COUNTYWIDE : Low-Flow Toilets to Be Tried in Hotels

Orange County’s sanitation board and several other public agencies have initiated a $1.5-million project to equip Anaheim hotels with water-saving toilets and provide households in Anaheim and Costa Mesa with conservation kits.

Three-hundred rooms at Disneyland Hotel are being retrofitted with “ultra low-flow” toilets in the first phase of the experimental project.

It is the first project of its kind using the devices, which reportedly use only 1.6 gallons per flush compared with 5 to 7 gallons in a traditional toilet. The water use in the rooms will be compared with regularly equipped rooms, with results expected in September.

If the project proves successful, another hotel will be equipped with the new toilets and low-flow shower heads. Then, if that is successful, other Anaheim hotels and motels will be provided financial incentives to install the equipment at a cost of $1.1 million.

Also, $325,000 worth of water-saving shower heads will be distributed to residents and sixth-grade classrooms in Anaheim. Beginning in May, as many as 10,000 Costa Mesa residents will be issued conservation kits when they respond to a water use questionnaire.

The Anaheim projects are being sponsored by the Orange County Sanitation Districts--which voted Wednesday to approve its part of the costs--the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the city of Anaheim. The Costa Mesa project is sponsored by the sanitation agency, the Municipal Water District of Orange County and Mesa Consolidated Water District.

In addition to saving water, the projects are expected to decrease sewer flows handled by the sanitation agency, which handles the waste of more than 2 million people in northern and western Orange County.