Update: The City of Evanston accepted its Water Conservation and Efficiency Plan in August 2012. The plan received a Utility Water Saver Award from the Illinois Section of the American Water Work Association's Water Efficiency Committee.
The City of Evanston is located in northern Cook County, drawing water directly from Lake Michigan for its municipal water supply. The City has a long standing commitment to sustainability and the City's Strategic Plan identified environmental sustainability as one of the three guiding values for Evanston along with economic viability and strengthening community.
The City of Evanston worked with CMAP's Local Technical Assistance (LTA) program to develop a Water Conservation and Efficiency plan as an implementation strategy of the Evanston Climate Action plan. Unanimously adopted in November 2008, the Climate Action Plan calls for achieving a 13 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and outlines over 200 strategies including water-related strategies to reach this goal.
During the first phase of the plan, an existing conditions report was created in order to understand the current water supply conditions for the City of Evanston, including such conditions as billing systems, water supply ordinances, previous planning efforts, and water audit information. In phase two, City and CMAP staff undertook an extensive community outreach process to garner input on past, current, and future water conservation and efficiency efforts. The end goal was to integrate feedback into the final plan by selecting program components that the community is willing to support. Phase three resulted in a final plan for the City of Evanston with recommendations for continued improvement in the areas of water efficiency.
