This project tested the benefits of industrial water use efficiency within the Great Lakes watershed. The team worked with five industrial facilities from around the region that use public water supply and wastewater treatment services, and helped them discover cost-effective water efficiency strategies for their processes, identified barriers to implementing these strategies and developed methods to overcome them, and evaluated the ecological benefits of increased industrial water efficiency to the Great Lakes basin. From their work, the team laid the foundation for the development of a basin-wide assistance program that will advance industrial water conservation and provide technical and financial assistance to industries in the basin.

This project took a close look at several issues related to water conservation that are currently being debated: the relationship between energy and water, the environmental benefits of water conservation, the difficulties of paying for conservation in light of lost revenues to utilities, the value of deferred infrastructure needs to utilities, and the value and impact of conservation in a water rich region.

A link to the project website and the team’s products is below.
http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/glpf-indwue-report.aspx