March 17, 2015 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Silicon Valley is doing its part to conserve water in a big way. Sustainable Silicon Valley and the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Awards, now in their seventh year, are recognizing those efforts.

Alameda County Water District is just one of several winners who have demonstrated creative technological approaches to conserving water as California suffers through its fourth year of extreme drought conditions.

Alameda County Water District (ACWD) offers a comprehensive water conservation program that includes rebates for high-efficiency toilets, high-efficiency clothes washers and turf removal, as well as providing free water-efficient devices, home water use reports, home surveys and water efficient landscaping workshops. Landscape water use reports, weather-based smart controller rebates and indoor/outdoor water use efficiency surveys are available to commercial customers.

Since implementing their Integrated Resources Plan in 1995, ACWD saves more than 1 billion gallons of water per year.

Despite ACWD's rebate program, many customers still have trouble purchasing and installing the devices. In response, in 2014, ACWD teamed up with Niagara Conservation to develop a free Water Savings Assistance Program to help low income customers in Fremont, Newark and Union City upgrade inefficient water fixtures in their homes. Through this program, a Certified Green Plumber conducts a water use survey and replaces any inefficient fixtures, including faucet aerators, showerheads and toilets, with high-efficiency models. The plumber also looks for and fixes toilet leaks in existing low flow toilets.

Water conservation efforts in Silicon Valley have resulted in nearly 15 billion gallons of water saved in 2014. Further, 11 of the 14 Bay Area communities with the lowest per capita water use are located in Silicon Valley.

Sustainable Silicon Valley also presented Marty Laporte, Associate Director of Utilities for Environmental Quality and Water Efficiency at Stanford University, with a lifetime achievement award.

In 2001, Laporte founded Stanford's water conservation program and led the development of a University Water Conservation, Reuse and Recycling Master Plan, which facilitated the retrofit of more than 13,000 bathroom fixtures, replaced inefficient lab equipment with water efficient models, installed water saving devices in large campus kitchens, installed water miser devices on steam sterilizers (autoclaves), and improved the efficiency of landscape irrigation throughout the campus. Further, she started a pilot study program to test the effectiveness of new water-efficiency technology and was an early adopter of weather-based irrigation controllers and advanced metering infrastructure, allowing daily or hourly water use data to help detect leaks.

In response to the drought, monthly water report cards are now issued to each major group on campus, providing a check-in on water use and conservation status that helps identify where to focus efforts. Under Laporte's leadership, Stanford reduced its water use by 600,000 gallons per day, in spite of a growth of 2.5 million square feet of new campus facilities.

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