Water Utility

In 2008, the City of Madison and Madison Water Utility unveiled a Water Conservation and Sustainability Plan aimed at reducing per capita water use in the city by 20 percent by the year 2020. Not only has Madison surpassed that goal, we did it a year ahead of schedule! Now the city is looking for feedback on the next phase of water conservation planning.

The EVERY DROP MADISON initiative seeks community input on new conservation incentives and programs that will bring a new era of water stewardship and source water protection to our city. Recognizing that conservation is water supply, Madison Water Utility and its customers are committed to using water efficiently.

To inform this process, Madison Water Utility wants to engage with people who live, work or go to school in Madison to better understand which incentives would be most effective in increasing water use efficiency still further. MWU is working with the WaterNow Alliance, in partnership with the online polling platform POLCO, to maximize public engagement. The City of Madison is a 2019 recipient of a WaterNow Project Accelerator grant to help identify water sustainability programs that provide the greatest return on investment and develop metrics to track success.

To take the 5 question poll, you must have an account with POLCO. Creating an account allows Madison Water Utility to send all results directly to you when the poll closes in mid-October. It is possible that there may be two or three follow-up questions in November or December. 

Current Madison Water Utility sustainability programs include:

Toilet Rebate Program
Provides $100 bill credits to customers who replace an old, water-wasting toilet with an EPA WaterSense model; Limit 1 per household.
Est. 1 billion gallons of water saved since 2009.

Online conservation tool
MWU customers have the ability to view their hourly water use from any computer, tablet or smart phone. Customers can also set up email alerts so they’ll be notified when their usage surpasses whatever number of gallons they choose.

Home Water Conservation Program
Project Home and Madison Water Utility have teamed up to create the first water conservation program in Wisconsin aimed at helping low-to-moderate income homeowners reduce water waste, increase efficiency and save money on their water bills. The program helped 82 low-to-moderate income community members last year.

Infrastructure Overhaul
Between 2005 and 2017, MWU replaced 100 miles of aging water main at a cost of more than $100 million. The utility continues to invest $6-10 million a year in water main replacement.

Wellhead Protection Program
Identify, manage and protect the land areas that contribute groundwater to drinking water wells. Identifying these zones allows preventative measures to be established that prohibit or restrict future land-uses that have the potential to contaminate groundwater.