Clearly, water is the lifeblood of any laundromat operation. And that’s why laundry owners in California are getting nervous.
The state is experiencing its fourth consecutive year of drought conditions – with last year’s rainfall totaling just nine inches, which is the third worst on record. In fact, the average rainfall for the state is 23 inches.
The 2015 “water year” – which ran from October 2014 to September 2015 – also saw the highest average temperature in 120 years of record-keeping. According to the California Climate Tracker, the state’s average temperature was 58.4 degrees – more than three degrees warmer than average and almost a full degree warmer than the previous high in 1995-96.
The biggest impact of warmer temperatures has been that they intensify the effects of drought, increasing evaporation and drying out the soil.
Meanwhile, new reports have shown that many of the state’s groundwater basins are critically depleted and some farmland in the San Joaquin Valley is sinking at an accelerated pace. As the water year ended, reservoirs across the state were holding only about 54 percent of their historical average.
Officials said in May that about 1,900 wells had gone dry, leaving people in some of California’s most disadvantaged communities without water.
Public polling has shown that the drought has become a top concern for Californians, and a majority would be willing to pay for water infrastructure or other drought fixes.
In fact, Californians surpassed Gov. Brown’s current 25 percent emergency water reduction mandate in June and July for a cumulative statewide savings of 29.5 percent.
“Californians’ response to the severity of the drought this summer shows that they get that we are in the drought of our lives,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. “This isn’t your mother’s drought or your grandmother’s drought – this is the drought of the century.”
“We’re getting to a point where this is not just about people turning off their sprinklers,” said water board staff scientist Max Gomberg, in a recent Los Angeles Times article. “This is really a major shift toward greater awareness about the value of water and what we all have to do when water is scarce.”
What can self-service laundry owners in California (and other drought-stricken portions of the U.S.) do?
At a recent Golden State Coin Laundry Association meeting, Brian Brunckhorst, president of the northern California CLA affiliate, outlined a number of measures to help operators cope with the dry times in their state. His suggestions for decreasing water usage included: (1) maintaining your current equipment, especially looking for any leaks in hose bibs, water lines and drain valves; (2) reducing the number of wash cycles by eliminating the prewash and/or one rinse cycle; (3) lowering water levels on your machines; and (4) replacing old equipment.
Of course, equipment replacement is a “win-win” in that today’s more efficient machines will not only have a direct positive impact on your monthly water bills, but also will command an increased vend price.
What’s more, it’s critical that laundry owners be proactive in promoting the fact that their businesses are indeed the best water-saving option during times of drought, due to the fact that:
• Home washing machines typically consume 30 to 40 gallons of water per wash load, or 2.5 to 3.0 gallons per pound of clothes laundered. High-efficiency, commercial clothes washers found in self-service laundries typically use as little as 0.5 to 1.5 gallons of water per pound of clothes laundered.
• Commercial clothes washers are designed by manufacturers to deliver superior washing results while consuming the absolute minimum volume of water.
• Utilities are the single greatest expense for the operation of self-service laundries. Laundry owners are driven by profitability to install the most efficient equipment possible for their customers.
• By washing clothes at the local laundromat, residents in drought-stricken areas will save at least half of the water they would typically use at home.
For more talking points as to the water conservation in self-service laundries, store operators can visit: coinlaundry.org/blogs/coin-laundry-association/2014/11/09/water-conservation-in-self-service-laundries. Creating a “Laundromats Save Water” fact sheet to be distributed among local lawmakers, utility companies, media outlets, environmental groups and other stakeholders is great step toward trumpeting the industry’s eco-friendly stance.
“This is a real sobering period we’ve gone through,” said California Department of Water Resources spokesperson Doug Carlson. “We hope that a year from now we’re looking back at water year 2016 with a great deal of satisfaction to see the drought come down to a halt or at least slowed down in its intensity.”
“Pray for rain,” he added.
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