Elected officials on Bainbridge Island hope to continue conserving one of the island’s most precious resources, if all three regions of the island can keep up.
The BI City Council reviewed its water use and conservation plan with the Public Works department at a study session April 15.
In general, water use on the island has been relatively steady, despite different areas of the island using water at different rates. Overall, demand has slightly outpaced population growth, except in Winslow — the island’s most densely populated area, explained Public Works director Chris Wierzbicki.
While the population in Winslow has grown faster than the rest of the island, water use in the area has not. Since 2004, it’s even dropped by about half a percent.
“We’re doing a little bit better in the Winslow area than overall … This is probably related to the fact that we have smaller lots in Winslow, more multifamily housing in Winslow, so the water usage per unit tends to be lower than the areas where we have larger lots and landscaping and other types of uses,” Wierzbicki said.
The island’s two major water providers, the Kitsap Public Utility District and the city, measure water use on the island in a few different categories: residential, irrigation (such as for farmland or landscaping), commercial (for businesses like breweries or restaurants) and government (which includes the fire department).
BI’s population has grown about 1% every year, whereas islandwide residential water use is up by about 2% per year. But micro-trends in the water use data tell a more nuanced story.
On average, the 2,332 homes on the city’s water provider in Winslow use about 156 gallons per day, the 1,943 residents with KPUD on the north end use 186 gallons per day, and the 1,686 residents with KPUD on the south end use 206 gallons per day.
Between 2004-2022, the population in Winslow grew twice as fast as the rest of the island (2% per year), but water use only grew 1.3%. Between 2016 and 2021, the south side and north of the island grew at about the same rate and used approximately the same amount of water, until the south side’s usage spiked by about 50 gallons per day in 2021.
“That doesn’t account for the fact that some population growth is happening outside of these service areas of these large water providers, and we don’t really have data to show how much growth is happening in those areas outside those districts,” Wierzbicki said during the council study session.
Council agreed that because water use has largely remained under control since the city last updated its water use public messaging in 2015, the precedent set by the city of conservation and responsible water use could continue to serve the next decade.
Councilmember Kirsten Hytopolous noted that many residents get their water from a well, which means they are not reflected on the city or KPUD’s water use data. The city has little jurisdiction over those residents, and council should keep that in mind if it makes adjustments to its messaging materials, especially regarding the Groundwater Management Plan, she said.
“We should aspire to educate, but we can’t necessarily change people’s behavior — we don’t have any control of the people who are on their own wells, we don’t have control over the people who don’t care about spending extra money who are on the systems that can be penalized for excess use. The best thing we can do is what we’ve been talking about: setting examples, creating a culture here of responsibility, aspiring to living building challenges,” said Hytopolous. “I want to be careful that this is icing on the cake, and not intended to supplant the work we need to do to responsibly conserve our water resources.”
Staying within the boundaries of the island’s sole-source aquifer is crucial to the success of the GWMP, and that philosophy could shape how the city continues to raise awareness about responsible water use, said councilmember Leslie Schneider.
She cited the “Living Building Challenge,” an environmental design movement developed by architect Jason F. McLennan, which includes a principle that allows a building to meet all its water needs through captured and recycled water, achieving a “water balance” within a building’s site.
“We can start to think bigger about water conservation, and smaller about what ‘local’ means. I realize this is what is available today, just like heat pumps are, but not available to everyone universally, but I believe we need to be looking forward to things like this for a 20-year plan,” said Schneider. “The intent is to create sustainable, respectful water systems that use, purify and reuse water, so thinking very, very locally.”
