A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 17, 2007
2. Supply
County steps up water efforts; Next: Officials want state to help limit usage, feds to free more water from Lake Sonoma - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
ENFORCEMENT: 'Water cops' tag homes, threatening $500 fines -
Going dry in St. Helena; City weighs stricter water policies - Napa Valley Register
WATER CONSERVATION GOALS MET -
County steps up water efforts; Next: Officials want state to help limit usage, feds to free more water from Lake Sonoma
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 7/17/07
By Bleys Rose, staff writer
Freaked out and flummoxed that public pleas for water conservation aren't proving effective, the Sonoma County Water Agency is asking local grape growers and water customers, state and federal agencies for help in constricting the tap.
Water Agency officials said late Monday that two weeks' worth of water conservation has produced a meager 9.9 percent decrease in water consumption, far short of the 15 percent decrease ordered by the state Water Resources Control Board.
"Our agency is having a difficult time operating the
The Water Agency says it lacks regulatory authority to do much more than cajole conservation out of private agriculture or the municipalities that supply water to about 600,000 residents in
So it wants the state Water Resources Control Board to help bring government and agriculture in line. Last week, state water board officials said they were prepared to take measures to enforce the order, even ordering the shutdown of water pumps.
Because the Water Agency's call for help was not released until late Monday, state officials did not have the opportunity to review it.
Here's what the Water Agency wants:
Grape growers in the
Agency officials concede they are releasing water from the dam at
"No one benefits if stored water is lost to the ocean," said Bob Anderson, executive director of United Winegrowers of Sonoma County. "Hopefully we can find a way to cooperatively succeed in threading the needle."
The National Marine Fisheries Service not to interfere with the release of more water from
Flow along the Dry Creek tributary into the
Federal officials had not yet had the opportunity to review the request.
Cities -- like Healdsburg and Cloverdale -- that draw water from the
Cities that do get water from the Water Agency -- like
Agency officials said they are working with their contractors to develop accurate measures of water allocations so that cities and districts will know precisely how they are faring individually.
Smith said the Water Agency "is facing difficulties implementing the state-mandated 15 percent decrease in water use since 2004." He and other county officials have complained that the lack of water is, in part, a "regulatory drought" caused by restrictions imposed by federal agency rules on endangered species and by state-mandated reductions in water releases from
All 116 pages of the Water Agency's "work plan" for dealing with the state-mandated 15 percent water-use decrease can be reviewed at www.sonomacountywater.org. #
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070717/NEWS/707170364/1033/NEWS01
ENFORCEMENT: 'Water cops' tag homes, threatening $500 fines
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 7/17/07
By Bob Norberg, staff writer
The water pooled on the sidewalk Monday morning, soaking the newspaper lying in the driveway and flowing into the gutter of the neatly kept house in northwest
"This is a pretty good indication, when the lawn is this uniformly green, that there is overwatering," said Dan Muelrath,
Muelrath checked "Excess irrigation, water on sidewalk and in gutter" on a card, walked through the shallow puddles and left the card at the front door of the
A woman at the house, who was retrieving her soggy newspaper, said they already had reduced the irrigation run time to eight minutes from 10 and still were trying to figure out their new controller.
"We've been trying to key it in and not get overspray," said the woman, who declined to give her name. "The controller is new for me; our gardener knows how to run it."
It was one of four houses Muelrath tagged within an hour during his morning patrol. In each case, sprinklers were running and water was flowing freely over sidewalks. He made a note to alert his staff to check three other houses and a business that had water covering the sidewalk.
They will be given 30 days to fix the problems or will face the possibility of $500 a day in fines -- or even have water turned off.
It is all part of the city's stepped-up water conservation program that includes patrols by Muelrath and three full-time "water cops" during the day and at night. They look for homes and businesses where there is overwatering or signs of broken irrigation or plumbing systems.
The city has also set up a hot line, 543-3985, for water waste reports.
It is all in response to a call for conservation by the Sonoma County Water Agency, which was ordered by the state in mid-June to cut the amount of water it takes from the Russian River between July 1 and Oct. 28 by 15 percent from the same period in 2004. The water is to be kept in
After the first 15 days, the Water Agency is well behind its goal. Use has dropped just 9.9 percent below the 2004 level.
If the
The program has several levels that include rationing, no water for irrigation, pools and fountains and rules that water for new construction must be offset by savings elsewhere.
The other major contractors are
Muelrath said
The city has allocated $500,000 for its current, three-year conservation program, primarily for a rebate system that gives $150 for low-flow toilets, $100 to $150 for front-loading washing machines, up to $350 for irrigation systems and 50 cents a square foot to replace lawns.
As part of the patrols, the city employees are particularly looking at homes that records show have high monthly water use, Muelrath said.
He said the city will provide advice and even send workers to houses and businesses tagged by the city's crews to help.
"We know that we can't get 15 percent from everyone, but we know that there are some people that we can get 50 percent from just because they are overwatering," Muelrath said.
He said preventing water waste in irrigation will meet the overall 15 percent goal. #
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070717/NEWS/707170323/1033/NEWS01
Going dry in
By Jesse Duarte, staff writer
If St. Helena is to leave its groundwater untouched and still have a significant amount of water in reserve, residents will have to reduce their water use by as much as a third.
That’s one conclusion of a new study evaluating
The study was conducted at the direction of St. Helena City Councilmembers who wanted to consider a water policy requiring the city to maintain 120 percent of its annual water demand — without factoring in groundwater — before new development may be approved.
The study found that the city’s annual use of 623 million gallons would have to be reduced by 257 million gallons to meet the requirements.
The exclusion of groundwater from water supply calculations reflects the city’s original intention to use wells only for emergencies, and never for more than 20 percent of the city’s water. According to the report, groundwater has supplied 18 percent of the city’s water over the last 10 years.
The study also confirmed the notion that St. Helena uses significantly more water per capita than other
According to the study,
The report recommends the city reduce water use by educating the public about water conservation, increasing water rates, encouraging drought-tolerant landscaping, limiting the square footage devoted to landscaping on new lots, installing “smart” irrigation controllers and meters, and hiring a full-time water conservation coordinator.
Public awareness is at the center of the suggested reforms. To that end, St. Helena Mayor Del Britton included on the agenda of each city council meeting during the last several months a brief discussion of
The council agreed on March 27 to prohibit irrigating and watering on Mondays, allowing residents of even-numbered addresses to water their lawns on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, while residents of odd-numbered addresses can water on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Deeper restrictions, limiting households to 450 gallons per day and requiring commercial and industrial customers to reduce use by 15 percent, would be triggered when it appears Bell Canyon reservoir will fall below 25 percent of full capacity. With the reservoir at 55.3 percent of capacity as of Monday, public works director Jonathon Goldman said it’s possible that more restrictions will become necessary, especially since water consumption typically increases as the dry season wears on.
Environmental concerns over the effects of Sacramento-San Joaquin pumping on the Delta smelt, an endangered fish, have threatened to reduce the amount of water
Many of the conservation strategies recommended by the report are not new. Susan Tiedemann of Napa Valley Ornamental Nursery said while there recently has been a slight increase in customers who consider water use a crucial factor in their landscaping choices, longtime St. Helena residents are well aware of the issue.
“This has been an issue for decades here,” she said. “People have known about it all along.”
Several customers have replaced their lawns with groundcover and water-retaining succulents — as much for easier maintenance as for water conservation, Tiedemann said.
Goldman singled out the
The idea of limiting the area of a lot covered by landscaping has also been raised in
“You just can’t keep letting people have unlimited places to put tons of water,” she said this week. #
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/07/17/news/local/doc469c41abf2d61185017107.txt
WATER CONSERVATION GOALS MET
By Kevin Howe, staff writer
That's the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District's message to its public this summer, which despite the recent hot, dry weather, has seen water use by California American Water customers remain below target conservation goals.
"Water consumption has remained below the daily target every day this month," district water demand manager Stephanie Pintar told her board Monday.
The district is currently in "Stage 1" conservation, she said, which includes water-saving educational efforts, rebates, low-flow device distributions, requiring Cal Am customers to adhere to two outdoor watering days each week, and a tiered rate structure that jacks up water bills when customers exceed normal usage.
Continued water savings, Pintar said, have increased the "cushion" between actual production and the year-to-date water production target from 3.6 percent on June 12 to 4.1 percent as of Wednesday.
The district, she said, could go into more advanced stages of conservation, even though "triggers" for those stages haven't been tripped by water overuse. The district board has the discretion to impose additional restrictions if water use increases to the point of threatening water supply.
Pintar noted that the district and the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments are working with the Monterey Peninsula's hospitality industry on additional conservation measures, including serving water at restaurants only on request, and reminding hotel guests to reuse towels and linens during longer stays.District senior hydrologist Darby Fuerst said water drawn from the Carmel River Aquifer for the "water year" to date is 386 acre-feet below the pumping limit set by the state Water Resources Control Board, though he qualified that achievement by noting that more water than planned was drawn from the Seaside Basin Aquifer.
In 1995, the state water board restricted extraction of water from the Carmel River Aquifer to no more than 11,285 acre-feet per water year — October through September — and as of Thursday, 8,064 acre-feet had been pumped.
Pumping in the Seaside Aquifer, he said, remains 64 acre-feet under the court adjudication limits set on pumping there.
The district shouldn't be patting itself on the back, said Roy Thomas of the Carmel River Steelhead Association, who said the state water board ruling "had nothing to do with drought," but was a legal decision on what diversion rights California American Water had in the river aquifer.
Staying below that limit, he said, "doesn't mean we're saving water; we're just using it down to the limit."
Thomas appeared at the board meeting to urge district officials to take some action to salvage the steelhead trout "smolts" — juvenile fish ready to migrate from their freshwater spawning areas to the ocean — trapped in Carmel River Lagoon.
The lagoon water level is 3 feet at its deepest, he said. "You can wade across it in some places without getting your knees wet."
The fish, he said, will be lost if they stay in the lagoon over the summer. #
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_6393476?nclick_check=1
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