The Hawaiʻi Water Service has a plan to encourage its customers to conserve water. You won’t find it filed with the water use permit applications submitted to the Commission on Water Resource Management.
But the three-page plan does appear in the documents supporting the utility’s rate hike application filed last month with the Public Utilities Commission. Implementing it is estimated to cost $250,000.
Six components make up the plan. There’s a proposal to give rebates to customers who replace plumbing fixtures and washing machines with more water-efficient ones. Residents who replace toilets can expect a $50 rebate, while Hawaiʻi Water Service anticipates giving rebates of up to $150 to customers installing high-efficiency washing machines. The utility also expects to distribute “conservation kits” to customers, which will include two high-efficiency shower heads, two bathroom faucet aerators, one kitchen faucet aerator, toilet-leak tablets, “and an outside multi-function, full-stop hose nozzle.”
Another element focuses on giving rebates to customers who install more efficient irrigation equipment.
The third element involves a “smart landscape tune-up program,” which looks at customers’ irrigation programs and encourages installation of efficient irrigation system equipment. It also will give customers reports that compare their monthly consumption “to a calculated water target,” utilizing “a water industry standard for creating water targets and budgets.”
The conservation program will also look at ways to improve system efficiency and cutting waste. A 2022 audit of the system by the American Water Works Association gave HWS a score of 52 out of 100, based on system losses and customer meter inaccuracies, among other things.
A public information program that includes outreach to school students is yet another component. This would “build on the Cal Water Tap Into Learning (TIL) program. TIL aligns with recognized education standards and offers a unique opportunity for teachers to facility their students’ learning of standards-based content, while developing the core understanding of environmental principals necessary to become science-literate citizens.” (There are no public schools in Kapalua.)
Finally, there’s the administrative collaboration with organizations “to promote and advance water use efficiency,” including membership in the Alliance for Water Efficiency and partnering with the EPA’s WaterSense program.
Missing from the program is any mention of encouraging – much less requiring – the use of drought-tolerant plants in landscaping.
And what about curtailing water use if customers refuse to voluntarily cut their use? That, too, seems never to have occurred to the utility.
— Patricia Tummons
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