Where does our water run?
Victorias hospitals are the biggest users, followed by apartment complexes
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Victoria’s hospitals are the city’s top water users, consuming a total of about 8 million gallons in May.
Memorial High School Senior Campus, the county jail and apartment complexes round out the top 10 users for May. Those are the most recent numbers available from the city.
The hot, dry weather this year prompted Victoria’s water customers to use 14 million gallons of water a day on June 28 and June 29. That number rose to nearly 15 million gallons June 30 before dropping to 10.5 million when the rain began falling the following day.
But caring for landscapes during a drought is not necessarily the reason for high water use among the top 10.
“On the average, we’re using about 50,000 gallons a day at the Navarro campus,” said John Wallace, director of DeTar Hospital’s facility management. “It has to do with toilets and showers.”
The Navarro campus used 2.38 million gallons of water in May 2008, up from 1.52 million in May 2007. DeTar North’s May reading tripled from 544,000 gallons last year to 1.59 million gallons this year.
Wallace said he’s not sure the reason for the large increase at DeTar North. But last year was cloudy, wet and cool, while 2008 has been hotter and drier.
Cooling towers that rely on evaporation provide air conditioning for DeTar’s buildings. The hotter it is, the more water required for the cooling process, Wallace said.
Citizens Medical Center was the top water user on the May list. It consumed 4 million gallons, which compares to 3.98 million a year earlier.
David Brown, the hospital’s chief executive officer, said Citizens also has a cooling tower system that consumes water. But high water use also comes with employing 1,400 people providing medical services to thousands of people.
“The bulk of the use is for air conditioning and patient care,” Brown said.
Patients need showers, employees wash hands frequently and hydrotherapy tanks need to have their water replaced after each patient.
“All those things together with the hot summer months, you’re going to have some high water use,” Brown said. “We also have an ambitious landscape program. We’re trying to make the place look as good as we can and we have a great crew that’s doing that, but we use a lot of water.”
Creekstone Ranch Apartments ranked just below the hospitals, using 1.55 million gallons of water in May. That’s up from 899,000 gallons a year earlier.
Manager Lynn Oliver said some of that is for irrigation, but the tenants use most of the water.
“We have washers and dryers in every apartment, as well as a sprinkler system on the property,” she said. Some of the apartments have two to four bedrooms, which means even more people to use water, Oliver said.
“There’s not really a lot of ways to cut back,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure there are no running commodes and no dripping faucets.”
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Thanx for your views on this issue, Dig. My intent wasn't to debate where the tax dollars do or should go in Victoria. I simply wished to point out the use of sensationalistic headlines that seem so common in the tabloidish (is that a word?) Victoria Advocate these days. I do wish the reporters would choose their material more carefully, and the editors would DO THEIR JOBS by checking spelling, grammar, and usage of appropriate headlines in their paper. Not all people take the time to really read an article, or to look at graphs and numbers presented in an article. If one were to just take the headline here for face value, they would be mislead. I am not disputing that Citizen's is the largest single entity when it comes to water usage in the county according to the VicAd's data, but that is merely half the story. I simply think the VicAd needs to move away from this type of tabloid-type reporting if they want to gain any respectability and to be able to run with the "big dogs" from the larger cities. I firmly believe they have that ability and can do better. Truth is, I EXPECT them to do better. I am not saying anything here I haven't said before, to no avail.
July 9, 2008 at 1:57 a.m.Here I go being the bad guy again, but I suppose I have nothing to lose: VicAd, this headline (or subheadline, I guess - I am not a newspaper editor) is highly misleading. "Victoria's hospitals are the top water users"? Really? Well, no, not really. If we are talking single entity, then, yes, hospitals are at the top of the list, according to your data. But when I saw the headline, I think, where does the most water go in Victoria? And I thought, surely, residential usage. One would not realize by looking at your headline that by CATEGORY, according to your pie chart data, that businesses (I would assume this includes hospitals as well) use only 21.5% of water, while residential usage, backing up my original thought, uses 64% of the water. Thus, I believe your headline is grossly misleading. Could this please be addressed? Hopitals clearly DO NOT use the most water in Victoria!
July 8, 2008 at 9:44 p.m.My Question to the Author and Editor of this article is, What are you attempting to accomplish by publishing all these numbers?
This is a portion of the story. Where is the data that tells the reader what size of Pool water this water is coming out of? What is the recovery rate of the supply? I realize water is not in a pool. I use it as a simple term to establish a comparison.
Do these figures tell the reader there is a shortage of water or are they merely intended to generate unwarranted concern? Could there be an ulterior motive? Maybe someone does not want a nuclear power plant to be built????
July 8, 2008 at 10:08 a.m.