Northern Water, a public agency that provides water for food production and municipal, domestic and industrial uses in Northeastern Colorado, received a WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award for its work promoting WaterSense and water efficiency in 2022.

This is the fourth year Northern Water has won the award from WaterSense, a voluntary partnership program sponsored by EPA. In its efforts to help commercial customers save water, Northern Water performed 48 landscape consultations, inspecting landscape conditions and irrigation components and recommending WaterSense-labeled irrigation controllers and sprinkler components. Northern Water also helped save more than 7 million gallons of water by funding 11 projects through its Collaborative Water-Efficient Landscape Grant Program, which requires WaterSense-labeled equipment to be installed.

“The WaterSense program and products provide an ideal foundation to promote, facilitate and celebrate water efficiency,” says Frank Kinder, Northern Water’s Water Efficiency Department manager. “The public-private partnership delivers sustained water savings and high performance, allowing comprehensive conservation of this vitally important resource on which we all rely. We appreciate the value WaterSense provides to all stakeholders.” 

Since 2006, consumers and businesses using certified water-efficient plumbing products have saved 7.5 trillion gallons of water; 880 billion kilowatt hours of energy used to pump, treat and heat water; and $171 billion in water and energy bills. These efforts have also helped prevent 337 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions—equivalent to planting 5.6 billion trees.

“With extreme weather affecting water supplies and quality, saving this precious resource is more important than ever,” said Veronica Blette, chief of the EPA’s WaterSense Branch. “The 2023 award winners helped Americans look to WaterSense and save not just water, but the energy required to heat and treat it, reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use.”