Water Conservation

Welcome to Mortgage Talk with Mark Harriston, the program that not only talks about mortgages, taxes, and interest rates, but Mark and his guest talk real estate trends and your home. He also answers your mortgage questions to help you make the right financing or refinancing decisions. Now here's Mark harrisbody and welcome back to Mortgage Talk with Mark Harriston. I'm your host, Mark Harriston, and very excited about my guest today. I would introduce him just a second and

we're gonna get off that path a little bit. Typically this show is around mortgage information, qualifying for loans, investing in properties, some legal aspects, possibly credit scoring, that sort of thing. Today my guest is Kevin Klugey, who is the manager of the Introduce Yourself Again Water Conservation Division at Austin Water. And I knew that top of my head. I just blacked out, and he's this is the stuffy that everybody needs to be listened to and

knowing about. This summer in twenty twenty three was one of the hottest ones I've been through. And I've been here forty six years and I've seen Lake Travis go up and down over the years. But water is such a critical thing, always has been, but especially as Austin has grown so much for

the last servant, certainly last twenty years, you know. And I'm really glad to have Kevin on to share his knowledge and expertise around conserving water and what it looks like and what we're going to do in the future about it as it relates to develop over at real estate, that sort of thing. So take it away, Kevin. I'm just going to kind of sit back as a listener, you know, and we'll chat a little bit, but I want you to kind of run with it. Sure, Sure, thanks

Margaret. It's great being on this show, particularly one it talks about mortgage, because water really impacts all facets of our life and our development and our economy, so it's important to realize how water can intersect with different parts of it. Yeah. Absolutely, So I was joking before we started. I said, you know, my knowledge of water is when I turned my foss on and I expected to come out, you know, and it always does. And that's not the limit of my right, right, And that's a

good thing. Hot water in the shower exactly. Yeah, and water in the mortgage industry have a lot in common. They really both deal with a lot of supply and demand issues. When you have less supply, you have to make adjustments, and that's really what we're doing in water conservation in the city of Austin. Excellent. Here's some background, some background on myself. I actually grew up in Nebraska, the land of clean and bountiful groundwater,

and never really gave water a second thought. After going to college, I went into the US Peace Corps for several years on an island in the Pacific, and that's really where I first got a glimpse of the value of water. Because our host family, our water supply was rain water catchment a lot and on this island of Poondpei, so the catchment tanks often filled up, but there would be months, several months in a row that we didn't have anything, and you'd see the water go down, down, down in those

tanks, right, So it really stressed me the value of water. I came back did graduate school and resource economics, and then came down to Texas

following my wife, where I met in the Peace Corps in Austin. So that's where we ended up and I've been working at I've worked at the Texas Water Development Board, a state agency in charge of planning and financing water across the state, for twenty years, and then coming over to the Sea of Austin for the last two years to really help implement some of these ideas that they conceive of at the state level, but it really has to be implemented

at the local level. Are these ideas that implemented all over the state of whatever these I want you to go the dive in these ideas. So one of the things that the State of Texas has, which is really i'd say

unusual, really sets the state apart. We have a very strong and robust water planning process at the state level which they look at how much all the cities and larger utilities are going to need, and then they put in strategies for these different needs that these cities have in these industries and agg and what have you. But they only identify the strategy. You know that that's that's picking your battles, implementing that the that the local level that's fighting the battles,

right and that that's where you do. And that's what I do the City of Austin here is implement those envisioned conservation ideas on the ground and with customers. Awesome. Can you share some of those They know this so well. I mentioned the city of our state of Texas has a very robust planning program. So does the city of Austin. We have a great planning program one hundred years out, but we also have a very strong conservation division and

programs within the city. Not only do we have rebates, but we do have one of the few one day a week watering schedules across the state. ORE'SI only a few other utilities that have one day a week watering, which has really helped us to become much more efficient over time. Great. So I failed to mention where I met you about It was probably August possibly.

I saw you at a at a sort of a round table but more of a speaker panel, when you were one of the speakers of a group of relters at the Morn of Relters, and I was really impressed with you know what you said because again I don't really think of that, but you talked about Lake Travis being our water supply. Is that correct? It correct?

Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan or really where we store our water and unless you drive by them every once in a while, you don't often realize how low they have become because, as you mentioned before, you turn on the water on the tap and the water comes out. You know whether the storage is one hundred percent or fifty percent or thirty percent, you know the water's coming

out, and you don't realize where our water supply is. And as you mentioned, you know this last summer was one of the hottest on records. It was. It was a very hot summer. So there there's a lot of apple transpiration, irrigation, what have you. People used water when it's really hot. And we've been having constraints on our water supply over the last several years. Actually, we really depend on rain, not in Austin.

It's great when it rains here in Austin, but it's really important when it rains up base, no less upstream right up in the hill country San Saba, places like that San Saba, Alano, further up the Colorado River. That inflow. That's kind of like our income into our bank account. If the Lake Travis and lake you Can and our bank account levels, how much comes in is the income and that, as you mentioned, is record high

temperatures this last year. But last year the inflow our income into those highland lakes was at a record low, at a record at a record low in twenty twenty two, eleven being very bad too, twenty eleven, it was it was around the series. We set a new record in twenty twenty two in terms of water coming into the Highland lakes. So as a result of that, our lakes have gone down to about between the two bu Can and

Travis, we have about forty percent of our water supply. So it's been going down, down, down, and that's where really is trying to get serious about helping folks save water. Now, these last couple of weeks, we've had some good rains. It's been nice, cooled off and it's gone up. About two billion gallons have gone into those two reservoirs, which seems like a lot, two billion gallons, but that's taken us from forty percent of our to forty two. You're really close. So it has improved it

by two percent. All of that that rain. So even though we're getting rain, it's not going to immediately take us out of trout. It's going to be a while before we can we can get out of Trout. Yeah, I was telling you. I live in Lakewhite, so I'm very familiar with the lake levels. I don't live on the lake proper, but I do live in Old Lake Way, and we crossed the dam all the time.

In about two or three weeks ago, I took my grandson to a pyod but it used to call it sometimes Island right there across from the oasis. Well, now the peninsula out there, you know, Oh wow, Yeah, it may may have covered up now that little area that you could walk, but still I'm thinking this is pretty I've never seen it quite like this, you know. So it's concerning, right, And I've been thinking more about just when I do my dishes and I wash clothes, you know,

and all that sort of thing. How much water really is that? I don't think of that, but I've been thinking about ever since I talked to you, or bet you you know so well, all that that wondering how much water I really use is one of the strategies that Austin is really implementing now. And that's a strategy of installing smart meters for all Austin Water

customers. Okay, so these are meters we're putting on and they transmit how much is going through the meter every hour up to a system the cloud I guess, and then Austin Water customers can now sign into the portal and see exactly how much water they're using every hour and every hour, every hour if you want it to you. It's about it's about a one day delay between getting the data up there, but once it's up there, then you can

see it. Right. We have about two hundred and fifty thousand customers Austin Water and we have about one hundred and ninety thousand of these smart meters installed, so we're almost there. Maybe another in this next year or so, we'll have it across across the board with everyone's smart meter. Then people can see how much they're using if they wonder how much am I? How much is that irrigation time using? And they can also sign up for a number

of great alerts like leak alerts. The system will tell you if it detects a leak going on for multiple hours and I'll let you know, or it will also let you know and you can set this on your portal if you're going up into one of the higher costs tiers. Okay, because in Austin rates. We have five tiers, and it gets more expensive the more you use. Okay, so some customers may want to know if they're projected to

go up into that fourth tier. It's a good point they give them a little Hey, we're just letting you know you might be going up into that at this rate a little more expensive that way, right. And I remember that wasn't this summer. But I own a home also in the Lost Creek area in West Austin, and neighbor knocked on my door at like four or probably five thirty in the morning and say, hey, man, you've got a river run into your front yard, you know. Oh and it was

in the summer with a drought that year too. I forget what year was that. Wo wasn't that long ago. Anyway, the ground had cracked the pipe right there on the street there, you know, and the water was pouring out. Yeah, I will say the city got out there very quickly. We called whatever number you call them. They were out there with them half an hour, you know, to take care of that. So that

was that was really good. But the guy was saying that the ground because of the of the drought, was so dry it can actually affect the piping, you know. So that was my experience, which wasn't good. Yeah,

you know. Yeah, So that's just one of the ways that that Austin is working to make our system more sustainable because as we mentioned we at the top of the show, we mentioned, you know, the mortgage industry and really the growth of the city and kind how that fuels that, and that often leaves the question how can we continue to grow with essentially the same

amount of water. The reservoirs aren't going to change right, hopefully they'll start feeling up faster, but we kind of have a set amount of water for Austin, and the question is how can we continue to grow. Some people say we can't grow because we don't have we won't have enough water, and we personally always trying to be very pessimistic about how much water will have so

that we can my group can prepare. I'm also very optimistic about what the city can do because we have a smart, vibrant city, growing city, and we can do a lot with learning how to use water more efficiently. So that'll be really the key into the future in how Austin can grow. Every current resident business is going to have to learn to use just a little bit less every year going forward, but every new house, every new business

is going to have to be even more efficient than the current ones. And those are strategies that Austin and the Austin Water in the City of Austin are also undertaking. Well, that's why I wanted to have you on there, because this is sort of public awareness, you know, announcement, if you will, public service, because I don't think I'm much different than a lot

of people who don't give us that much thought. You know that it could be a problem, but it seemed to me a correcting if I'm wrong, But you were just described me in this meeting that I saw you speak about some sort of underground holding tank of water that makes the might right right, correctly right, I mean, other than conservation, one of the near term

strategies we have is what's called aquifer storage and recovery. So the aquifers are those layers of gravel generally, you know, deep in the ground in which water is filled up, and when we have groundwater wells, that's we're pulling water out of those aquifers. Now, we aren't going to build any more reservoirs in the Highland Lakes area. But what we can do is we can store water in these aquifers that have been drawn down a bit, Okay,

through ground water use. Put our excess water. When we have excess water, put it in there, and then we need it, we pull it out. Now, some of the benefits of this aqfor storage and recovery is you don't have the evaporation loss. Because the evaporation loss over travesing Buchanan during the summer was as much as any other use. I mean, it's very significant. How much do you think we lost in evaporation? Can you any ideas on that? Boy, I have to admit to be able to say,

hey, I have no idea, but it's a significant amount. We're talking about billions of callons or something, right, it's a lot of a lot of water. So when you put it on the ground, you don't lose it to evaporation, and you don't also have to take up land. So whenever you build a new reservoir, you have to purchase or condemn, or one combination or another a large amount of land. But you don't have to do that for aquefer storage and recovery. Yeah, generally, the uses

that took place before the project can take place after. So Austin is in the process of studying that see where the best locations for this aqua stores and recovery are. It looks as though maybe to the counties to the east of US or east Travis County is where we have a bass drop or somewhere in there. Yeah, in those areas, right right. Yeah. So we our staff have been meeting with folks out there to assure them that this is

a project that is not going to take their groundwater. It's actually going to fill up the aquifer until it's needed. Ye. So, and what is your relationship with l c R, because I don't really understand that either, because it seemed to me that in the old days, the complaint was always that the LCR controlled the water supply coming out of Travis to the farmers or something down screening. That's still the way it works. That's still the way

it works. L CRA, the Lower Colorado River Authority, manages the reservoirs and the release and a lot of the water in the Colorado River. So they do send water down to the farmers downstream, and they store water for us in the reservoirs since twenty eleven, they've they've redone their water management plan to keep to be more conservative. I'd say keep more water up. That

was one of the things in twenty eleven. They sent a big rush of water down in twenty eleven and that really set us in a tight spot. But they've they've revamped that to be a more conservative in terms of keeping water in the reservoir. Do you have any say over that with them or they control that? Not really. We are a wholesale customer generally. You know some of the water rights, we own some of what we use from my wife and I went down to the low water crossing across like Austin right below

Mansfield, damn, and they weren't releasing any water at all. There was something as far as like a down. It didn't seem any work coming out right. Yeah, good, So we partner with LCRA in managing that water. Lakes. I've always been curious and maybe you don't know the answer of this, but it's not really a bone to pick. But I wonder why a lake you can and doesn't have the same or LBJ have the same rules about they don't release water constant level. Right there are a number of lakes

like Austin Ladybird Lake LBJ that are constant level lakes. So that's one of the things that you go downtown Austin, you see Ladybird Lake is always full always. What's the problem is right? But this is a big lake, all right. LBJ is a big lake. He's just curious. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not operating on how the rules work, any big biddle. What else can you share that can teach us something about water conservation?

You know, because I'm really interested in this. Well, we have a number of things for Austin customers and customers of small water tillies that we provide water to. They're all eligible for these things, but we have various rebates people can get. Well, they can also get small household water efficiency things mailed to them. That's handy. If you need a new shower head or fast aerator, we can mail those to customers. As I mentioned,

we have rebates for improving your water fishency in your home landscape. We have rebates for irrigation upgrades. So if you want to have a pressure reduction device or new water fishing heads on your irrigation system, we can offset the cost of that if you just want to get rid of that and go with a more local scape landscape that doesn't involve all turf more beds. We also have

a rebate for that, what we call it waterwise landscape. We recently increased it over the spring from the rebate them out from thirty cents per square foot to a dollar per square foot, so that that's a nice increase. I think it's been a long time coming. So we finally did that. Where would we do some research around that further? With our website, we can go to or Austin Water I'm sorry, Waterwise Austin dot org, or simply I have to admit a web search a Google search of it. Austin Water

Conservation Rebates is probably the easiest way to do it. Y'all don't have a preferred vendor list of landscapers, do you? We do not. I wasn't sure that was the part of the deal there, because I wouldn't even really to call. But I live in a condo now it's a standalone single family home and in a condo regime. But the yard is tiny, not much to it, so I don't think about that so much. But I don't know properly is a large yard didn't I need some attention there for sure.

So there's a why range of different rebates that we have a lot of people take advantage of that. It has been downturned with the pandemic, but we're slowly building our way up. So we're always hoping to get more people to do it, particularly if we need to adjust things or raise the rebate amounts.

We're trying to get more and more people to participate. One of the things that I want to mention is that while we're in the drought, we have a drought plan, a drought contingency plan it's called, which really kind of sets the regulations and restrictions at these various levels of drought. You know, we're in stage two drought. We've never been in stage three, but knock on wood, we want next summer. But that drought plan really kind

of sets the tone for how we employ implement restrictions in the drought. We have to do a new drought plan and turn it into the state in twenty twenty four, so we are currently soliciting public input on a new drought plan. So if folks go to speak up Austin page, Speak up Austin dot org and search for drought. They'll find out more information about this new drought plan that we're putting together and how they can lend their voices or thoughts to

what we do with these drought plans. How many stages are there? Three? We have four stages currently. We went into stage two in August of this year, stage one in June of I guess it would have been twenty two. As I mentioned, we have stage three. In stage four, which is emergency. We've never been in stage three. We got closed at in that last drought, but we've got a little relief since then. We had a little release since then, so hopefully we'll never get to stage three.

Are you in contact with any meteorologists around us? I did. I was at a seminar was it a seminar last week with Bob Rose of l c R A And he's a well known figure in central Austin regarding the weather, and he was saying that we are in an El Nino pattern. Now we switched over from Nini El Nino kind of the midsummer. YEAHO is a condition in which we typically have more precipitation. Of course, you don't see it in the summer, because we never really get precipitation in the summer.

But Bob was really bullish on a strong El Nino or the winter. So knock on wood, we'll get some rain over the winter, but particularly in Ape in May. That'll be really the clutch of the time because I just know this spring was pretty dry, too, right, and I'm thinking it on rain in April May, it's going to be bad, you know, because I've been, like I said here a long time, and I've seen

this lake. I say this lake, I mean Lake Travis primarily you know, down and then and sometimes it'll go back up in a few weeks with a lot of rain. I mean, it's unbelievable how fast I think can go up. But you still gotta have the rain, you know, right, So yeah, trouts are often broken by large floods unfortunately. Yeah it's seldom that you get a long, slow, right, yeah, gradual flood

in July too, right, you know, not often. I see I've seen floods in the Memorial Day floods for sure, right, you know, or even in Christmas time. You know, it's been it's been kind of crazy. But anyway, I don't know really what else to ask anything else you want to share for you repent, I just have a couple of takeaways for your listeners. First of all, let's try to save water over the winter time when we don't have that that heat. So first of all,

it's just everyone turning off your irrigation systems if you haven't before. First of all, that saves water and your landscape probably doesn't need extra irrigation at this point, so turn off the system. But more importantly, because we're coming up on the wastewater averaging period where we take the water you used between now and March. That's how you set your wastewater rates for the whole year. You mean for household for household, right, So turn off your irrigation system

and you'll see you'll pay less throughout the year. Sign up for that my ATX water Smart Meter portal if you have that meter, if you're in the city of Austin. And then I guess the last point B start planning on how your landscape can be more water efficient in the summer. You know by June that's too late to be planning, right, plan how you how you do that now? Whether replaced her for augment the soil and start thinking about

how you can save water next summer. So the landscaping takes more than traditional just showers and doing your dishes and stuff. Is that the big pole on waters landscape, particularly in the summer, that's the big surge. You can

use a lot of water in an irrigation system. Good. Well, this has been very insightful and very informative, and I really appreciate you coming out, Kevin, to share with us your expertise in this water conservation because it's a really important thing that again, I just want to put that out there that people need to be thinking about, including myself, you know. So I've learned a lot today and I appreciate your time and we'll be in touch. Are you a thank you? Mark? It's being great being here.

Yeah, you're wondering. This has been Mortgage Stock with Mark Hairston. Mark is a mortgage advocate with Texas Mortgage Source LLC, offering personalized mortgage solutions, fast customized quotes, great rates and service with integrity. Contact Mark at Markhirston dot com. Mark Hairston dot com. You can call our text Mark at five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven that's five, one, two, seven, eight nine sixty nine sixty seven, and come back next week for more mortgage talk.