From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):
As inflows to Green Mountain Reservoir slow down, we have been curtailing our releases to the Lower Blue. Yesterday, we reduced releases by 50 cfs to 450 cfs. This morning, August 11, we reduced releases by 50 cfs to 400 cfs.
More Colorado-Big Thompson coverage here.
Click here for Henry Reges’ notes from yesterday’s webinar.
What is the consumptive use of the various methods of car washing? Here’s a report from News8Austin. From the article:
Dean Minchillo, water conservation specialist from the Lower Colorado River Authority, did an experiment involving hand washing versus car washing. “We took a small meter and attached it to a spigot for a garden hose and then actually washed a vehicle by hand in a driveway and then took those numbers and compared them to what type of usage you might see in some of the other commercial type of car washes,” he said.
The results :
• Self-service car washes typically use about 17 gallons per vehicle, depending on the type of nozzle on it
• In-bay car washes, at gas stations, use about 20 to 40 gallons per vehicle
• The full service car washes can use up to 60 gallons per vehicle
• Washing it on [your] own, in the driveway, can take more than 100 gallons per vehicle
“A regular garden hose, if it is left open, it will use about 10 gallons per minute of water.
More conservation coverage here.
From the Colorado Daily (Heath Urie):
So far this year, the city has billed residential and commercial customers for about $8.8 million worth of treated water. The problem is, the utility department expected to bill about $10 million by now. “This year, our treated water use was at a low that we had not experienced since 1981,” Ned Williams, Boulder’s director of public works for utilities, told the City Council at a study session Tuesday night. In 1981, Boulder customers used about 5.6 billion gallons of treated water. In 2000, the city used a 30-year high of about 8 billion gallons…
To make up the unexpected decline, and to make sure there’s money left over to keep the city’s aging water infrastructure in good repair, Williams asked the council to raise water rates next year. Several members of the council indicated they would support such a move, after declining to raise rates last year in the face of the recession.
But the irony of asking residents to pay more for water that they’re doing a good job of conserving wasn’t lost on the elected leaders. “What I see is a dilemma of being defeated by our success,” Mayor Susan Osborne said. “We’re saying, ‘Oh my gosh, look what (conservation has) done to our revenues.'”[…]
If the council formally approves that move later this year, the increases would add about $18 a year, or $1.50 a month, to most residential water bills. Commercial customers would also see 3 percent increases.
More conservation coverage here.