Utahns know the ritual well: Each winter, we watch the snowpack numbers and hope the mountains deliver enough water to carry us through another year. This winter’s especially low snowpack is another reminder that water in the West is never guaranteed.

For years, conservation conversations have focused largely on households: shorter showers, drought-tolerant landscaping and watering lawns less frequently. Those efforts matter. But if Utah is serious about securing its water future, conservation cannot stop at the residential level.

Large-scale infrastructure must become part of the solution.

As senior director of property and buildings at WSP, I work at the intersection of water, energy and infrastructure, designing and advising on complex systems that improve efficiency, resilience and long-term resource management — with a focus on identifying where investments deliver the greatest impact.

Hospitals are among the most water-intensive buildings in modern communities, often consuming more water than data centers — a sector that has recently come under growing public scrutiny for its resource use. Because they operate around the clock and require tightly controlled climate conditions, hospitals depend on complex mechanical systems that historically require substantial water use.

The good news is that innovative engineering and smarter infrastructure design are proving that even the most water-intensive facilities can dramatically reduce their water footprint.

At the new all-electric University of California Irvine Medical Center, engineers reimagined the hospital’s central utility plant to eliminate many traditional water-intensive systems. Rather than relying on traditional chillers and large cooling towers — a major source of evaporative water loss — the facility uses high-efficiency electric air-source heat pumps and heat-recovery systems. These systems reuse heat within the plant rather than rejecting it through cooling towers, significantly reducing water consumption. In addition to lowering its water use, the hospital is expected to operate with roughly 25% less energy than a traditional facility of similar size and save an estimated $15 million in energy costs over 25 years.

Projects like this underscore how closely water and energy are connected. Power generation depends on water, while moving and treating water requires significant energy. When efficiency improves in one system, it reduces demand in the other — delivering a double benefit.

A similar approach can be seen in the expansion of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where engineers designed a central utility plant featuring an advanced heat-pump chiller system that captures heat from the cooling process and reinjects it into the hospital’s heating loop. By dramatically reducing the demand on cooling towers and cutting back on evaporative losses, the system saves approximately 5.5 million gallons of water each year. The plant also features other system upgrades that improve overall energy efficiency, reducing utility costs by approximately 30% on a per-square-foot basis.

These design decisions are becoming increasingly important across the Intermountain West, particularly in rapidly growing states like Utah, where hospitals, manufacturing facilities and commercial buildings are expanding to keep pace with population growth. But growth does not have to mean greater water consumption. Through thoughtful engineering, modern mechanical systems and forward-looking infrastructure planning, large facilities have the capability and responsibility to dramatically reduce their water use while improving efficiency and resilience.

Utah has long valued practical solutions and responsible stewardship of natural resources. But as snowpack becomes less predictable and drought pressures intensify across the West, the burden of conservation cannot fall on residents alone.

Real water conservation will ultimately depend on the infrastructure decisions made today by Utah’s largest and most water-intensive facilities.

Mark Montgomery is senior director of property and buildings at WSP, Utah’s leading professional services firm, which delivers integrated engineering, advisory and science-based solutions that strengthen infrastructure resilience, advance sustainable development and support the growth of the state’s communities and economy.

The Salt Lake Tribune is committed to creating a space where Utahns can share ideas, perspectives and solutions that move our state forward. We rely on your insight to do this. Find out how to share your opinion here, and email us at voices@sltrib.com.