Bend offers your lawn a WaterWise assist

As you get your lawn ready for summer, are you being efficient with your water usage? The average person uses anywhere from 60-100 gallons of water per day.

According to Mike Buetter, water conservation program manager for the city of Bend, 60 percent of our water usage goes to outside irrigation.

The city has implemented a program where Bend residents can have a city staff member come to their home and inspect their irrigation system. The city will then tell them where they can save money.

“Roughly 60 percent of water use goes outdoors and is used primarily for irrigation purposes,” Mike Buettner, water conservation program manager for the city of Bend, said Tuesday.

But thanks to a new water and sewer rate structure implemented last December, you’ll only pay for the water you use. This means conserving water will save you money.

A sprinkler inspection program kicked off this week and runs from May through August.

“A city of Bend staff member will come out to their home, take a look at their irrigation system, run through with a visual inspection, run some tests on the system and really be there to answer any questions they have on their specific irrigation system,” Buettner said.

Buettner also noted the average Bendite uses about 50 gallons per day per person indoors. “This is lower than the national average and largely due to more efficient home building standards that kicked in back in 1992 as part of the Energy Policy Act,” he said.

Although lawn sprinklers make up a large portion of our costs, there are plenty of things to look out for inside your home.

“Really, what we want to look at are some of the plumbing systems we have in our homes,” Buettner said. “You may have an older toilet that flushes at a really high rate, shorten showers — we recommend people take 5 minutes or less. And then going through and checking for leaks a couple times a year, making sure you don’t have leaks beneath your cabinets or underneath the sinks for anything like that.”

You can visit http://bendoregon.gov/index.aspx?page=1085 for more information. To schedule a sprinkler inspection, you can call 541-317-3000 or email conservation@bendoregon.gov.