Rancho Mirage apartment complex welcomes water efficient toilets, showers

For residents at the Thunderbird Terrace apartments in Rancho Mirage, it’s out with the old and in with the new. They removed all of their old toilets and shower heads and replaced them with new water efficient ones.

With help from the Coachella Valley Water District’s Toilet Rebate Program and the apartment complex owner, 30 high-efficiency toilets, leak detectors and 60 shower heads were installed at no cost to residents.

“It’s really helping us out. It’s not wasting a lot of water,” said resident Romone Thompson.

CVWD said Thunderbird Terrace is its first apartment complex to take such water saving measures.
The efficient toilets save about 0.8 gallons of water per flush, that’s about 17,739 gallons a year per toilet. Each shower head conserves an estimated 41,062 gallons of water a year.

Thompson said his family made more changes.

“In this household we always take shorter showers. We all come together as a unit and talk about what we need to do,” he said.

CVWD expects more apartments will get on board.

For more information on how you can help save water go to www.cvwd.org or www.dwa.org