Water Conservation at Rivanna
Water is a precious resource. We treat it as such.
Water in our Name
People often ask us about our company's name. Many from the Blue Ridge are familiar with Thomas Jefferson's River Anna, now called the Rivanna River. The Rivanna is a 42 mile tributary of the James River in central Virginia. The Rivanna Reservoir is the source of drinking water in Charlottesville, where our company was founded in 2001. Our founder chose the name because she wanted to be reminded about the source of the company's water. Only 32% of people in America can name the source of their tap water.
Minimizing Water Use
We do our best to minimize water consumption. Since moving to our current location in Henrico, VA in 2018, we have replaced all the old toilets in our building with new water-efficient toilets that are certified through EPA's WaterSense program. We also installed timers for our outdoor landscaping and asked our landscapers to keep watering to an absolute minimum. Over time, we plan to convert the turf grass in front of our building to native plants.
In June 2019, we a conservation landscaping plan with a grant from the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program. We converted the corner of our parking lot to a conservation garden. This involved removing the impervious surface and sub-grade aggregate, preparing the soil, and planting native vegetation generally best adapted to our soil and climate conditions. Our expectation is that, in addition to adding natural beauty while minimizing the need to use more water for landscaping, this conversion will also help minimize non-point source runoff pollution.