Water Ordinance Overhaul Proposed

A landmark 2002 city ordinance that spawned a black market for retrofitted toilet credits could soon be overhauled, if not completely flushed away.

According to a proposal the Santa Fe City Council will soon take up, developers with an approved water budget would have to hire a licensed plumber to perform water-saving retrofits on home appliances that have been deemed worthy of an upgrade.

In addition to toilets, such items as faucets, showerheads, washing machines and irrigation controllers would be added to the list of approved features.

Dale Lyons, the city’s water resources manager, said the new strategy — which calls for the streamlining of several existing laws — would eliminate an independent market for retrofit credits.

“We’ve created sort of a middle market for speculators,” said Lyons, who said the creation of such a market has led to the rise of illegitimate “phantom” credits. “That’s not something the city intended.”

The toilet retrofit program was originally designed to offset the water used by new construction by changing out old toilets for new, low-flow models. Before receiving permits from the city, builders have been required to turn in enough toilet retrofit credits to compensate for the size of their building project.

The new plan, which has been in the works for months and was modeled after a similar programs being used in San Luis Obispo, Calif., would thrust the city in a more proactive role.

Instead of relying on developers, the city would advertise free retrofits to homeowners. City workers would then be dispatched to inspect the home appliances of those who respond to determine whether they meet water-use standards.

The findings would be posted on a list that developers could scan to find out how many retrofits they’d have to pay for before moving forward with their project.

“There will never be any question over whether they were really done,” Lyons said.

Unlike the city’s current poli- cy, other government agencies located within city boundaries will also be required to fill out water budgets and comply with the city’s water policies.

But Lyons said compliance shouldn’t be difficult for the various agencies.

“There’s all kind of retrofit abilities in federal, state and county buildings that haven’t been done,” he said.

If approved, the new policy would only affect future projects, however, not endeavors that are already in progress such as the new downtown county courthouse.

Since 1994, a federal law has mandated all toilets in new homes be low-flush models, which use about 1.6 gallons per flush. But since approving the groundbreaking 2002 ordinance, most of the outdated models in Santa Fe homes have been swapped out, another motivation behind the revised plan.

Lyons said Thursday he didn’t know exactly how many of the old toilets remained, but he quoted figures from several months ago that placed the already retrofitted quotient at 80 percent.

In part because of the toilet exchange program, Santa Fe’s water consumption has declined significantly in the last decade. In 2007, it dipped to just 101 gallons per capita per day.