SASKATOON — The city of Saskatoon, along with the community, has identified water conservation as an important measure to reduce greenhouse gases, care for the environment and lower water utility bills.
A water conservation strategy, which has been in the works for two years and informed by public engagement, encourages conservation through a variety of methods. The report will go before the city’s Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services Committee Monday.
“The Strategy is a roadmap of actions to help residents and city operations achieve many benefits from water conservation, like managing water costs, improving resiliency and limiting environmental impacts,” said Jeanna South, director of Sustainability.
“Some of these actions include reducing peak summer use to ease demand on infrastructure, reducing water used in the city’s operations to save costs and showing residents and businesses ways that they can change their water use to reduce their utility bills.”
Water reduction targets were established in the Low Emissions Community Plan to reduce future water infrastructure expansion costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Although per capita water use in Saskatoon has been on a downward trend as residents have learned the benefits of conservation, recent data shows more efforts in all parts of the community and the city’s operations are necessary.
“This strategy intends to prioritize the initiatives, develop programs based on priorities, implement those initiatives as funding becomes available and monitor progress and refine assumptions to keep the water conservation strategy current,” added South.
Some water conservation initiatives underway include improving city water use in parks and other areas of operations, residential water use education and the industrial, commercial and institutional building energy and efficiency retrofit program.
For more information, visit saskatoon.ca/waterconservation.
