[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 7/5/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

July 5, 2007

 

2. Supply

 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER CONSERVATION:

Water Authority issues urgent conservation call - North County Times

 

LANDSCAPING:

Public enemy No. 1?; Lush lawns are a Southern California obsession. But with rainfall at historic lows, a turf war is heating up. Critics wonder if grass is always greener - Los Angeles Times

 

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER CONSERVATION:

Redding to promote water conservation - Redding Record Searchlight

 

IRRIGATION CONSERVATION:

Water tool made available for frugal consumers; Irrigation device listed at $150 for DWA customers - Desert Sun

 

WATER YEAR IN REVIEW:

REGIONAL: UPDATE: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HAS DRIEST YEAR SINCE 1977 - CBS Channel 5 (Bay Area)

 

 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER CONSERVATION:

Water Authority issues urgent conservation call

North County Times – 7/4/07

By Gig Conaughton, staff writer

 

SAN DIEGO -- County water officials issued an urgent plea Tuesday for people to cut their water use, saying the heat wave and the delayed expansion of a major treatment plant were taxing the plant's ability to crank out enough drinking water.

However, officials said they expect the urgency to evaporate by Friday, when the $75 million expansion of the R.A. Skinner Plant near Temecula goes on-line. The expansion will immediately add up to 110 million gallons a day of drinking water production, boosting Skinner's production from 520 million gallons a day to 630 million gallons a day.

 

In the meantime, officials of the San Diego County Water Authority said the heat wave, which is expected to last through the week, has pushed the Skinner plant to its limit. Officials urged people to cut all unnecessary water use between 6 a.m and 8 p.m through the week.

 

Water officials have suggested in recent years that the easiest way for people to reduce water use is to stop watering lawns and gardens during the day. Officials say that outdoor watering makes up at least 50 percent of all residential water use.

Water Authority spokesman John Liarakos said the agency could issue mandatory water cuts to its 24 member cities and water agencies -- which could then issue their own cutbacks to the public.

"We're looking at all the treatment facilities peaking right now," Liarakos said. "If this holds, or gets any worse ... we may have to cut back on treated water deliveries."

Liarakos said that the Skinner plant, which pumps out 50 percent of all of San Diego County's treated drinking water supply, had been pushed to 106 percent of its capacity by Tuesday. Meanwhile, already high temperatures were expected to rise today, which could prod more people to water lawns, gardens and landscapes, and further tax the plant.

Treatment plants can churn out drinking water at more than 100 percent of their capacities for periods of time, but they must notify -- and get permission from -- the state Department of Health Services to do so, to make sure the water still meets water-quality standards.

The strain on Skinner's capacity would not affect all county residents the same way.

A number of communities, including Escondido, San Diego, Oceanside, Poway, Ramona and Encinitas, have their own small treatment plants. In February 2006, when an unexpected heat wave coincided with a planned 11-day shutdown of the Skinner plant to work on the expansion, those communities hardly noticed because they could still treat their own nonpotable water supplies.

But the same shutdown threatened to exhaust the backup water supplies in parts of Fallbrook, San Marcos, Rainbow and Valley Center -- and moved water officials to threaten mandatory water cutoffs for residents in those areas.

Officials from the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, meanwhile, said Tuesday that San Diego County residents were hit the hardest by the shortages at Skinner. Metropolitan operates the plant. Although Skinner also serves Southwest Riverside County, officials there said they also got water from another Metropolitan treatment plant, the Henry J. Mills Treatment Plant in Riverside County. Skinner is the only major treatment plant serving San Diego County.

Metropolitan is Southern California's main water supplier, and delivers water to nearly 18 million people in six counties, including San Diego.

Metropolitan spokesman Dennis Wolcott, meanwhile, said the Water Authority's urgent call for additional conservation was a "good reminder" for residents that everyone in semi-arid Southern California needs to "participate in permanent conservation."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/07/04/news/top_stories/1_03_197_3_07.txt

 

 

LANDSCAPING:

Public enemy No. 1?; Lush lawns are a Southern California obsession. But with rainfall at historic lows, a turf war is heating up. Critics wonder if grass is always greener

Los Angeles Times – 7/5/07

By Joe Robinson, staff writer

 

IT'S just grass, but don't tell Sheldon Lodmer, for whom the sight of a well-kept lawn borders on the transcendental. "It's very peaceful. It reminds me of openness and cleanness," says Lodmer, whose home in the hills above Malibu's Zuma Beach is fronted by an expanse of fescue roomy enough to field an NFL scrimmage. "There's just something about the look. It's very calming," says his wife Emily, gazing out from a second-floor window framing patches of brown rolling hills that lie beyond.

Brown, of course, is the normal shade of topography throughout the desert that is Southern California, but it's a hue that most people consider unthinkable for the yard. A garden means the green, green grass of home, for crying out loud. It's a feeling hard-wired into the Miracle-Gro souls of America.

The year's record low rainfall, however, may change all that. As the debate builds over the future of the lawn in Southern California, landscaping and horticulture experts say more homeowners are breaking away from water-gobbling turf and replacing the requisite emerald carpet with cactus, native plant collections, synthetic turf or rock gardens. The frontyard of one home in Woodland Hills is filled with decorative wood chips.

"Brown is beautiful, especially during a drought," says Susan Tellem, who ripped out her lawn just a few blocks away from the Lodmers and left the rest to nature. Standing in an accidental landscape of fallen leaves, dirt and the odd cactus and succulent, she calls homes that install monster amounts of sod "a travesty."

"These lawns suck up tremendous amounts of water to keep them green," she says. "Even more moronic are the rich and not-so-rich homeowners here who allow their gardeners to fertilize and mulch those damn lawns while they water the streets and driveways, causing tremendous runoff of toxic chemicals."

Interest in drought-tolerant landscapes has "increased greatly, particularly in the last year," says Barbara Eisenstein, horticulture outreach coordinator for the Native Plant Garden Hotline, a collaboration between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont. The hotline provides expertise on sustainable gardens and helps homeowners reduce the amount of water and maintenance their yards require — often by removing lawns.

About a third of all residential water use in the nation — about 7.8 billion gallons of water annually — goes to outdoor landscaping, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In Southern California, the average family uses 500 gallons of water every day, one-third of which flows outside, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power. That's about 60,000 gallons a year per household, just for lawn and other landscaping.

Some parts of parched San Bernardino County have started mandating less turf. In Victorville, lawns for new homes can't take up more than 10% of the property. The Victor Valley Water District has a "cash for grass" program, offering 40 cents per square foot of lawn converted to a desert landscape. Last month, Hesperia also began to restrict lawn size of new homes to a maximum of 20% of frontyard space.

But any reexamination of lawn digs up more than entrenched Bermuda. It reveals the extent to which this iconic garden feature has enamored a culture and permeated our suburban identity.

Walter Hrubesky tried to kick the turf habit. Concerned about water usage, he planted succulents and cactuses in his Van Nuys frontyard, but the desert vista left him cold. "I didn't like the looks of it, and I didn't like going out in it," the retiree says.

So he switched back to grass. Now his two grandkids run back and forth, fall on the lawn and love it. They wouldn't be able to do that with succulents, he points out. Although Hrubesky feels guilty about watering his lawn, he says adamantly, "I'm not giving it up."

LAWN, some researchers suggest, is more than a custom. They say humans are drawn to open, lush landscapes for safety and survival. Lawns represent an oasis, albeit a denaturalized one, according to Paul Faulstich, who teaches environmental studies at Pitzer College in Claremont. He has written that "lawns represent the metaphorical waterhole in the parched savanna."

Lawns also tap primal notions of natural beauty. "People want to rationalize the landscape," says Jim Folsom, director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino. "The hauntingly beautiful vista or the garden of paradise is always a place where you have this rich texture surrounding you, but in it is an opening of Shakespearean glade. There is something in our aesthetic that is pleased by these clearings. A lawn fits into that. It gives us this smooth, contemplative, quiet surface."

The color of turf is part of the attraction, beckoning us to the oasis on our doorsteps. Green is a symbol of life and park-like calm; in color psychology, green represents balance and stability.

"For men, especially, the color green provides a deep sense of comfort," says "The Organic Lawn Care Manual" author Paul Tukey. "The color green is serene. It lowers everybody's pulse."

The all-American lawn hails from waterlogged England and isn't a natural fit for the climate extremes of the U.S. It took the advent of grass hybrids and a concerted campaign by the Garden Club of America starting in the 1930s to sell the lawn as a badge of suburban affluence, a civic duty of sorts. By the '50s the social norm of the lawn was fully entrenched.

Lawns wouldn't have stuck around, though, if they didn't serve practical needs. Turf extends the living area outdoors. It stabilizes the soil and keeps down dust and mud. It's cooling in the summer. You want to walk on it, barbecue near it, cartwheel over it.

"There is nothing like the lawn for gathering, for play," Folsom says. "You can get playgrounds where they've got those rubber chips, where they've got sand, but none of those has the quality of a lawn.

"If you're living in Southern California and you're putting all that water into a lawn, what you're investing in is a wonderful open surface for activity, for enjoyment."

For skeptical environmentalists who happen to be sports fans, he offers another comparison: the stadium outfitted with synthetic turf.

"Now tell me," he says, "which is a better carbon footprint: a lawn we're watering or a $250-million space that we're air conditioning?"

For many of us, grass was our first stage on the world outside, the surface of our youth, and the associations run deep. Emily Lodmer remembers her son squirting down the Slip 'n Slide and the party in the frontyard for her daughter when she went away to graduate school. Unlike the travails that play out in our indoor lives, turf is a reminder of unburdened days in the sun.

"Those are the wings right there," Fran Arrowsmith says, pointing to the see-through propellers of a blue darner in a photo from her garden album. The dragonfly is one of many visitors she and husband Bill have welcomed to their Torrance backyard since they dug up half the lawn and turned it into an 1,100-square-foot native plant gallery. Flame skimmer dragonflies, western tiger swallowtail butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and an aviary of winged drop-ins are regulars now but weren't when the yard was all grass.

With a wending dirt trail and artfully arranged blooms wrapping around it, the garden looks like a scenic nature trail. In fact, it does get tours, conducted by the California Native Plant Society.

A bright sun beats down as Bill and Fran detail the local color — pinkish-red buckwheat, purple salvia and yellow-clustered mallow, among 100-plus plants in the collection. The salvia gets watered once a month; the lupine and mallow haven't needed a drink since April.

"It just killed us to be watering all the time," says Bill, a retired TRW engineer like Fran. "Our primary reason for the garden was environmental."

Adds Fran: "The water situation is only going to get worse. You look at the lowering of the reservoirs — Mead, Powell — we're going to be in real trouble."

Active in the campaign to preserve Madrona Marsh in Torrance, the Arrowsmiths decided to take their environmental work to their own backyard. They immersed themselves in native plant courses and, with the direction of natural landscape designer Tony Baker, had most of their garden planted in two days.

The resulting profusion of greens and wildflower hues enhanced — not sacrificed — the garden's color. They're so happy with the results, they're going to replace the turf in the frontyard.

"It's not a choice between a green lawn and ugly cactus," Bill says.

The rich palette of native plants makes for the most competitive alternative yet to the classic lawn, and some communities are paying attention. The city of Palm Desert is encouraging a mix of natives with gravel and rocks to combat "nuisance" runoff.

It has a pilot program to replace grass with desert plants, remove sod within 24 inches of the sidewalk or street, and install subterranean irrigation.

"Overhead sprinklers cover more ground than they're designed for," says Spencer Knight, landscape manager for the city. "So we have water running down gutters that should be bone dry this time of year. It's 112 out there."

Lawn care executive John Marshall blames faulty irrigation and broken sprinklers — "lawn geysers" — as the culprit in runoff. "Turf areas are very good at collecting water, filtering water and holding it in place," says Marshall, who's in charge of training at Scotts Miracle-Gro, a $7-billion lawn-care company in Marysville, Ohio.

His keys to cutting landscape water consumption: better-informed sprinkler users and systems working properly.

Another factor that could cut water usage is, oddly enough, the backlash against lawn chemicals, which is driving demand for organic fertilizers, soil nutrients and other products. Scotts' own organic line, launched in 2003, is booming.

Andy Lopez, a landscaping entrepreneur in Malibu, converted the Lodmers' lawn to organic care and cut its water needs by half, he says.

"There are lots of benefits from an organic lawn," he says, "but there are no advantages to a chemical lawn."

For its part, the conventional lawn-care business counters that organic fertilizers aren't free of risks. If washed onto pavement, these nutrients flow into storm drains and may find their way into rivers and lakes, according to the industry group Planet, the Professional Landcare Network. The group also says organic pesticide techniques are ineffective.

But Tukey, a "self-confessed lawn junkie," became a leader in organic lawn care after he got seriously ill working with lawn chemicals. He formed the organization SafeLawns.org to promote organically managed lawns, and today he and other advocates say organic lawns use one-third to one-half less water by feeding the soil, not the grass, as chemical products do.

"Soccer moms don't want their kids rolling around on toxic lawns," Tukey says. "These pesticides and weed killers are toxic to children. No one argues that."

THE Great American Lawn has come under scrutiny during other droughts, only to assume its place at the head of the porch when rainfall picks up again. But with reservoirs falling and green consciousness rising, the public debate might finally be shifting for good.

"Maybe we ought to be going for a new aesthetic," says the Huntington's Folsom. "Maybe you go to something that's more layered."

Lance Walheim, a California horticulturist and author of "Lawn Care for Dummies," sees change ahead too.

"For a long time we've known we have too much lawn," he says. He envisions a future with smaller lawns, more buffalo grasses and other varieties that suck up less water, as well as better use of sprinkler timers.

Finding a more sustainable landscape may also take the realization that the lawns where we played whiffle ball and dove into plastic pools are empty these days, that kids are lost in video games and MySpace, that parents are locked in workweeks without end. We're not in lawn Kansas anymore.

As turf fan Tukey puts it, "If the only time you see your lawn is on top of a mower, isn't there something better to be done with a lawn?" #

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-lawn5jul05,0,4172659,full.story?coll=la-home-middleright

 

 

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER CONSERVATION:

Redding to promote water conservation

Redding Record Searchlight – 7/4/07

By Scott Mobley, staff writer

 

Redding water customers during the next year can expect to hear more about irrigating their lawns a little less.

 

Even if the coming winter brings buckets of rainfall, customers will be asked to consider shorter showers, sweep the driveway instead of hosing it down and fix leaking faucets.

 

Faced with the rising costs of developing more water supplies, Redding wants to tighten the tap on consumption over the long haul.

 

The conservation campaign starts this summer. The 400 customers consuming water at the highest rate will be asked to submit to usage audits. City Hall will be first on the list.

 

The biggest water users may face higher rates than those who conserve down the line.

 

"We want to make conservation an element of water supply because every gallon saved is a gallon you don't have to produce," said Gerry Cupp, municipal utilities director.

 

For years, the city has cultivated a "use it or lose it" philosophy on water, declining to plan for significant cutbacks even in the face of severe drought. If Redding did not take full advantage of its senior Sacramento River rights, some other agency would claim the water, officials reasoned.

 

But now the city is approaching the limit of how much water it can take from the river, Cupp told the City Council during recent budget hearings. The city has turned to wells to meet its growing demand.

 

Every new well costs ratepayers roughly $2.5 million to develop. But if the city can shave 10 percent off peak consumption, that's two fewer wells it must drill, Cupp said.

 

Redding consumed slightly more than 51 million gallons of water during a single day at the peak of the July heat wave last year. That was a record, and some 4 million gallons beyond the city's treatment capacity, Cupp noted.

 

The state Department of Health Services requires cities to keep a five percent water capacity reserve. The agency prefers a 10 percent reserve, Cupp said.

 

Redding is on a pipe building blitz to boost its reserves to 10 percent beyond peak demand by next July. Yet that reserve will only erode as the city grows, Cupp said.

 

Water consumption in Redding nearly doubles from April to its summer peak. Much of that increase is thirsty landscaping, Cupp believes.

 

Many conservation measures can simply be built into homes, he noted. For its extensive landscaping, the city may explore sprinkler systems that activate only when sensors pick up low plant moisture. Homeowners and landlords can install low flow shower heads, aerated faucets and dual flush toilets.

 

The city has had a water conservation program since 1995 that distributes brochures on how and when to irrigate and other tips.

 

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has commended the program for setting a good example in northern California.

 

So far, however, water conservation in Redding hasn't generated nearly as much buzz as energy efficiency, where customer costs are higher. The city hopes publicity campaigns this summer and especially next spring will start to raise awareness.

 

"My view is that you ought to get water conservation going to get people used to it before there's a problem," Cupp said. "The sooner you do that the sooner it becomes a way of life instead of something forced on you by the government." #

http://www.redding.com/news/2007/jul/04/redding-to-promote/

 

 

IRRIGATION CONSERVATION:

Water tool made available for frugal consumers; Irrigation device listed at $150 for DWA customers

Desert Sun – 7/5/07

By Katie Ruark, staff writer

 

Water customers in Cathedral City and Palm Springs are being offered a new irrigation system controller to conserve water and save money.

 

The Desert Water Agency Board of Directors decided Tuesday to offer the controller, which automatically adjusts watering times and amounts for different seasons.

 

A chip in the controller contains evaporation and plant water loss data from previous years, said the water agency's general manager, David Luker.

 

The agency will eat the cost for new buildings to encourage developers to use them.

 

Cost is $150 for existing customers.

 

"At $150, these will pay for themselves in a year," said board vice president Ron Starrs.

 

Coachella Valley Water District has had a similar program since November 2005.

 

They cost-share the controllers with local governments and homeowners.

 

"We have 418 installed at this point," said Dave Koller, the district's conservation coordinator. "And they are saving about 131 gallons a day each."

 

He said that calculates to a 26 percent savings annually on the customers' bills.

 

Luker said this is a way to provide a conservation technique without having to ask a city to pass an ordinance or go through any other "red tape" because it will be completely voluntary by the customer. #

http://www.desertsunonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070705/NEWS01/707050319/1006/news01

 

 

WATER YEAR IN REVIEW:

REGIONAL: UPDATE: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HAS DRIEST YEAR SINCE 1977

CBS Channel 5 (Bay Area) – 7/3/07

 

Sacramento's 2006-2007 water year ended Saturday with 11.95 inches of rain since July 1, 2006, making it the driest year in 30 years, the National Weather Service has announced.

 

To account for California's rainy season, which takes place from October through March, the water year in California begins July 1 and ends June 30, according to a National Weather Service dispatcher.

 

With no rainfall in Sacramento for nearly two months now, this year's precipitation amounted to less than half the rain Northern California received in the 2005-2006 water year, a total of 25.63 inches.

 

This water year is also the 26th ranked driest year in Sacramento since the county began documenting precipitation records in 1849.

 

Due to this year's dry skies, the Santa Clara Valley Water District issued a conservation message asking the 1.7 million residents in the 15 cities and towns whose water comes from Santa Clara County to reduce personal water usage by 10 percent.

 

"Fifty percent of home water use goes to landscaping,'' said Susan Siravo, SCWD spokeswoman.

 

"If people watered their lawns three times a week instead of every day, that alone could save 10 percent (per household),'' Siravo said.

 

Another measure taken by the SCWD to reduce the use of water in residences is the Water Wise House Call, implemented as a free service in June 2006.

 

Santa Clara County residents may call for a water assessment crew to visit their home and investigate the water usage in their house, such as with faucets, toilets, showers, and outdoor hoses.

 

The surveyors then figure out specifically how residents can cut back on their water usage, and offer a plan for the residents based on the ways they currently use their water.

 

"We feel it's a good time for people to take a look at when they're using water, inside and outside, and see if there's anything they can do to cut back,'' Siravo said.

 

In light of California's lack of rain, the Contra Costa Water District asked its residents to save water by replacing older toilets and washing machines with newer, more energy efficient models.

 

The CCWD also distributed a list of water conservation tips to its customers in May to prepare Contra Costa County residents for a dry summer. #

http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2007/07/03/n/HeadlineNews/WATER-YEAR/resources_bcn_html

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