Irvine Co. flushing out water-guzzling toilets at 6 Newport apartment complexes

At the Newport North apartments in Newport Beach, it was out with the old toilets and in with the new on Friday as part of an Irvine Co. project to install low-flow toilets and shower heads in its six older apartment communities in Newport.

The company says the effort to replace 3,096 toilets and a similar number of shower heads in 2,246 units at Newport North, Mariner Square, Baywood, Bayview, Baypoint and Promontory Point will reduce residents’ interior water consumption by about half, or at least 46 million gallons annually.

The project will replace 3.5-gallon flush toilets with 1.28-gallon toilets and 2.5-gallon-per-minute shower heads with 1.5-gallon-per-minute models. The work is scheduled to be completed by next month at a cost of $880,000.

The company says its newer Newport Beach properties already feature the latest water delivery systems.

“This will create some disruption for our tenants, but … the initial reaction of affected tenants has been positive, knowing that the water reduction levels are huge, permanent and recurring,” Fred Alson of the Irvine Co.’s water conservation task force said in a statement.

“The city of Newport Beach appreciates the Irvine Co. reacting so quickly to the drought emergency with this initiative,” George Murdoch, city utilities director, said in a company news release. “It’s going to take a community effort for us to reach our [state-mandated] water reduction goal of 28%.”

--Rob Vardon