Water Authority seeking to cut Israeli home water usage by 10% in 2009

"I'll begin with a dry fact: There's no water." That was how the new Minister of National Infrastructure, Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu), began a press conference held Monday by the National Water Authority to present its new emergency water program and the p.r. campaign to go with it.

The main innovations of the new plan include distributing low-flow faucet aerators heads to 1.2 million households around the country, limiting the watering of public parks and imposing a "drought fee" on high-use domestic consumers.

Water and air do mix

Low-flow faucet aerators, which, like their name implies, reduce the water flow through a sink or shower faucet by mixing the water with air, can reduce water use by 30%-50%. They are mandatory in new buildings, but there is no law mandating their use in all households. The Water Authority is in the preliminary stages of issuing tenders for the purchase and distribution of aerators, as well as of hourglass shower timers. It hopes to issue the tenders by June.

BrownoutThe Water Authority's plan for reducing irrigation in parks and gardens includes a ban on watering private lawns, setting specific days and times for watering public and business-owned lawns and setting water quotas for each community. These measures will come on top of the ban already imposed on sowing new lawns and a significant hike in water rates for gardens. Water Authority officials, local government representatives and the forum of the 15 largest cities have begun discussing the water quotas for municipal parks and gardens.

It pays to save

Heavy household water users will have a very good reason to curb the flow if the Water Authority plan to increase the price of water for the highest fee scale is approved: It would increase the price for households using more than 14 cubic meters a month from NIS 7.8 per cubic meter to about NIS 28 per cubic meter. The measure is aimed mainly at people with home gardens.

An estimated 25% of domestic water is billed at the highest price bracket. The envisioned price increase of more than 300% would require a change to the law. Water Authority and Finance Ministry officials are considering making the amendment part of the Economic Arrangements Bill, the supplementary legislation to the national budget.

The plan to get Israelis to turn off the tap more often will be rolled out with a new public relations campaign, the brainchild of media advisers Moti Scherf and Yossi Vadana. The authority claims that the current campaign, "Israel Mityabeshet" ("Israel is drying up"), has led to a 12% decline in household water consumption, or about 100,00 cubic meters.

The goals of the new media campaign, which is to include volunteer activities by the country's scout movement, are a further reduction of 10% in urban water use and 15% in per capita consumption. The figures are based on estimated water demand of 1,474 million cubic meters in 2009, compared to an available water supply of just 1,283 million cubic meters. That means a "deficit" of about 200 million cubic meters of water for the year.

The urban sector uses about half the potable water distributed in Israel. In 2008 that came to 730 million cubic meters.

More desalination

To increase the available supply of water, the authority is examining the possibility of increasing output from the existing desalination plants, in other words going to a 24-hour schedule at the Palmahim facilities and, in the future, at the plant being built in Hadera.

The desalination plants are currently scheduled to operate only when electricity rates are relatively low, at off-peak hours. In addition, the project to expand the facilities' output by 57 million cubic meters per day, as part of the Accountant General's tender, is nearing completion.

On Monday the Water Authority issued an RFI (request for information) for the construction of mobile seawater desalination facilities and for the import of water. "The 2008-09 rainy season was the fifth consecutive one with below-average rainfall," Water Authority head Prof. Uri Shani said.

"In light of the significant increase in water consumption in 2005-07, we are facing a water deficit of about 2 billion cubic meters. Therefore, in the absence of a particularly rainy winter, the water crisis will remain with us until the additional desalination plants go on line in 2012-13," Shani said.