Get serious about your throne

I'm going to resist making a terrible, toilet related pun and just mention that today's State Journal has an article detailing a proposal that Madison's water utility is making that would, in theory, help to cut water consumption:

The city's Water Utility is recommending a rebate plan to encourage residents to buy high-efficiency toilets, which could save about 2.3 million gallons of water daily, the output of one well.

The rebate plan, which would offer $100 per dwelling unit — a third of the cost of installing a high-efficiency toilet — is the centerpiece of the utility's goal of cutting residential water use by 20 percent by 2020.

The utility would provide $250,000 for rebates annually, enough for 2,500 toilet replacements each year.

If all homes switched toilets, the water savings would represent two-thirds of the utility's conservation goal.

In general, this sounds like a good plan. The only caveat is that this pitch (which is part of a more detailed, multi-pronged proposal) comes with an 18% rate hike. Certainly, that's going to make some residents balk, and understandably so. But here's the thing: if we were to each cut our water consumption from our current average of 73 gallons a day (good Lord!) down to 58 gallons a day, it might well completely negate any rate increase. It's paying more for less, but when it comes to what is arguably our most precious natural resource, I think it'd be worth it.

We in the United States have been incredibly lucky to have such easy, cheap access to abundant clean water. That's not true of many places in the world, and clean water is becoming more and more difficult to come by all over the planet. We would do well to cut our consumption which, at 73 gallons a day, is way over what we all really need.

Still, I'd be curious to know if the $100 rebates will be coming out of the Water Utility's own pockets, or what. Also, I'd be very curious to know if these rebates will be made available to the landlords of the various apartment buildings around town. I rent, but I'd love to have a low-flow toilet in my apartment. I can't really do that right now unless I own the place. I imagine that renters use a lot of water, too, so offering these rebates to landlords would be a good move and good incentive.

I also admit that the last I'd heard of low-flow toilets, they weren't always terribly reliable in the fully-flushing, not-clogging department. Happily, however, the newer generation of low-flows seems to have fully addressed all of the old problems, and there are several models available now that work even better than the old, water hogging kinds. Plumber Terry Love provides comprehensive, field tested reviews of many low-flow models for your perusal here.

Conservation is one of the key elements to creating and maintaining a more sustainable, healthy environment in which we can all live--right on down to our grandchildren and their children and so forth. It's important to take some personal responsibility for this effort, but equally so that we all work to make it as affordable as possible to do so.