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How I See It - John Wodraska, MWD

"MWD is spending $20 million a year to encourage water conservation in Southern California. We've found there are six factors we need to consider in order to be successful. First, we need to explain the water supply problem so the public understands the need for conservation. The public sector often doesn't communicate with people clearly enough.

"Second, we need to reduce the issues to an understandable action that the public can take. For example, we have 16 million consumers with more than 10 million toilets in service. Each averages about 4 gallons a flush. We wanted to replace these with new toilets that use 1.6 gallons per flush, so we set up a toilet exchange program. Overall, 750,000 toilets have been changed out so far, saving us almost 30,000 acre-feet of water per year.

"As we developed the exchange program, we found that many of the toilets that use the most water were in the lower-income areas of L.A., so we partnered with community groups and churches. The pastor of the First American Episcopalian Church, L.A.'s oldest black church, expected a lot of jokes when he started preaching toilets from the pulpit but the community embraced the idea. We exchanged over 42,000 toilets last year through that church, and they in turn received over $1 million from MWD. The church hired 52 people to run the program, took over an old 3-story Victorian home and rebuilt it for their offices. It's the House that Toilets Built.

"Third, we need to develop trust among the agricultural, urban and environmental communities. Obviously right now there's very little trust, so we're trying to build bridges and honor what we in the water industry say we'll do. Fourth, we need to develop an outreach program. The problem is that the technocrats in the water industry all went to the same schools and studied the same subjects. We speak in abstract gobbledygook. Concepts like CFSs and acre-feet need to be translated into layman's terms.

"Fifth, we need to give people a chance to talk back - they don't want to be lectured to by the water industry; they want to be listened to, which leads to number six. We must develop listening skills and close the loop by soliciting their feedback. Getting people to conserve water is a continuous process."

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