this is long but kinda funny from bozeman daily chroncile on 6/6/08

HD 63 candidate criticizes toilet rebate program
By AMANDA RICKER Chronicle Staff Writer
A local candidate for the Montana Legislature says a Bozeman rebate program encouraging homeowners to switch to more water-efficient toilets is flushing taxpayers’ money down the drain.
Tom Burnett, the Republican candidate for House District 63, is circulating a flier about the program titled, “Toilet Trade-out Silliness.”“The Greater Gallatin Toilet Trade-out deserves scrutiny,” the flier states. “It won’t save water and it costs taxpayers serious money. Taxpayers are not flush.”The city of Bozeman offers $75 rebates to city water users who replace an old toilet with a newer, low-flush model. The program, dubbed the Greater Gallatin Toilet Tradeout, is aimed at encouraging water conservation, and was organized by the city, area businesses, private citizens and Burnett’s opponent in HD 63, Democratic incumbent Rep., J.P. Pomnichowski, D-Bozeman.Kent Madin, who spearheaded the toilet trade-out, said the program doesn’t provide huge savings, but it does provide real savings that will increase as the cost of water inevitably rises.

“(Burnett) is attacking water conservation,” Madin said. “Is apple pie next?”Burnett said whether a person flushes 1.2, or 3.5 or 7 gallons of water, the same amount of water will always exist in the Gallatin Valley’s aquifers. When water is flushed, it is treated, returned to the water basin and reused.“There’s really no environmental benefit,” Burnett said. “It’s all an economic question.”By flushing less water, the only thing that can be saved is money, he said. And the city’s rebate program costs taxpayers more than it’s saving them.“When you do your own household budget of this, your wife wouldn’t let you do it,” Burnett said. “It’s just kind of hard to justify.”Brian Heaston, a city engineer who organized the rebate program, said that as of last week the city had received 212 rebate applications. Money for the rebates comes from water department revenues.At $75 each, those rebates are expected to cost the city $15,900. Additional applications continue to be submitted.The toilets replaced are expected to save the city about $5 a day in wastewater treatment costs, by sparing 5,500 gallons of water from going to the city’s wastewater treatment plant each day.That’s assuming that each of the 212 rebates represents a 3.5 gallon-per-flush toilet that’s been replaced with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified 1.28 gallon-per-flush one, Heaston said.Based on an average single-family home, with 2.3 people each flushing 5.1 times a day, the new toilet would save 26 gallons a day.“That’s a drop in the proverbial bucket,” Burnett said, adding that he suspects many of the rebates, which he believes should be referred to as “subsidies,” went to wealthier citizens who didn’t need them.Burnett also said the city’s treatment plant hardly misses the water that homeowners who switched didn’t send down the drain. The 5,500 gallons kept out of the system by the new toilets are nothing compared to the 4.5 million gallons the treatment plant processes every day.The cost of treating 4.5 million gallons a day is about $900 per million gallons, or $4,050 a day, Heaston said.The city budgeted $50,000 this fiscal year for water conservation, such as advertising for and funding the toilet rebates, Heaston said. One city employee spends about five hours a week overseeing the program.City Commissioner Sean Becker called Burnett’s criticism of the city rebate program “ridiculous.”“It’s inconceivable for me to believe that using a quarter less water doesn’t save water,” he said. “That’s less water that the city has to draw from its creeks and its aquifers. That’s less water that has to be treated. That’s less infrastructure that has to be built.”Becker said the toilet trade-out and city rebate program are designed to make people more conscious of how much water they use. Hopefully, they’ll also think about conserving water when washing dishes, taking a shower and brushing their teeth.Though the city has only received rebate applications for 212 toilets replaced, more than 850 high-efficiency toilets were bought through the Greater Gallatin Toilet Trade-out, Heaston said.Pomnichowski fought for water conservation measures in the 2007 legislative session. She said the Gallatin Valley’s water supply is stretched thin by users. The basin has about 1.2 million acre feet of water in it each year and people are using about 1.19 million acre feet each year.“We can conserve water and we should,” she said. “The less water we have to treat, the more we have available for other beneficial uses.”