The highlight of the ceremony was the keynote speaker, Dr. Richard L. Snyder– a biometeorologist from UC Davis. He gave a remarkable and very sobering presentation on climate change. He shared the irrefutable evidence of the increasing atmospheric carbon loads, and explained the equations for projecting a 6-9°F  increase in the average global temperature by 2100. He noted, pointedly, that it took 18,000 years to reach a 5°F rise in average global temperature, so 90 years is really foreshortening the pace of adaptation. We should all be on Yellow Alert.

Dr. Snyder emphasized that the effects of climate change will be profound, particularly for agriculture. More troublesome is that the rate of change is accelerating faster than our rate of adjustment. His remarks were often punctuated with the refrain “and this is very worrisome,” and “this will be a big problem.”

The hopeful part? The 100 high school students in the audience were listening to his talk with rapt attention while the adults in the audience were thinking: “Please, kids, be like Dr. Snyder; be that kind of visionary. Hoodie optional.”

*Sylvia Earle.

Here is how this process works:

1. The water manager uses Itron MV-RS system to generate a “Download file” which essentially is a list of desired meters to read.
2. The manager then uses Wave to upload this file and enters a desired billing date. Aquacue Wave will responds with the “Upload File” which contains much of the information from the “Download File” but also the actual reads and times. The “Upload File” would normally be produced by the handheld device the meter reader carries into the field.

The Town of Los Gatos has Aquacue Barnacles installed on meters at baseball fields, median strips, parking garages, and parks. But one location, Live Oak Manor Park, has had a persistent leak for months. We’ve walked the park looking for evidence of a leak and the town’s park staff have examined the sprinklers and faucets with no luck.

But Wave dashboard showed a 40 gallons per hour leak that was adding up to significant water loss. So we went to the meter and sure enough—the low flow indicator was spinning like a plastic ballerina on a cardboard jewelry box.

We decided to try to pinpoint the source of the leak by using a leak location service that specializes in finding underground breaks. Just as we were getting underway a gentleman named Scott Potter came by with his dogs and asked what we were doing. We replied that we were trying to locate a water leak. Hearing that, Scott said: “Come with me, I’ll show you where the leak is. It’s been here for a long time.” We walked a few paces with his dogs leading the way and there it was in plan sight.

So, grasshoppers: when is a puddle not a puddle? When it’s a leak, pooling to the surface. Thanks to Scott and his leak detecting dogs! We packed up our gear and closed the case of the Live Oak leak, filing it under O, for obvious; see also: duh.

Great products are made with people who appreciate beauty, art and technology. To that end, we are honored to welcome Rick Wilmer to our Board of Advisors. Rick knows how to bring products to the market.

Rick is an accomplished technologist and CEO. Rick is also a self-taught artist – his medium of choice is sculpture.  You can view  a selection of Rick’s work in his studio. Welcome Rick!

So where did all this water come from? Like everything else on Earth, the components of water—two atoms of hydrogen (H) and one of oxygen (O), or H₂O—arrived some 4.5 billion years ago during the global accumulation of interstellar dust and bits of debris well after the Big Bang, 13 billion years ago. Some of the water was ice, and some bound up in various compounds within minerals and rocks. The proto-earth was hot from the initial impacts of the incoming materials, from subsequent gravitational compression of the growing planet, and from continuing decay of included radioactive isotopes of uranium, thorium, and potassium.

Release of internal heat over a few billion years by way of volcanoes and hot springs produced an “outgassing” of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and smaller amounts of other elements like chlorine and sulfur. Only a small amount of water vapor was retained in the atmosphere, instead precipitating as rain or snow to create the world oceans. Surface water that drained off the land transported the salts that make present-day sea water a 3.5% saline solution.

In spite of long-term outgassing over the past billions of years, the Earth continues to release this primordial water as well as water included in ocean sediments on that are drawn down on tectonic plates under the continents and later re-released by volcanic activity. So not only is a hydrologic cycle working at the Earth’s surface, but there is also one that is running in the subsurface owing to plate tectonics. Thus, the Earth’s waters are in continual movement. But as noted above, only a very small fraction is available to us as potable water.

These surface and subsurface water cycles do, of course, continually renew the Earth’s water resources but over time spans of widely ranging length (weeks to millions of years). Human access to potable water is locally limited, too, by spatial differences in the rate and amount of renewal (think tropical rain forests vs. tropical deserts) and of distance to water sources at the surface and underground. Hence, as with any natural resource of whatever kind, careful prudent use requires thoughtful, sustainable management.

Midway during the Stanford Water Wars, Loro Hall started using abnormally high level of water. Some say the abnormal use was due to sabotage. We are happy to say that Loro’s water use has returned to pre-competition levels – a lean 20 gallons per person per day – 6 gallons less per person than was being used at the the height of the competition.

Follow the Florence Moore Hall’s water use here.

Example: early in the competition one Barnacle stopped reporting water flow. A trip to Stanford revealed hardware tampering—someone ingeniously inserted wood chips between the meter and the Barnacles’ sensors to prevent it from collecting water data. A redundant Barnacle on the meter backed up all the missing water data, so no harm, no foul.

In week two there was an inexplicable, persistent increase in Loro Hall’s water consumption. We launched a leak and fixture audit to determine where the water was being used. It turns out that Loro’s bathroom faucets and showers were left on to run in the middle of the night. This competition was beginning to smell like teen spirit.

Then FloMo’s overall water savings reached a stubborn plateau. We compared their baseline usage (a 7-day average prior to the start of the competition) against historical data and found that student’s were already very water efficient! There simply wasn’t a lot of slack in the baseline for dramatic water savings, but FloMo wrung it out.

The Results:

Faisan residents initially had a very low consumption rate that was hard to overtake. They sustained their advantage by staying below their baseline for 16 days, reducing from 13 to 12 gals/person/day and consumed the lowest amount of water over 30 days. Congratulations to Faisan Hall, the winners!

Cardenal Hall also sustained their very low 16 gals/person/day consumption and finished in second place. Great job!

Alondra Hall gets the Bic Pen Award for the best public service announcements, spurring their clan to an admirable finish. Alondra came in third with a very high savings rate of 9.6%–an excellent result!

Gavilan Hall had the highest water savings of 10,301 gallons and the most improvement: 29 days below their baseline and they reduced their water consumption by 16%!

Loro Hall, however, used 50% more water—17,585 gallons over their baseline. There were inexplicable water draws and water raids, so Loro ended up with unverified water data. In the final analysis we omitted outlier water data from the competition results.

Otherwise, the overall results look downright admirable: 5% water savings!  Congratulations to the sponsors, supporters, lecturers, the awesome poster contest winner, and the valorous, relentlessly encouraging Green Living Council Coordinators.  Great job, FloMo! See the final dashboard here.

Professor Thompson explained and provided examples of how the western water economy is a complex, interconnected system of long-term rights, downstream dependencies, and environmental obligations, all with local and regional economic impacts. The water economy in California is a complex system of competing interests. The big challenge is balancing water rights and water conservation policies, regulations, and laws for the most reasonable and beneficial use of our public resource.

As the discussion shifted to the topic of water conservation, Professor Thompson mentioned he’s been using an Aquacue Barnacle on his residential water meter as part of a water conservation study at Stanford. He learned from evaluating his water profile that he was using more water than he thought and more water than his neighbor, a realization that motivated him to significantly reduce his consumption. And that’s the intended effect of real-time water data: see the data, make adjustments, save water. Bravo, Professor Thompson!