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City has saved three years' worth of water
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Water in the bank
Saving 100 billion gallons of water didn't just happen all of a sudden. The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority put in place a number of measures to clamp down on water use.
Rebate programs: Putting in a new toilet? Xeriscaping your front yard? Get a few bucks knocked off your bill.
Water waste laws: Don't get caught watering the sidewalk or you'll face a fine.
New construction must come with low-flow fixtures.
Large usersmust develop a conservation plan.
Still to come: More rebates, a program to go after leaks in the system and a proposed ordinance to mandate installation of low-flow fixtures upon the sale of an existing home.
Source: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority
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Water officials are doing the numbers this week, and they've come up with a doozie: 100 billion.
That's the number of extra gallons customers of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority would have used by now, had conservation measures not been put in place starting back in 1994.
But just how big is 100 billion? Here's a primer:
At current rates, the number of years it would take Water Authority customers to use that much water: three.
Number of days it would take for that much water to flow down the Rio Grande, at Thursday afternoon's flow levels: 238.
If a shower spewing 1.2 gallons per minute were turned on, the number of years it would take to release that much water: 158,548.
Approximate age of the oldest known fossilized human skull, in years: 160,000.
Source: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, U.S. Geological Survey, University of California, Berkeley.
