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In response to drought conditions in West-Central Florida, the Southwest Florida Water ManagementDistrict (SWFWMD) declared a water shortage emergency and issued an emergency order (ExecutiveDirector Order No. SWF 01-14) on March 21, 2001, whichrequired that municipal utilities in the Tampa Bay Region implement a water-audit program for non-residential customers and submit a report to the SWFWMD. As a result of this requirement, the City ofSt. Petersburg Water Conservation Program developed a water-use evaluation program for their Industrial Commercial and Institutional (ICI)customers. Hazen and Sawyer, P.C. was retained to perform the water-use evaluations for the City of St.Petersburg.The objectives of the ICI Water-Use Evaluation project were to identify the ICI customers with the largestannual consumption of potable water and to encourage these customers to participate in water-useevaluations. The City paid the entire cost of the program; therefore, the evaluation was free to thecustomer. Each evaluation involved determining the consumptive use of the various water uses at thesubject facility, making recommendations to decrease consumption per water use, determining what thewater savings would be if the recommendations were implemented, costing the implementation plan andfinally, providing a pay-back analysis. The content of this paper is based on the authors' experience inperforming ICI water-use evaluations. The facilities evaluated included two nursing homes, a municipalpier, a naval-affiliated boarding school and a greyhound-racing venue. The water-uses included domesticplumbing fixtures, commercial laundry equipment, cooling towers, boilers, ware washers, and irrigation.The consumption of each of the water uses was determined by direct measurement, equipmentspecifications and/or calculations using engineering estimates. The water savings were calculated and thelocal water rates were applied to the savings to determine the dollar amount that could be saved if therecommendations were implemented. The cost of implementation was provided by local vendors andcontractors and was compared to the dollar amount of the potential water savings. Using the cost of theimplementation and the potential water savings, a payback analysis was provided to the utility customer.Implementing the recommended changes was done on a voluntary basis and currently there are no rebates orother incentives for ICI customers to implement the changes. Therefore, the payback analysis provided inthe evaluation report was the sole driving force in encouraging the customers to implement therecommended modifications. Includes 2 references, tables.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/15/2003 Number of Pages: 16File Size: 1 file , 320 KB