If you’ve watched the movie Dune, you’re probably familiar with one of the most water-wise societies ever. The movie is good, but I certainly am not interested in wearing a Stillsuit.
Fortunately, one of the ways we too can increase our water wisdom is through Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). Otherwise known as smart meters, San Jose Water Company is 8 months into a three year project to install technology that will relay real-time information about water use. And while a few of us grumble about how this new technology gets paid for, as your representative to the Water District, I wanted to take a step back to talk about why AMI is being deployed.
First, a reminder: San Jose Water Company, for those of you who live in their service area, (map here), is who we buy our water from.
The San Jose Water Company is different than the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The Water District is the public agency that you elected me to serve on and that is in charge of making sure we all have enough water when we turn on our taps. The Water District (the wholesaler) sells water to 13 different water retailers in the County, San Jose Water Company being one of those retailers.
The Water District has adopted conservation goals to meet the water needs of our 2 million county residents and AMI can help get us there. The Water Company shares these goals and so is installing smart meters. Smart meters have also been deployed in other parts of the county such as Morgan Hill, Milpitas, Mountain View and Palo Alto.
It all started with an executive order
In 2016, Governor Brown signed an executive order calling for “Conservation as a Way of Life.” It recognized that with rain falling mainly in the North, far from many of our thirsty mouths, using less is a cost-effective and environmentally-wise strategy.
Most recently, the State set an indoor water use per person goal of 42 gallons per day by 2030. To put this in context, running the dishwasher uses about 3 gallons, flushing the toilet 1.5, and taking a ten minute shower, 20ish. In Santa Clara County, per person use is currently about 69 gallons per day and we estimate that about 50% of that is indoor use. So we’re not doing half bad but we can do better and smart meters gives us the information we need to adjust water use. AMI also helps detect leaks, which account for ~12% of home water loss.
It is also important to highlight how water conservation fits within an even broader context – water supply and costs. Sidenote: We just happen to be right smack in the middle of updating one of the Water District’s most important plans, the Water Supply Master Plan.
Water Supply Master Plan
Every 5 years, the Water District undertakes a long term planning process to make sure our kid’s kids don’t go thirsty when we’re long gone. Do we have enough reservoirs to capture rain and run-off? Are we able to keep our aquifers full and healthy? Should we increase our water recycling? What about desalination – should we invest in that? Do we need to import more water and build new reservoirs plus the pipes to move water from where it falls to our taps? All of this costs money in a complicated ecosystem of water projects.
As the Water District puts all the options on the table, the democratically elected board, of which I am one of seven, will have choices. These choices have costs, costs that impact our pocketbooks and costs that impact the environment. I personally am a huge supporter of methods of supplying water that are good for both and while conservation is just one piece of the puzzle, it's green in two ways - less money and better for the environment. AMI was shown to be one the most cost effective projects in the 2040 Water Supply Master Plan.
So, if you see a San Jose Water Company truck out there installing water meters, now you know why. The meters are helping us to meet our water supply needs in a way that is good for the environment and good for our pocket books.
More on Conservation...
And for those of you who haven’t yet bored of reading this, here’s a little more on the District’s efforts on conservation. There are all sorts of programs with rebates like graywater systems, incentives to swap out appliances, cisterns and rain barrels and even efforts to get cities to adopt what is called (and it’s a mouth full) the Model Water Efficient New Development Ordinance (MWENDO). This ordinance would require stricter rules for water use on new construction. For a whole lot of information on how we plan to achieve our conservation goals, check out the 2021 Water Conservation Strategic Plan linked here.
The last bit of exciting news is that this year, one of the four Board-directed audits (yes, audits are exciting!) includes a conservation audit. It is through this audit that the Board and Agency will have even better information on things like best practices across the industry so that we can squeeze as much as possible out of every drop of water without resorting to Stillsuits!
If you’d like more information on any of this, some links are included below:
Link to agenda of next Water Supply and Demand Management Committee meeting where we’ll be discussing the next iteration of the Water Supply Master Plan
San Jose Water Company information on AMI
Information about the District’s water conservation programs
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