To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Mark Marlowe, Director of Castle Rock Water
Title
Department Update: Silver Environmental Achievement Award
Body
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Executive Summary
Castle Rock Water received the Silver Environmental Achievement Award by the State’s Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) at the 19th Annual ELP Awards Breakfast on October 4, 2017 at the Infinity Park Event Center in Glendale.
This award is designed to recognize businesses, municipalities, and others that have made significant achievements in improving the environment of Colorado through voluntary actions. Currently, there are 166 companies recognized in the Environmental Leadership Program.
In our application, we highlighted how we have improved water quality, reduced water usage, managed energy use, and provided environmental education and outreach. Some of the programs highlighted in our application included the Mayor’s Challenge to Fill the Rock, Spring up the Creek, Household Chemical Roundup, Water Wiser and classroom education, Smartscape renovations, H2Oaccess (online billing), and the adoption of energy-efficient building.
This year, participating water providers supplied water for a taste test to see if attendees could tell the difference between tap and bottled water. Despite the fact that bottled water costs thousands of times more than tap water, attendees could not reliably tell the difference between tap and bottled water. A number of water providers have followed the leadership of Castle Rock Water and entered the program for the first time this year, including Centennial Water and Sanitation District, Parker Water and Sanitation District. Castle Rock Water has been in the program since 2014.
Key metrics we presented to the State for award consideration were:
• Reduction of natural gas and electricity facility usage with the building of the energy-efficient O&M building
• Recycle 2,500 pounds of brass and other metals consisting of replaced meters, rebated irrigation products and spare parts
• Collected 126,515 pounds of hazardous chemicals during the Douglas County Household Chemical Roundup in 2016
• Provided rebates for the removal of 27,939 square feet of turf reducing water usage
• Audited high-use customers to reduce waste and increase irrigation efficiency
• Instituted a new conservation outreach campaign, The Mayor’s Challenge to Fill the Rock, encouraging customers to save enough water to fill the volume of Castle Rock and reached 4th in the nation for pledges for our population
• Collected 98 bags of trash with 174 volunteers during the May 2016 ‘Spring Up The Creek’ event
Castle Rock Water is working toward the Gold designation which entails a three-year period at good standing in the Silver level and the establishment of an Environmental Management System. This plan, which identifies all environmental impacts and the processes to manage them is currently in development with scheduled completion in July 2018.
Attachments
Attachment A: Press release