Conserving Residential Water through the 40 Gallon Challenge in Texas Diane Boellstorff Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist – Water Resources Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Dept. of Soil and Crop Sciences Texas A&M University (Please feel free to replace my contact information with your own) Many Texans would like to conserve water, but don’t know where to begin or how to translate their intentions into actions. This program will help them take the next steps.

All areas of Texas have been struggling with water availability over the last few years. This is the most recent drought map. It is updated weekly and can be downloaded through http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/pdfs/tx_dm.pdf. (If you’d like me to make the updates and forward the revised file to you, please contact me.)

Maroon indicates that groundwater storage in aquifers is severely depleted. This is the most recent groundwater storage map. It is updated periodically and can be downloaded through http://drought.unl.edu/nasa_grace/GRACE_GWS.pdf. (If you’d like me to make the updates and forward the revised file to you, please contact me.)

Home/Landscape Water Use Most of our residential water use is for landscaping and it is estimated that usually half of that water is wasted, and so that area is where there is the most room for painless water conservation improvement. The following EarthKind training will look in depth at best management practices for reducing the amount of water used for landscaping. The next few slides will emphasize ways to reduce water use in the home. Average Gallons per Day

In-Home Water Conservation Toilet Displacement – 10 g/d (0.00) Faucets – low flow aerators ($2.00) - 14 g/d Shower – low-flow heads ($12.00) – 20 g/d Reduce Tub Fill – 10 g/d Toilet Leak – 30 g/d Faucet Leaks – slow steady drip – 12 g/d; fast drip – 20 g/d; small stream – 90 g/d Teeth Brushing – 8 g/d (0.00) Shaving – 4 g/d (0.00) Laundry and Dishwasher – think full loads Monthly Savings Example (family of 4, 2 bath): 4,110 g x ($3.90/1000 g) = $16.03 Some examples of how easy it is to reduce water consumption with changes in equipment and behavior.

Home/Landscape Water Conservation Action (Family of 4, 2 bathrooms) Savings High efficiency dishwasher 18 gal/day Faucet aerators 14 gal/day Low-flow toilets 8 gal/day High efficiency washing machine 10 gal/day TOTAL 50 gal/day Some additional examples of how easy it is to save water using low-flow technologies. When your appliances need replacing, strongly consider switching to the latest, low-flow technology.

Here is an opportunity to translate you intentions to conserve water into action. Join the many Texans who have pledged to save water using voluntary, painless, money-saving techniques that are shown in your 40 Gallon Challenge pledge sheet. The database of pledges can be found at 40gallonchallenge.org. Click on the Texas shape for details closer to home. 40gallonchallenge.org

By mousing over your county, you can see the number of gallons that have been pledged to be conserved to date. 1892 pledges to date: 332,031 gallons/day or 121 million gallons/year (these figures can be updated from the 40GC website; they change almost daily).

Important Rules: Submit only one pledge per household Check off only new practices or actions that you will do to save water Do not submit duplicate pledges Ask if anyone needs a pen or pencil. Read slowly through the pledge sheet; no matter how slowly you go through it, you will still need to give them extra time to finish up at the end. Collect the pledges at the end so that you can enter the pledges into the database (or send them to me and I will enter them). If you don’t collect the pledge sheets and enter the numbers, they won’t end up in the database. If you like, you could ask the participants to fill out a duplicate sheet for them to keep, or photocopy their pledge and return it to them, or take a photo with your smart phone, or simply ask them to keep a note of what they’ve pledged.

It is nice for the participants if they provide an email address because then the system sends them a summary of their pledge.  Also, so far we've done only one follow-up survey and so they don't need to worry that we'll be pestering them.  It's no problem if a participant doesn't want to share their email address, about a third of the pledges I take are from people who don't have an email address, don't want to share their email address, or can't write their email address so that it can be read!  Here's what you do to enter their pledge: Go to http://40gallonchallenge.org/ Choose the state and county Enter the pledge Enter 40gallon@uga.edu as the email address if no email address was given Choose “no” for the follow-up survey if no email address was given and 40gallon@uga.edu was used instead Repeat

Questions? Diane Boellstorff dboellstorff@tamu.edu; 979.458.3562 Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service May I field any questions you may have? (Please feel free to replace my contact information with your own)