A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 6, 2007
2. Supply
WATER SAVINGS FALLING SHORT; Hot spell blamed for high use, but Water Agency indicates it may take tougher steps - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
AGRICULTURE ISSUES:
Drought a drain in wine country - USA Today
DESALINATION:
Water Department Works With UCLA On Desalination - Gazette Newspapers (
WATER SAVINGS FALLING SHORT; Hot spell blamed for high use, but Water Agency indicates it may take tougher steps
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 7/6/07
By Bob Norberg, staff writer
Over the first four days of state-mandated water conservation,
The Sonoma County Water Agency said its customers used 853 acre feet of water between July 1 and July 4 -- 61 acre-feet more than the target of 792 acre-feet.
"It's too early to tell, but if the numbers continue, we will be asking for more from our contractors without a doubt," Water Agency spokesman Brad Sherwood said.
The agency has been ordered by the state to cut its take from the
The water would be saved in
Pam Jeane, the deputy chief of operations for the agency, blamed the recent spate of hot weather for missing the 15 percent target.
The first four days of this July were as much as 10 degrees hotter than in July 2004.
"We are going to have periods of time like this week where it is really hot, where we will see significant differences like this, and there are weeks where the fog will roll in and there will be significant differences the other way," Jeane said.
"The water we pump is so weather dependent that it is difficult to look at it over a short period of time and say it is meaningful," she said.
Still, Jeane said, the Water Agency was looking for a good start toward meeting the conservation goal.
"It is a little disappointing because there has been a message out there since April about the need to save water," Jeane said. "It is a little disconcerting."
The Water Agency, which supplies water to 600,000 homes and businesses in
Cities and water districts have said they have conservation programs in place, and many said they believed they already were meeting the 15 percent goal.
But use for the first four days of July amounted to a reduction of 8.5 percent over the same four days in 2004.
"There is no cause for immediate concern," Rohnert Park Councilman Jake Mackenzie said. "But as the summer would go on, if there was going to be a systemwide problem in meeting the 15 percent, the contractors would have to look at mandatory rationing, there is no doubt in my mind, if that is what the data shows."
"It is early in getting people both informed and acting," said Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Wine-grape Commission. "Cool weather will probably help."
The growers represented by Frey's group draw water from the river or wells and aren't Water Agency customers but they also have been asked to conserve, as have Ukiah, Healdsburg and Cloverdale.
The agency will issue reports every Monday on water use during the four-month conservation period, Sherwood said. #
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070706/NEWS/707060360/1033/NEWS01
AGRICULTURE ISSUES:
Drought a drain in wine country
By John Ritter,
Cool or cloudy means less irrigation. A heat wave tells the system to water more often. It shuts down for weeks during winter rains. The goal is for Willard's landscaping to get enough water to thrive, but not a drop more.
Willard, a marketing consultant, says he's using at least 10% less water a month with the $600 system, which he got for $300 with a rebate. "It's been reliable, certainly efficient based on the numbers," he says. "I haven't touched it other than minor adjustments. I don't even think about it anymore."
The debate here and in other parched areas of the nation is whether such voluntary measures will be enough to conserve water supplies. Parts of the
"Certain segments of the population won't do anything unless they're forced to, and penalties, including for some people (utilities) shutting off water, (are) serious enough," says Liz Gardener, Denver Water's conservation manager.
The agency isn't pushing to fine users for excessive watering as it did during
'Pressure' on grape growers
Last month,
"We're in a very desirable place to live, and we know there's tremendous pressure for the water we use to grow our grapes from urban sources and fisheries," says Pete Opatz, a viticulturist who manages vineyards for Vino Farms in
"Another winter like last winter and we're in serious trouble," says Brad Sherwood, spokesman for the
The Sierra snowpack, which melts in spring and supplies much of
Rocky Mountains snow that melts into the Colorado River and supplies water to 30 million people, including
Water-saving plumbing codes and rebates for water-efficient appliances have reduced water wasted indoors nationwide, but outdoor use keeps growing, even in dry areas where lush, irrigated lawns can't be justified, says Amy Vickers, a conservation consultant in
"Having a lawn and other irrigated landscaping in a desert, even if it's watered efficiently, still uses a tremendous amount of water," she says.
When a city asks for voluntary cutbacks on watering lawns, it may not see the drop it expects, Vickers says. "When you say, for example, only water every other day or every third day, people start assuming that they should water on those days whether they need to or not," she says.
The only proven strategy for cutting outdoor use, Vickers says, is a mandatory water schedule backed up by enforcement and penalties.
Conservation a 'fact of life'
In April, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission asked the 2.4 million Bay Area residents it serves to cut water use by 10% by June or face possible rationing. By mid-June, the agency had seen an 18% drop in projected use, but that could have been because the weather was unseasonably cool, says spokesman Tony Winnicker.
As temperatures warmed, water use spiked again. "We don't feel like we're out of the woods, by any means," he says. "Conservation is always going to be a fact of life in
During the state's last severe drought, from 1987 to 1992, some consumers knew they would be restricted to a water allotment based on previous use and reasoned, "Wow, I'll turn on the faucets now so my allotment will be higher," Winnicker says.
Raising the cost of water achieves only limited reductions, particularly among affluent consumers, says Kathy Nguyen, water conservation coordinator for
Long term, it's unclear whether conservation will be enough. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed building two huge, multibillion-dollar dams so the state can store more water. But he faces stiff legislative opposition.
Among wine-grape growers in
To achieve the mandated 15% reduction, some growers will delay irrigation. That will please wineries that buy the growers' grapes, because starting irrigation later stresses the vines, and more stress produces a tastier grape. But less water and more stress means a grower produces fewer tons of grapes, and growers get paid by the ton.
"That's always going to be the compromise when we talk water in our industry," he says.
Contributing: Marissa DeCuir; Stefanie Frith, The (
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-05-insidewater_N.htm
DESALINATION:
Water Department Works With UCLA On Desalination
Gazette Newspapers (
By Harry Saltzgaver, Executive Editor
The agreement means UCLA will conduct bench-scale membrane evaluations, theoretical model development, data modeling and optimization studies. The laboratory research work will use and complement data being gathered at Long Beach’s 300,000-gallon per day test facility and a companion Under Ocean Floor Intake and Discharge Demonstration System.
The $5.4 million desalination plant, next to the Haynes Power Plant on the border with
“We think that this will be a win-win relationship,” Dr. Robert Cheng, assistant general manager for the Water Department, said in a press release. “It is one that allows
In addition to the work on the desalination process, the Water Department is studying the potential for underground pipes to draw water from the ocean and return the mineral-saturated brine that remains after the process back to the ocean. The concept is that the ocean floor will act as a natural filter, lessening the environmental impact of both pumping water into the treatment plant and sending the remains back to mix with the ocean.
Studies are expected to take at least another year. Then the city must find the money — likely from the federal government and other governmental partners — to build a full-scale desalination plant. Officials have said it will be at least 2012 before that happens.
It costs up to $1,200 an acre-foot to desalinate water now. An acre-foot of water is about enough to supply a family of four for a year.
The new desalination method could drop the price to between $700 and $750 an acre-foot — a price that could be competitive by the end of the decade. #
http://www.gazettes.com/waterucla07052007.html
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