Conserving Water
Doing our part to conserve water is a priority. We reduced water use by 25 percent from 2007 levels, saving more than 1.5 billion gallons of water. This is equivalent to water consumed by 3.9 million average U.S. households every day. Contributing factors included upgrading heating and cooling equipment and forward-thinking facilities projects such as landscaping in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation.
From 2007 to 2011, we reduced our water usage by 23% (or 555 million gallons) through some innovative facility upgrade projects:
- Our Data Center in Denver, Colorado, completed a xeriscaping project to eliminate irrigation on two acres of the site. This facility is also currently replacing the water-intensive grass on their parking lot island with native vegetation.
- Many of our facilities have upgraded restrooms with low-flow toilets and faucets and waterless urinals. Our Orlando, Florida, facility saves 1.4 million gallons of water annually through faucet aerators and automatic fixtures at an installation cost of only $5,000.
- Changing cooling tower treatment chemicals and repairing a significant cooling tower leak helped contribute to Mission Systems and Sensors’ overall 22% water usage reduction in Syracuse, New York.
- Our Palmdale, California, plant installed upgraded cooling towers and low-flow fixtures, thereby reducing its water consumption by 18%.
- Missiles and Fire Control in Grand Prairie, Texas, inexpensively replaced a malfunctioning process chiller that now saves approximately 10 million gallons of water annually.
Xeriscaping has eliminated irrigation on two acres at our Denver Data Center.
