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WATER CONSERVATION PLAN 2008 <br />Commercial, Industrial, Institutional and Irrigation Account Water Audits <br />Commercial and irrigation customers make up the fastest growing water users served by <br />the City. These large water users often do not track their water use closely, and therefore <br />may not be especially efficient with regard to their outdoor and/or indoor water use. It <br />will be valuable for the City to audit key commercial and residential customers to help <br />them to identify potential water savings measures that can be implemented to improve <br />the efficiency of their processes and water applications thereby saving the City water and <br />its customer's money. <br />To this point, the plan will evaluate commercial, industrial, institutional and irrigation <br />account audits for both indoor and outdoor applications, as appropriate. The City also <br />plans to evaluate the benefits of increasing commercial and irrigation customer education <br />regarding low water -use landscapes, Xeriscaping, and overall soil and plant <br />management. The City also plans to evaluate providing rebates for outdoor irrigation <br />equipment, specifically rainfall sensors and ET controllers to commercial and irrigation <br />customers. <br />The importance of the commercial audit program, which includes audits of institutional <br />and irrigation accounts, is likely to become a vital component of the City's future water <br />conservation activities. Currently, information is not readily available regarding <br />individual customer water use history and ongoing water conservation programs. <br />Through the audit process, the City plans to identify and support individual customer <br />water use habits to help selected entities better manage their water use management. <br />Potential measures and programs that will be developed as a result of the audits may <br />include: <br />Cooling tower and system management programs; <br />Car wash efficiency programs; <br />Irrigation and landscape management programs; <br />Process water management programs; <br />Cleaning and sanitation water use improvement programs; <br />Commercial kitchen and restaurant improvement programs; and <br />Boiler and heating system improvement programs. <br />The efficacy of creating and implementing these programs, and potentially others, will <br />hinge on the results of the audits, which will be used to identify the number of entities <br />that may benefit from these programs and the amount of potential water savings. The <br />audits and related studies may also be used to evaluate alternative water rate programs <br />(e.g.,, alternative block rates, water budgets, etc.) for selected irrigation taps. <br />44 <br />