Central Basin Municipal Water District Customers Receive Over 92 Million in Conservation Rebates

More than $9.2 million in conservation rebates have been received by the residential and business customers of the Central Basin Municipal Water District (CBMWD) in the past five years through the district’s participation in the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California’s SoCal Water$mart program. Launched in 2008, the SoCal Water$mart program encourages continued conservation by providing rebates to both residents and businesses who purchase water efficient devices and/or replace their turf.

“I’d like to commend our District staff and our retail water agencies for their efforts to educate and engage our constituents on the importance of conservation and encouraging them to take advantage of the conservation rebate program” said Central Basin Board President Robert Apodaca. Through these continued efforts we are working towards reducing dependence on imported water supplies while protecting our region’s water reliability.”

A member of MWD’s Water Agencies, CBMWD is a public agency that wholesales imported water to cities, mutual water companies, investor-owned utilities and private companies in southeast Los Angeles County. Metropolitan also provides funding to member agencies for locally-administered conservation programs.

MWD’s SoCal Water$mart residential water efficient device rebates include specific high-efficiency clothes washers, premium high-efficiency toilets, high-efficiency sprinkler nozzles, smart irrigation controllers, and rain barrels. The Water$mart program also includes turf removal (and replacement with hardscapes and/or native Plants), sustainable landscape irrigation programs, customer water use messaging and residential water surveys.

The Commercial Conservation Programs offered by MWD’s Water$mart program includes providing financial incentives for many water-saving devices and projects including landscape transformation and rebates on certain commercial food devices, cooling towers and medical and dental equipment. Qualifying commercial projects have included turf removal, along with direct installation of high-efficiency toilets and multi-stream rotating sprinkler nozzles.

As for Central Basin’s efforts to encourage participation in the rebate program, the district provides information and resources for constituents on how to create a drought tolerant landscape and water saving tips on their website.