Using less water may be environmentally conscious, but it also means less money in city coffers. The Evanston City Council held a special meeting Monday to brainstorm how to soften the impact of the city’s falling water consumption on revenue.

“On the good side, we are pleased to see residents using less water,” City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said. “On the bad side, residents are using less water.”

A trend toward green technology has yielded many eco-efficient appliances, said David Stoneback, director of utilities. Appliances that used to use a lot of water, like toilets, dish washers and washing machines, use significantly less.

Now that Evanston residents have caught on to the trend, they’re demanding less water and draining city revenue.

“This is another example of how going green is rather expensive,” said Ald. Ann Rainey (8th).

The reduced revenue comes at a time when the city needs more money to fund sewer renovations, Stoneback said.

To remedy the problem, Stoneback suggested the city could increase property taxes and issue bonds over the next several years.

Rainey said she favored an increase to property taxes. She added not-for-profit organizations should be taxed equally because they tend to be the biggest users of water.

“We have to give relief to people who pay property taxes,” Rainey said. “The burden will be spread equally among all of us water and sewer users.”

Stoneback also suggested the city make improvements to its water mains, but Assistant City Manager Martin Lyons said that would be impossible if the city doesn’t devise a way to cover costs and push up revenue.

Evanston’s existing water plant has enough capacity to sell water to surrounding cities, which would help Evanston raise its necessary revenue, Stoneback said.

“We need to make sure it wouldn’t have a detrimental impact on our systems, so it’s something we still need to investigate,” Stoneback said. “A lot of communities showed a lot of interest, though, so it’s something we should look into.”[email protected]