This document summarizes water efficiency technologies and strategies that could reduce California's water usage as an alternative to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. It outlines various water collection, storage, and conservation methods including cisterns, stormwater capture, drought-resistant landscaping, drip irrigation, waterless fixtures, and more. It argues that implementing these solutions at scale could significantly cut water usage and create many new jobs, providing economic and environmental benefits compared to large water infrastructure projects.

1. Who We Are
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director
Jane Wagner-Tyack, Policy Analyst
Stina Va, Campaign Administrator
Javier Padilla Reyes, Volunteer Coordinator
2014 www.RestoretheDelta.org

2. An Alternative to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan
There’s a Better Solution

3. Some Basic Facts:
Roughly 1 acre foot of water serves two families per year
in California. (Some say 4 families – we’ll use the lower
estimate)
An acre foot of water equals almost 326,000 gallons of
water.
Roughly 50% of urban water use is for outdoor
landscaping.
Roughly 2/3 of the water taken from the Delta is for
agricultural use.

4. This is what
water efficiency
looks like!

5. New technology
under design at the
University of
Michigan
Engineering
Program. Dr. Branko
Kerkez is designing
systems to quickly
track water main
breaks for rapid
repair. It is
estimated cities lose
a little over 10% of
their supply
through water
main breaks.

6. Water technology is
about….
New technology in
combination with
doing what we already
know on a bigger
scale.

7. Cisterns (rain water collection):
TreePeoples’ underground cistern:
70 feet in diameter x 8 feet deep, holds up to 216,000-gallons.

8. Hydroponic Lettuce Farm in
northeast urban Ohio
The for-profit greenhouse produces three million heads of lettuce and more than 300,000
pounds of herbs every year.
Three 70,000 gallon cisterns collect snow melt and rain water from the greenhouse roof.

9. A 10,000 gallon cistern at the Houston Parks main greenhouse facility is used to
collect and store rainwater off the large greenhouses. The collection tank at the
Houston Parks Green houses also serves as the required detention for the city of
Houston that floods easily from heavy rainfall runoff.

10. A cistern at a local bank.

11. Cisterns for outdoor urban
landscaping
If cisterns were in
use in the greater
Los Angeles area to
collect water for
ornamental
landscaping, urban
water use could be
cut by up to 50%.
Imagine if we placed cisterns throughout California
how much less water we would take from our rivers.
Metropolitan
Water District’s
need for Delta
water would drop
significantly.

12. Domestic
cisterns
Cisterns in residential homes: cisterns pictured hold up to 3,000 gallons.

13. Imagine how many jobs
could be created.
Imagine how many
jobs would be created:
By manufacturing large and residential
cisterns for use throughout California;
By installing those systems in our
current public, office, industrial and
residential buildings!

14. Storm water capture:

15. Storm water capture:

16. Imagine how many jobs
could be created.
Think of how many new
jobs could be created if:
We built storm water capture systems for our
public buildings throughout California;
Or if we created these systems in residential
areas.

17. Drip irrigation

18. Drip
irrigation
Using less water for
growing things is self-
explanatory.

19. Low flush toilets. The average Californian family of four uses 372 gallons of water per day.
On average, approximately 47 % of that water is used indoors, with the bathroom being the
largest consumer (a toilet alone can use 27 percent!).

20. Low/dual flush toilet vs
conventional toilet:

21. Waterless
urinals:
Replacing 9 of these frees up enough
water for 2 families per year.

22. Low flow and aerator
showerheads:

23. Imagine how many jobs
could be created.
Imagine how many jobs
could be created if we:
Changed out toilets, urinals, and
showerheads throughout California;
And the millions of acre feet of water
that would be saved!

24. Other home water smart
technologies:
Designed by Reamon Yu, iSAVE faucet
features an LED display that reads the
amount of water that is being used. This
simple information encourages users to
reduce water pressure to save more
water.
The Water Pebble encourages
individuals to reduce their shower
time to conserve water. The device
measures the amount of water
going down the plug hole when you
shower and memorizes it.

25. Will be able to tell the consumers how
much they are paying for water;
And how much water is available in
their municipal supply at that moment
in time.
Eventually these LED faucet
devices….

26. Drought resistant landscaping:
While lawns require a lot of water, much of this water is wasted -- lost due to over-
watering and evaporation. Watering equipment plays an important part in how much
water is saved and lost.

27. Drought resistant landscaping:
Significant conservation can come from switching from exotic
plant forms to native species which require less water.

28. Technologies that pull water
out of condensation

29. MIT scientists created an advanced fog-harvesting
material that enables these giant mist and
condensation catchers (see to image to the left) to
generate five times more water! Scientists are
updating technology used by the Incas!
A giant basket that uses
condensation to gather drinking
water.

30. Westlands area
already has solar
farms in
Fresno & King
counties. We
should convert
unsustainable
agriculture on
drainage impaired
lands to clean
energy sources
for California.

31. Largest solar farm in California. (Mojave Desert) Makes more
sense than new housing growing in the desert from water
transfers that originate from Northern California and the
Delta!

32. Visual
comparison of
BDCP to
Three Gorges
Dam in China
We know how that turned out
for people and species in the
path of that project!

33. Big water projects have too often claimed the lives of people who have
worked on them, in addition to harming surrounding communities. We
should opt for solutions that have the least negative impact on people and
the environment, and the least amount of risk for workers.

34. Imagine how many jobs
could be created.
Plus more jobs are created through
water efficiency technology
According to US
Alliance for
Water
Efficiency:
Twice as many
jobs created
through water
efficiency projects
compared to large
water projects!
The Business
Roundtable of
Southern California –
2011 Report on
Water Efficiency
For every $1
million spent in
water efficiency
over 10 trillion
gallons of water &
220,000 jobs can be
created!

35. Water efficiency will lead
to an environmentally and
economically sound future
for California.
So let’s drop the 19th
Century Plans for the
Delta and California today!

36. Water efficiency is the
better solution!

37. Slide 5: Kerkez, Branko and Karun M. Joseph. "Enabling communications for buried pipe networks."
Slide 7: Treepeople.org "Cistern"
Slide 8: KQED Quest "Urban Neighborhood is Perfect Place to Grow Lettuce"
Slide 9: Hubpages LizEvans "Water Conservation | Water | Cisterns | .."
Slide 10: Hubpages LizEvans "Water Conservation | Water | Cisterns | .."
Slide 12: On top left, KarSare Systems "Wells and Cisterns“; On top right, House for Sale in BC "Cozy Little Home with Oceanview”; On
bottom right, Examiner "26 Crabapple Lane, Asheville, N.C.“
Slide 14: Landscape Architecture Foundation "Charles City Permeable Streetscape Phase 1"
Slide 15: EPA "Green Cisterns at William Jefferson Clinton Building West Diagram“
Slide 17: Texas A&M AgriLife Extension "Efficient Use of Water in Garden & Landscape"
Slide 18: Sairaj Green "Irrigation System"
Slide 19: Gov of Canada "Wise Water Use"
Slide 20: Inhabitat "Switch to a Low-Flow Toilet and NYC Will give you $125"
Slide 21: On left, FalconWaterFree.com; On top right, Treehugger "No splash, no flush urinals from Kohler," On bottom right, Optimize
Architecture "Towards a new plumbing code"
Slide 22: On left, CenterPoint Energy "Save Energy, Save Hot Water“; On right, “InsteadofDishes.com "Low-Flow Shower Heads"
Slide 24: EcoFriend "Smart Products that make Bathrooms Water Efficient"
Slide 26: Gov of Canada "Wise Water Use"
Slide 27: On left, Houzz "Tiered Drought-Tolerant Pismo Beach Landscape" ; On right, Bonnie's Gardens Landscape Design in Orange County
Slide 28: DZine Trip "Handmade Interactive Tower Designed to Collet Water in Rural Areas"
Slide 29: On left, Inhabitat "MIT Develops Advanced Fog Harvest Material That Pulls 5x More Water From Thin Air“;
On right, DZine Trip "Handmade Interactive Tower Designed to Collet Water in Rural Areas“
Slide 30: On top, Clenera Blog "Westlands Solar Farms Completed“; On bottom, Inhabitat "Los Angeles and Burbank to Buy
Solar Power from Nevada Plant"
Slide 31: Bloomberg "U.S. Creates 17 Zones for 'Faster' Solar-Farm Development”
Slide 32: On top, conceptualization of BDCP by Bureau of Reclamation, American Aqueduct, The Atlantic "American Aqueduct: the Great
California Water Saga" ; On bottom left, Stop frames of the Planet "Three Gorges Dam, Yangtze River, China; On bottom right, Wikipedia on
Three Gorges Dam
Slide 33: Mercury News "Water agency pays tribute to miners lost in tunnel blast 42 years ago"