Metropolitan Board Approves Rebates on New Water-Saving Devices for Businesses, Homes.

LOS ANGELES -- For the second time in nine months, the list of cutting-edge, water-saving devices eligible for rebates in Southern California has been expanded as Metropolitan Water District's Board of Directors today continued to refine the agency's core conservation program.

Metropolitan's board added rotating sprinkler nozzles for pop-up spray heads that save up to 6,600 gallons over five years and retrofitted steam sterilizers that conserve more than 400,000 gallons per year to its inventory of cost-effective devices eligible for district incentives.

"These rebates and incentives play a major role in our conservation efforts, which are designed to reduce the demands for imported water in Southern California," said Metropolitan board Chairman Wes Bannister.

"Today, we're creating the equivalent of a new river in Southern California through our investments in conservation, recycling and other resource management projects and programs," Bannister said.

Metropolitan General Manager Jeff Kightlinger noted the district's commitment to providing effective water-saving programs and services, having invested more than $234 million in fixture retrofits and related conservation activities over the past 10 years. In 2005 alone, Metropolitan issued about 300,000 rebates for devices that are now saving nearly 3 billion gallons of water a year in Southern California.

"These water-saving efforts, along with the investments we've made in partnership with our member public agencies in recycling and groundwater recovery, have played huge roles in driving down per capita water use in Southern California by up to 35 gallons per person each day since 1990," Kightlinger said.

The refinements are the latest to Metropolitan's five-year conservation strategic plan developed in coordination with its 26 member public agencies. In its first round of program enhancements initiated last December, Metropolitan's board increased incentives to local agencies for new high-efficiency programs and devices.

Metropolitan currently offers rebate packages for a variety of devices, including ultra-low-flush and high-efficiency toilets, high-efficiency clothes washers, "smart" irrigation controllers, waterbrooms, and cooling tower conductivity controllers. Customized incentive programs also are available to homeowners' associations for large landscapes and for industries that use water in processing or manufacturing.

The pop-up irrigation spray heads with rotating nozzles that were added to the incentive list by Metropolitan's board today use multi-trajectory streams to apply water more evenly than traditional nozzles with fixed conical spray patterns. Field tests have demonstrated that, in addition to saving water, the new nozzles can help reduce street run-off and related pollution.

Metropolitan's new incentive to retrofit steam sterilizers is intended to cover the entire cost of the water-saving upgrade. Sterilizers -- commonly used in hospitals and research laboratories to clean and disinfect surgical equipment, tools and supplies -- continuously use potable water to flush equipment whether or not the unit is in use.

Retrofitted units will mix cool potable water with the heated discharged condensate only when the sterilizer is in use, saving up to 1.3 acre-feet of water per year. An acre-foot is nearly 326,000 gallons, about the amount used by two typical Southland families in and around the home in a year.

As part of its action, Metropolitan's board also added rebates for high-efficiency and waterless urinals in new commercial construction. In addition, the board provided incentives for surveys of commercial landscapes with dedicated landscape water meters.

Detailed information on Metropolitan's conservation and rebate programs can be found on the district's Web site, www.mwdh2o.com, and under the Rebates section of www.bewaterwise.com.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving 18 million people in six counties. The district imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California to supplement local supplies, and helps its members to develop increased water conservation, recycling, storage and other resource-management programs.