Watsonville’s Conservation Program: Save Money Now and Ensure Water for Our Future

The City of Watsonville’s Public Works & Utilities Department is the water service provider for 66,000 customers in the Pajaro Valley.  The City provides over 6 million gallons of safe, reliable drinking water to our customers each day. But producing and selling water is only part of the mission. We must also partner with our customers in the critical effort to conserve our precious water supplies. Careful management of our water resources helps ensure that we will have a long-term supply of high quality drinking water, and less waste translates to lower water bills.

Conservation is Effective. The success of the City’s conservation efforts can be seen in the steady reduction in our per-capita water usage. The City has met its goal of maintaining the same annual water use over the last 15 years, even as the population has increased substantially during that period. How have we achieved this goal?  The Conservation Outreach Program offers incentives to conserve water, including rebates for the installation of low-flow toilets and water-efficient washing machines, free landscape water audits, and a significant educational outreach effort.

Water-Wise Landscapes.  The City has many success stories of local businesses and residents reducing landscape water waste with the assistance of their free Landscape Water Conservation program. The City’s parks and many local businesses have reduced irrigation by over 50% and are maintaining their water-wise landscapes within a water budget. These water savings were achieved through repairs, upgrades of broken irrigation equipment, reprogramming irrigation controls and smart landscaping choices.

Reaching Out to the Community. The City's Conservation Outreach program has been a major force in local environmental education since 1991.What makes this program unique is that it provides services for all ages and sectors of the population using a multicultural approach.  We inform the community about the City’s utility services, local environmental issues, and how to conserve and save money at the same time.

The team connects with the community through our Community Conservation Presentations. The interactive presentations are brought into neighborhood meeting sites and focus on water conservation, recycling, storm drain pollution prevention and the Watsonville trail system and Nature Center. These free community presentations are made available to all local Watsonville organizations such as the Watsonville Adult School, Cabrillo classes, community clubs and homeowners associations.

We Love Our Tap Water. Our current campaign, “I love Watsonville Tap Water,” was developed to inform residents that the City’s tap water is safe to drink and that our community is extremely fortunate to have their own local source of water. By drinking the tap water, residents can save up to $1,000 per year as compared to buying bottled water. The cost for tap water is .01 cent per gallon. We think it’s a real deal!

City water customers are invited to call us for assistance and information about a free Landscape Consultation and our conservation rebates at 768-3133, or they may visit our website at  www.cityofwatsonville.org.