Water Consumption General Information

Cross-post from Thread "Sept 2016 BOD Minutes":

BOD Minutes posted:




The above website DOES NOT help one calculate "typical" water usage "per FL residence". And, despite the implication, it gives one no clue how to compare your consumption to a "typical" consumption.

It calculates estimated PERSONAL and HOUSEHOLD usage. You enter minutes spent on water use activities such as showers, dishwashing, toilet flushes, laundry, outdoor watering/irrigation. The accumulation of all these activities gives you a number of gallons estimating your personal consumption of water. Each person in the household can also fill in their use and come up with an aggregate estimate HOUSEHOLD usage.

There is nothing on the website page that compares personal usage with "typical" FL household or personal usage. This calculator page is geared toward awareness and conservation, asking people to reduce consumption by 10% (hence the page name "powerof10").

After navigating other pages on the website and reading about this issue, I found the following statement:
"...It is estimated that each person in our region uses an average of 111 gallons of water each day."

That is 3300 gallons per person per month. A household of 2 would typically consume 6600 per month. My own personal estimate came well under that because I have low-flow toilets, spend minimal time in shower, almost no outdoor watering and no dishwasher.

The board should pay attention to details and stay on track if it is concerned with water consumption. It raised water fees last year by 20% based on no valid evidence of cost increases--actual or anticipated (a Records Request was made to validate the need for the increased fee and no evidence of increase was offered.)

As another poster observed, the biggest waster of water is SLR itself with careless management of irrigation e.g. operating water sprinklers in the summer during daily afternoon rains. IMO the biggest single area of concern is underground leaks which is now supposedly being assessed. Our water and sewer pipes are old and brittle. Tree roots have displaced and cracked them and have invaded the interiors, creating blockages and leaks. Active hydrogeologic ground movement in this area has further shifted and pressured these old pipes and impacted their ability to contain water. It was demonstrated a few years ago by an engineer that many of these pipes were of inferior quality in the first place (40 years ago) and many were "sleeved" in an attempt to repair them and extend their useful life.

THIS is what the Board should be paying attention to; not going around stirring people up against their neighbors for watering their lawns and flowers, misleading owners with distracting mis-information and disseminating falsehoods on external websites to validate their wishful thinking.