High-Volume Debate Over Low-Flows : Conservation: State Sen. Lucy Killea has joined the line of legislators pushing bills to require the water-saving toilets. But not everyone thinks they’re a good idea.

Two flushes or not two flushes?

That is the question, at least when it comes to well-meaning government efforts in California and across the nation aimed at forcing home buyers to install ultra-low-flow toilets.

As part of the war on “water guzzlers” in the bathroom, Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) is pushing a bill that would make it illegal to sell or install anything but new 1.6-gallon toilets in drought-plagued California, beginning in 1994.

Killea said that while state law already mandates the use of so-called “ultra-low-flows” in new construction beginning this year, her measure is a necessary step to encourage the downsizing of standard low-flow (3.5-gallon) commodes in California’s vast existing housing stock.

“It just eliminates from the market the water-hog type of toilets,” Killea said. “If you have that kind in the house, your inclination is to get the same kind again.”

The Killea bill is the latest step in a nationwide movement that has singled out the lowly potty, along with the shower head and the leaky faucet, as a whipping boy in the water conservation movement.

But not everyone is happy with the rush to ultra-low-flush. Their worry: The downsized flush simply lacks enough oomph to get the job done.

The strongest resistance has come from New Jersey, where politicos and plumbers recently kicked up a highly publicized fuss by speaking out against a new regulation there that, since July, has required toilet suppliers to begin selling the 1.6-gallon wonders, priced between $80 and $180.

Some of the 8,000 master plumbers in New Jersey began passing out disclaimers while installing the new commodes, and Republican state Sen. Leonard T. Connors Jr.--himself a retired builder--sharply questioned the ultra-low-flow regulation during a recent New Jersey legislative hearing.

Connors said he is all for conserving water, but also worries that the existing underground sewer grid was built years ago with larger toilets in mind. Pipes leading from bathrooms to the street main have only a slight downward slope, and “solids” can catch on their rough cast-iron interiors. Plumbers believe the 1.6 gallons per flush are simply insufficient to prevent pipe buildup and future clogging, Connors said.

In addition, he said some ultra-low-flow models could pose more immediate problems because they compensate for their lack of water by using a restricted “neck” to propel the waste.

“So now picture a large amount of waste trying to go down the toilet,” he said. “So you flush once, it don’t go down. You flush twice, it don’t go down. Then it becomes self-defeating.”

The concerns were trumpeted by national network news and have prompted New Jersey Gov. James J. Florio to take a second look at the regulation. They are also shared by the New Jersey building association, the 3,000-member American Society of Sanitary Engineering and at least one California plumber with hands-on experience of his own.

“All they (ultra-low-flows) are doing is getting the refuse out of the toilet and into the sewer line under the house,” said W. W. (Wid) Cady, a San Luis Obispo plumber for 35 years. “They’re just giving it one husky shot and it’s out of the toilet. They’re not worrying about the consequences 30 feet down the line.”

Cady said his city’s program of giving rebates for the ultra-low-flows has translated into a 10% increase in calls to unclog drains, about three or four extra jobs each week at $48 each.

“That’s a lot of calls for a . . . toilet that was supposed to answer all our problems,” he said.

Yet doubters such as Cady are in the minority.

In all, 17 states are considering or have passed laws since 1989 phasing in the use of ultra-low-flows as a painless way to save water and lower the load put on municipal waste-water treatment facilities, according to a recent survey by a national commode manufacturer. Washington, D. C., Denver and Maui have also instituted their own low-flow requirements where state laws don’t exist.

In California, at least 10 cities--including San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco--passed ordinances promoting ultra-low-flows even before the new state law kicked in or Killea introduced her current bill.

Whatever problems that may have existed with the ultra-low-flows, enthusiastic proponents say, they have been overcome by improved designs that incorporate air pressure to move the waste along.

They say that while complaints of double-flushing and backups are largely anecdotal, the proof is in the flushing: Their field studies and experience show the 1.6-gallon toilets are working well, even in older homes.

Richard Bennett, water conservation director at the East Bay Municipal Water District in Oakland, said a recent study by the utility turned up no problems with 39 ultra-low-flow toilets closely monitored in 25 single-family homes throughout its service area last year.

Although the district recorded about a 15% increase in double-flushing, there were no clogged sewers, and homeowners posted an average daily saving of 5.3 gallons per person, he said.

In San Diego, where the city’s water utilities department since May has been offering $100 rebates for anyone switching to ultra-low-flow, there have been no complaints from the 7,000 people who have taken advantage of the offer, said Marsi Steirer, water conservation supervisor.

“There’s absolutely no study, whether in the field or the laboratory, that indicates double-flushing or that the toilets don’t work,” she said, adding that Consumer Reports has recently given high marks for toilets included in the San Diego rebates.

In fact, the city has been so impressed with the program that it followed up with an ordinance that goes beyond state law and requires any home or office building sold after January to be retrofitted with the low-volume toilets.

Perhaps the biggest success has been in Los Angeles, where a spokeswoman for the Department of Water and Power said that agency was overwhelmed by response to its $100 rebate program instituted in March, 1990. The rebate was intended to supplement a 1986 ordinance requiring ultra-low-flows in all new construction.

At first, agency officials expected to pay out about $750,000 to replace about 7,500 existing toilets, spokeswoman Debra Sass said. But they were forced to shut down the program in October after shelling out nearly $22 million in rebates to replace 220,000 toilets--an estimated 8% of the city’s commodes.

Sass said the utility is now going to poll those who switched to ultra-low-flows, a move that will serve as perhaps the definitive customer satisfaction survey.

She added that officials estimate the switches will save the city about 72,000 acre-feet of water over the next 10 years. (An acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons, enough to serve a family of five for 18 months.)

In Sacramento, the ability of ultra-low-flows to deliver has never been a major question surrounding Killea’s bill. Instead, the sticking point was an earlier version that would have required property owners to install the low-capacity toilets when they resold existing homes or businesses.

Real estate agents nearly killed the measure because they said it would hurt home sales in a depressed market, Killea said.

“The Realtors went wild, absolutely frantic,” she said. “They saw it as an impediment. . . . They said, ‘If you have six bathrooms, it might raise the price of a house.’ Well, at that price home, who cares?”

As a concession, Killea took a supply-side approach to the potty problem and rewrote her bill, mandating suppliers to sell the 1.6-gallon models after January, 1994. Her bill would allow 3.5-gallon commodes to be sold only if accompanied by warning stickers, or if they were intended to be installed in historic structures or where putting in an ultra-low-flow toilet would mean ripping out some plumbing from behind a finished wall.

With those changes, the real estate agents have backed off and the Senate approved Killea’s bill last month. It now awaits hearings in the Assembly, where there is no formal opposition.

And even the California State Pipe Trades Council supports it, despite the “anecdotal” whispers about impending backups and double-flushing, according to the group’s lobbyist.