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December 4, 2005Cities fighting upstream battlesGetting people to conserve can be a tough fightEditor's note: Conserving water is a way of life in much of the world, but historically it hasn't been a high priority around the Great Lakes. Now, fear of losing water to outsiders is leading some people in this aquatically blessed region to embrace the principle of thriftiness. In part two of this three-part package, The Associated Press continues to examine this trend.Chicago's easy access to the vast blue waters of Lake Michigan is enough to make Las Vegas and Phoenix green with envy. The Windy City and its suburbs draw about 900 million gallons from the lake every day under a unique arrangement sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It virtually guarantees the biggest metro area on Great Lakes a reliable, seemingly inexhaustible water source. But that hasn't stopped Chicago from waging one of the region's most aggressive campaigns for conservation. It began two years ago, when Mayor Richard Daley warned that relentless development and wasteful habits could jeopardize a water supply long taken for granted. He proposed a wide-ranging strategy, with conservation as a centerpiece. "Oftentimes people think we have an unlimited source right outside our back door," said Sadhu Johnston, the city's environment commissioner. "But it's actually a finite resource ... and conserving water is of critical importance." Many of the Great Lakes region's public water systems encourage efficiency, said David Koch, who heads the Michigan section of the American Water Works Association. But a 2004 study by the Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Commission suggests that comprehensive strategies such as Chicago's are the exception, not the rule. Based on a survey of randomly selected municipal water systems, the study found that nearly two-thirds of those responding had no formal conservation plan. Only about half tried to educate customers about saving water, primarily by mailing tip sheets with water bills. Among the most common conservation practices were calibrating and replacing meters and fixing leaks. Few local governments push for conservation, the report said, mostly because of "the perception of adequate or abundant water supplies." Koch said public water utilities understand the need to reduce waste, and many are working to plug leaks in underground pipes that cause untold losses of water and money. But their job is to make sure that when someone turns on the tap, the water flows, Koch said. That means the responsibility to conserve rests mostly with users, and laws or regulations ordering utilities to save water miss the point. "Simply telling a municipality to cut water use won't do much good if everyone's still out watering their lawns on a summer day," Koch said. Besides, he said, the Great Lakes region already does better at conserving than some states in the thirsty West. In Michigan, the typical public supply customer uses about 115 gallons per day. In only nine other states do people use less, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. California's daily per capita consumption rate from public water systems is 181 gallons; Colorado's is 209 and Utah's is 286. In the Great Lakes region, the rates range from 102 gallons in Minnesota to 142 in Illinois. The Michigan DEQ has a list of steps municipal water systems could take to promote conservation. Among them: "demand pricing," or boosting rates as water use increases - a big incentive to be frugal. Critics say demand pricing can chase away industrial prospects that are heavy water users and prevent utilities from selling enough water to meet expenses. But reducing demand can save money for municipal systems by lowering operation and maintenance costs, said Jim Japs, assistant director of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Minnesota requires public suppliers to have an emergency conservation strategy for when water is scarce. Those seeking to increase withdrawal volume or add wells must have plans for encouraging less demand. "We want to make sure conservation is looked at as an alternative to increasing your supply," Japs said. Chicago's conservation blueprint includes a $620 million infrastructure upgrade, replacing 50 miles of leaky water mains annually. It's already saving 160 million gallons a year, Johnston said. Other measures include making sure all drinking fountains have on-off controls, installing water-saving plumbing fixtures in city buildings, auditing large industrial water users and replacing flat-rate residential billing with meters, so the amount customers pay depends on how much water they use. The city also is educating residents about how - and why - to conserve. "If every Chicagoan would just turn off the water when brushing their teeth, we could save millions of gallons a day," Johnston said. "It doesn't seem like much, but the cumulative effect from our individual actions really adds up." Tomorrow in part 3 of the series, Great Lakes residents find ways to conserve.
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