6.5 gallons every hour…
120 to 150 gallons every day…
4,500 gallons each month…
54,000 gallons a year.

This is the average per-person use of publicly supplied water in the St. Johns River Water Management District’s service area. It doesn’t take long for the gallons to add up. Inefficient fixtures use an average five gallons per minute in the shower and four gallons every time an older model toilet flushes. In fact, a leaking toilet can waste more than 200 gallons in a single day.

This is why the District and its partners are promoting Florida Water Star^SM. The program encourages water efficiency in household appliances, plumbing fixtures, irrigation systems and landscapes. These promote the economic and environmental benefits of efficiency in new home construction.

To do this, the program currently offers resources and incentives to builders and homebuyers who value water efficiency in new home construction. The program may later be expanded to include ways to update or retrofit older homes.

For more information, go to www.sjrwmd.com/floridawaterstar/.

Plant drought-tolerant, or Florida-friendly, grasses, ground covers, shrubs and trees. Once established, they do not need to be watered as frequently, and they usually will survive a dry period with little or no watering.

For more information on Florida-friendly Waterwise landscaping, go to www.sjrwmd.com/waterwiselandscapes/.

The St. Johns River Water Management District has partnered with water supply utilities to sponsor a multimedia campaign to educate the public on appropriate lawn and landscape irrigation techniques. Using television as the primary medium, the campaign message focuses on watering lawns and landscapes no more than two days a week. Proper lawn and landscape irrigation saves water and encourages healthy, deep root growth. Overwatering promotes weed growth, fungus and disease.

For more information, go to www.floridaswater.com.

Do you want to make a difference in your watershed? Consider becoming a Watershed Action Volunteer (WAV) and help protect Florida’s precious water resources by teaching others about these resources, or monitoring your local water body, or helping to restore a lake or river near your home. To learn more about becoming a WAV, go to www.sjrwmd.com/education/wav/about.html.