Texas A&M AgriLife Dallas’ Water University named EPA WaterSense Partner of the Year
Contact: Clint Wolfe, 972-952-9635, [email protected]
DALLAS — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday presented its 2015 WaterSense Partner of the Year award to Water University, a Dallas-based conservation outreach program of Texas A&M AgriLife Research.
The national WaterSense Partner of the Year Award was presented in Las Vegas to seven recipients from a pool of more than 1,700. The award is based on effective consumer education and promotion of WaterSense – the EPA initiative to label products, homes and programs that meet specific water efficiency standards.
“This award represents one of the highest honors you can receive as a water conservationist in the U.S.,” said Water University Program manager Clint Wolfe in Dallas. “Being a public entity offering most of our educational and outreach programs for free to people across North Texas has really helped us to be so effective in our mission to be more efficient with water resources.”
Water University last year reached about 500,000 people, saving more than 35 million gallons of potable water through free public outreach initiatives and consultation with big businesses, cities and regional water providers, according to Wolfe.
In 2014, Water University welcomed more than 3,500 visitors to the EPA WaterSense Labeled Home and apartments on the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center campus in Dallas. The working model living spaces offer hands-on demonstrations of water efficient fixtures, appliances, building materials and landscapes. Water University participants also toured North Texas with its WaterSense Labeled mobile house – a bathroom model built to showcase WaterSense fixtures in action at public events.
Meanwhile, Water University’s Find It, Flag It, Fix It campaign encouraged about 6,000 homeowners to inspect their in-ground irrigation systems for leaks and to use WaterSense-branded flags to identify points of repair.
The national network of WaterSense partners, including the Dallas-based Water University, helped consumers save 346 billion gallons of water in 2014 alone — more than the amount of water used by all households in Texas for a year, according to the EPA. WaterSense has also helped reduce the amount of energy needed to heat, pump and treat water by 146 billion kilowatt hours, enough energy to supply a year’s worth of power to more than 13.3 million homes.
“We are so appreciative of, and continually impressed by, our WaterSense partners’ dedication to making water efficiency a priority,” said Ellen Gilinsky, EPA Office of Water senior policy advisor. “By touching lives with water-efficient products, programs, and practices on a daily basis, they’re helping improve community resilience to extreme weather conditions such as drought and providing a foundation for water conservation that will help save water for future generations.”
