly half the city’s toilets with low-flow models. Plugging leaks in city mains saved nearly as much water. Altogether the city cut its water needs by one-fifth and escaped both an expensive building program and the political fight over where to put two new sewage plants.

In Canada, local private investors are building a new community for 2,500 people in Victoria that will use water so carefully that over a year it will save as much water as the entire British Columbia capital city uses on the hottest day in summer. The neat thing is that the builder told me, the more efficiently his projects use water and every other resource, the more money his business makes. In other words: green pays!

Are there some simple steps an ordinary person can take to help conserve water?

The most obvious things begin at home: keep an eye on running water and fix leaky taps promptly. When you replace toilets and shower-heads, go with low-flow models. The place where most households use the most water is outdoors. In dry regions, irrigating lawns can quadruple water use. Choose landscaping and ornamental shrubbery that work with your local climate’s natural rainfall. If you do decide to irrigate, use timers to apply only what is needed (more can actually damage your lawn, garden plants and soil).

When issues surrounding water arise in your community, give them your attention. Lend your voice to sensible solutions that respect the great value we receive from healthy ecosystems that collect, clean, store and deliver our most important economic, human and natural resource. 

Read the third and final part of our Q & A with Chris Wood tomorrow! (click here for part one)