After Five Years, Tucson Rainwater Harvesting Efforts Appear To Be Cutting Potable Water Demand
The city of Tucson, Arizona, officially got serious about rainwater harvesting five years ago, viewing it as a cost-effective tool to reduce demand for potable water.
In 2012, the city’s water utility, Tucson Water, began offering rebates to its residential customers to subsidize installation of rainwater catchment systems, both to divert water onto landscaping and store it in cisterns. Later, it expanded the program to include grants and loans to help low-income households harvest rainwater.
Now it is one year into a three-year study to find out how effective those subsidies have been, and the results look good. Gary Woodard, a consultant with Montgomery & Associates in Tucson, is leading the study. He says the first year of data gathering confirms that residential rainwater harvesting has reduced the city’s overall potable water demand.
And it hasn’t merely reduced demand equal to the size of the rainwater harvesting systems, but significantly more.
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Water Deeply: How common is rainwater harvesting in the area?
Woodard: As of this summer, the city has spent over $2 million in rebates to encourage people to put in rainwater harvesting systems. It started in the summer of 2012. The community has really embraced it. For example, the food bank has a very large garden, and they put in a very large rainwater harvesting system to irrigate their garden. It’s sort of become a common thing around town. It doesn’t rain often here, but when it does it can rain very hard. And the ground doesn’t soak up water very well. So rainwater harvesting is a way to deal with stormwater runoff. A little over half of our annual rainfall comes in the summer monsoons.
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https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/community/2018/01/08/in-tucson-subsidies-for-rainwater-harvesting-produce-big-payoff
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