Desalination may be sexy. Protecting rural communities’ aquifers from private water companies may have an enticing David-and-Goliath appeal. Defining surface water rights (so-called “environmental flows”) is no doubt a critical issue for the Legislature. But notwithstanding all the above, which were highlighted as priorities by the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, and the National Wildlife Federation, Texas environmentalists say the key to protecting Texas’ water supply lies in something a little more mundane: (drum roll) toilet flappers!
Okay, it’s water conservation in general, not toilets in particular. But toilets make better jokes, and Texas toilets do have a problem. A toilet flapper is a device on conventional toilets that closes to keep all the water in the tank from going down the drain when you flush. On water-conserving toilets, flappers aren’t necessary or they close faster than on old-school commodes, so half as much water is used. Since toilets account for 26% of household water use – greater than any category except life support for unnaturally green lawns – this can make a big difference in household demand. However, even though a 1993 Texas law requires only water-conserving toilets to be sold in the state, those all-important flappers eventually wear out, and not all the replacement flappers sold are the fast-closing kind. So, if your flapper wears out, and you unwittingly replace it with the wrong kind, your water-conserving toilet suddenly morphs into an evil water-sucking monster. That’s why, says Ken Kramer of the Sierra Club, toilet flapper legislation will be hot on his agenda this spring. “It sounds stupid, but it’s one of those little things that mean a lot in this state,” he said.
Toilets are just one part of the groups’ emphasis on conservation, which tends to get overshadowed by battles to define who owns what water down to the last drop. Conservation, they say, is basically a way to bake a bigger pie so we don’t have to fight so hard over every last slice.
And speaking of bigger pies, don’t expect desalinization to do the trick. It’s sexy, environmentalists say, only as much as that glamorous biker boy who after a while stops wearing the leather jacket and starts lounging around in his skivvies hollering, “Get me a beer, woman!” Desalinization uses a lot of energy, and its byproduct is super-salty brine that really wreaks some havoc if you dump it in coastal areas already strained by overutilized rivers that increasingly fail to deliver sufficient fresh water to the sea. So assuming state economic development plans don’t include building the world’s biggest pickle factory, the brine problem may stand in the way of large-scale seawater desalinization.
“Some, such as the governor’s office, are saying that desalinization is the silver bullet,” said Mary Kelly of Environmental Defense. “We believe conservation is the silver bullet.”
This article appears in January 28 • 2005.