At a golf course in Colorado’s high desert, drought is changing where every gallon goes. John Atencio, head golf professional at Cattails Golf Course in Alamosa, says the old back-nine irrigation system was more than 40 years old, leaking badly, and forcing maintenance crews to spend much of their time…
A shared contract does not create a collaborative water project. A shared definition of success can. Collaborative delivery brings utility owners, operators, engineers, builders, technology providers, and other stakeholders into the process early enough to agree on the project’s mission, priorities, and desired results. Jeff McCord, senior director of business…
💧 H2O INTRO 👤 Meet Joshua Perkins, Chief of Staff of Young, Gifted & Green. A knock at the door can alert a family to lead risks in their drinking water. Perkins explains how community canvassing helps residents learn that their homes may be connected to lead service lines, understand…
A $1.2 million federal grant helped unlock a much larger restoration and irrigation project on Colorado’s Rio Grande. Cassandra McEwen of the Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project explains how the Farmers Union diversion came together by stacking several sources of money: Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART funding, a Colorado Water Plan…
Replacing lead pipes in an older community can cost more than $100 million—and local leadership determines whether that challenge becomes a plan. Mayor Nathaniel George Booker has made lead service line replacement a public-health priority in Maywood, Illinois, building partnerships with Cook County, the National League of Cities, the National…
Saving water is one challenge; finding the money to build conservation projects is another. The fourth episode of Resilience In The Rockies examines how Colorado communities are assembling federal, state, local, and private funding to turn water-efficiency ideas into infrastructure, with WaterNow helping local partners identify opportunities, navigate complex grant…
The Mississippi River runs through New Orleans—and through its taps. I’m on the Algiers side, looking across the river toward downtown New Orleans, at an intake where the city’s drinking water journey begins. Pumps pull river water into the Algiers treatment plant, which turns about 11 million gallons a day…
Westminster is turning one of its most visible public landscapes into a demonstration of how cities can conserve water without sacrificing useful green space. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the city, working with WaterNow and Western Resource Advocates, identified roughly four acres of high-water-use Kentucky bluegrass around City Hall…
Longmont is using data to answer a deceptively simple conservation question: which lawns should come out first? Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the city worked through the Project Accelerator to identify nonfunctional turf on city-owned properties and build a more systematic way to prioritize future conversions. The effort brought…
Federal water money can be transformative for rural communities, but getting through the application process can be a barrier of its own. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow explains how the organization’s Grant Help Desk helps smaller communities navigate state and federal funding programs that can otherwise require significant staff time and…
Alamosa is showing that even a public golf course can become a serious water-conservation project when the infrastructure is designed for efficiency. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow points to Cattails Golf Course, where the city replaced an aging irrigation system with more precise technology while preserving a heavily used community recreation…
Aspen is pairing tougher landscape rules with the workforce needed to make them work. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow says the city’s water-efficient landscaping approach stands out because property owners are not simply handed a standard and left to figure out compliance on their own. Since 2018, WaterNow has helped Aspen…
Eagle County is finding that turf replacement works better when residents get more than a rebate. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow points to the Beyond Lawn program as a model because it pairs financial incentives with on-site audits and property-specific guidance. Those evaluations help homeowners see where nonfunctional turf can be…
Greeley is turning a massive meter replacement project into a water-conservation strategy. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the city used about $3.5 million in federal WaterSMART grants to help modernize nearly 27,000 water meters with advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI. The new system gives customers near-real-time information about their…
Denver Water’s lead service line replacement program is also testing a financing model with implications far beyond lead pipes. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow explains how Denver Water is using long-term financing to accelerate replacement of customer-owned lead service lines rather than relying only on annual operating budgets. The approach is…
A mostly unused lawn at the University of Northern Colorado is being turned into a more useful public space while saving nearly 2 million gallons of water a year. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how Greeley, UNC, and project partners reworked the campus North Lawn from high-water-use bluegrass into a…
Aurora is testing a different way to build trust around water: bring public-health professionals directly into the conversation. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how Aurora Water, Metro Water Recovery, the Aurora Health Alliance, and River Network created the Water Champion Alliance for a city where more than 180 languages are…
Small mountain utilities are being asked to do more than operate pipes, pumps, and tanks. They are also expected to run conservation programs, manage rebates, engage residents, and build public trust. Cynthia Koehler of WaterNow says the High Country Conservation Center shows how a regional nonprofit can provide that missing…
Boulder has spent decades building strong water-conservation programs, but the next challenge is making sure more residents actually see themselves in them. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the city is rethinking conservation outreach in a community where renters make up a large share of the population and the University…
Broomfield is trying to lock water conservation into future growth before new demand becomes harder to unwind. Victoria Arling of WaterNow explains how the City and County of Broomfield developed a new landscape ordinance for new development and redevelopment, where outdoor irrigation has accounted for roughly 60 to 70 percent…
Small water projects rarely attract the attention given to major treatment plants, but limited staff and tight budgets can make early collaboration especially valuable. Sherri Leonard, director of collaborative delivery at Water Resources Group, says the approach can help communities of every size get more from their infrastructure investment. Collaborative…
How much of YOU is actually water? We hit Water Street outside the Reservoir Center for Water Solutions in Washington, D.C., to find out how well people know their own H2O. The guesses were generous: 70%, 80%, 90% — even 98%. The actual answer for an average adult? About 60%.…
Water quality monitoring doesn’t stop at the treatment plant. At the Hach booth at WEFTEC, I looked at a compact system designed to continuously track drinking water as it moves through a utility’s distribution network. The panel monitors six key indicators—chlorine, turbidity, pH, conductivity, pressure and temperature—giving operators an earlier…
A doctor may be more persuasive on water quality than a utility. Shonnie Cline of Aurora Water says that reality is shaping how the city communicates about drinking water, treatment and reuse. Aurora Water and Metro Water Recovery have partnered with the Aurora Health Alliance to bring public-health professionals directly…