Despite recent heavy rains, Texas is now headed into the hottest, driest part of the year—when cities must meet summer water demands, while businesses watch their water and energy bills rise. Often, the best way to conserve is to catch underlying issues. Other times, it’s simple upgrades or strategic planning that saves significant water, energy and dollars down the line. Businesses and cities across Texas are discovering the benefit of both approaches with creative and strategic assistance from locally based company Plummer.
Founded in 1978 in Texas, Plummer has a proven track record of providing outside-the-box solutions for water and energy savings.
“We are conservationists at our core,” said Eddie Wilcut, Practice Leader for Plummer’s Water and Energy Efficiency Services (WEES) team. “Our mission aligns with Aldo Leopold’s early 20th-century insight: society must make the business case for doing the right thing. We work with public utilities, affordable housing developers, industry, and private businesses to help them conserve water and energy resources for environmental and economic reasons.”
Catching Leaks and Looking for Opportunities
A key aspect of WEES’s approach involves detecting/fixing leaks and cutting unnecessary use to save water. Wilcut recalled one memorable situation involving a restaurant manager with an unusually high water bill. WEES identified the issue as a broken handwash sink that had been running for a month.
“If you consider that there are 1,440 minutes in a day and30 days in a month, there were about 42,000 gallons of water running through that one sink – which explains the water bill,” Wilcut explained. “People are often surprised how little things add up.”
The team also identifies lower-cost opportunities to upgrade to more efficient fixtures like LED lighting or high-efficiency faucets.
Award-Winning Water Conservation Planning
Conservation planning is key, too. The WEES team has helped Texas cities, including Fort Worth, reduce their own water use and create comprehensive water conservation plans that meet Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) requirements.
"Plummer consistently exemplifies industry leadership in water conservation,” said City of Forth Worth Conservation Manager Micah Reed. This has fostered “a valuable partnership for the City of Fort Worth that goes far beyond simply conducting ICI audits. They’ve provided valuable insights into how various industries utilize water across the nation, enabling the city to develop more informed strategies for water conservation.”
As Wilcut points out, a strategic conservation plan also helps the city or utility as well. “Conserved water is a resource that utilities already own—they don’t have to treat, pump or distribute it. Effective water conservation planning can prevent the need for drought management, helping water utilities continue to sell/deliver water during seasons of higher use.”
Conservation Programs – Partnership with the City of Dallas
Many municipal conservation plans include city-funded programs to encourage lower water and energy use. Since 2012, WEES has partnered with the City of Dallas on its Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI) Water Conservation Programs. WEES uses established industry codes to compare water users within the same sector, which helps cities tailor their programs to specific areas and needs. The WEES team contacts those who are using more water than standard and offers to assess their water-using equipment (including AC cooling and irrigation systems) to find inefficiencies and suggest improvements—all for free as part of the conservation program. This helps businesses qualify for water efficiency rebates that cover significant portions of future water/energy-saving upgrades.
To date, WEES has conducted over 1,440 assessments for Dallas buildings, identifying potential savings of 770+ million gallons per year. This year, the City of Dallas Water Conservation Division received the prestigious Texas Chapter of the American Water Works Association Water Conservation and Reuse Award for their comprehensive water conservation program.
Summer Conservation Tips for Everyone
As Texas summer approaches, Plummer recommends several methods anyone—business, city or individual—can use to conserve water:
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