[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 12/19/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

December 20, 2007

 

2. Supply

 

WATER RECYCLING:

Agency makes plans for treated wastewater - LA Daily News

 

NEVADA WATER ISSUES:

SNWA to get double credit for rural water - Ely Times (Nevada)

 

DROUGHT ISSUES:

Thirsting for answers in dry Georgia - USA Today

 

 

WATER RECYCLING:

Agency makes plans for treated wastewater

LA Daily News – 12/19/07

By Patricia Farrell Aidem, staff writer

 

SANTA CLARITA - A court order that resulted in a huge cut in water bound for Southern California - coupled with a high growth rate projected for the Santa Clarita Valley - has local officials looking to expand water recycling.

 

The goal is to reuse 22,000 acre-feet of treated wastewater for irrigation and other nondrinking purposes in hopes of augmenting the supply to accommodate current needs and the demands of development.

 

"This would help us displace some of the potable-water demand and help us meet our goal of reusing wastewater," said Jeff Ford, interim water resources manager for the Castaic Lake Water Agency.

 

In a year-end report to the agency, consultants to its Governmental Relations and Outreach Committee said they plan to work with federal legislators to secure $1.5million to expand water recycling.

 

The agency is a wholesaler that manages the water supply imported to Santa Clarita and sells to local retailers.

 

Currently, 500 acre-feet of recycled water is being used to irrigate the TPC Westridge golf course in Valencia and the landscaped street medians nearby.

 

That 2003 project was the first in the area to use recycled wastewater treated at one of two local wastewater treatment plants.

 

The first phase has a capacity of piping 1,700 acre-feet, but no other hookups have been installed, Ford said.

 

The water agency could decide as soon as next month on the second phase of the program.

 

The Valencia Industrial Center, the Valencia Commerce Center and Castaic area, and the Vista Valencia and Valencia Country Club golf courses are the candidates.

 

The agency would lay the backbone of the system and the appropriate water company would install the hookups, Ford said.

 

"We'll use a model that will determine which of the three we would choose, the one that could get the most users," Ford said.

 

The CLWA has developed a master plan to recycle wastewater in several phases and ultimately supply 22,000 acre-feet per year of reused water. The major expense is installation of a distribution system.

 

The plan calls for two pump stations, one booster station, eight holding tanks and about 55 miles of purple distribution pipeline - purple is mandated by the state to distinguish the pipes from drinking water lines.

 

For years, the state Department of Water Resources has pressured California's water suppliers to recycle treated wastewater for nonpotable uses to cut their reliance on Northern California rivers.

 

Now, with a ruling this summer that limited pumping water from the Sacramento Delta to protect the delta smelt, all of Southern California is facing the need to conserve water.

 

The smelt is a small fish that is an indicator of the viability of the delta. Its numbers are down, which could be a sign the delta's 750 species of plants and wildlife, some threatened or endangered, are suffering more as water is pumped south.  #

http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_7765127?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com

 

 

NEVADA WATER ISSUES:

SNWA to get double credit for rural water

Ely Times (Nevada) – 12/19/07

By Henry Brean, Stephens Media

 

A big water week for Las Vegas just got a whole lot bigger, thanks to a new deal with the federal government that will almost double how much water the community could get from a proposed pipeline to Eastern Nevada.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has agreed to let the Southern Nevada Water Authority collect return-flow credits on any groundwater it imports from rural Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties.

The arrangement will effectively allow much of that water to be used twice.

Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy called it "a huge deal for us," though it amounted to little more than a minor administrative move for the bureau.

There was no news conference or elaborate signing ceremony. A bureau administrator simply gave the OK in a letter sent to the authority last week.

"It's on my desk right now," Mulroy said on Thursday.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes to begin piping rural groundwater to Las Vegas by 2012. The entire pipeline network, stretching some 300 miles to as far north as Great Basin National Park, could go online by 2019.

The price tag for the project is expected to easily top $2 billion and could go as high as $3.5 billion, according to the water authority's latest projections.

The water authority's plans have drawn staunch opposition, especially in the rural areas where groundwater would be tapped. Environmentalists believe the project could dry up springs and kill sensitive plants. Ranchers see it as a threat to their water holdings and their livelihoods.

Federal officials are expected to wrap up an environmental review of the project by 2009.

The authority also will need approval from the state's chief water regulator before pumping begins.

If the pipeline yields 100,000 acre-feet of water a year, return-flow credits could expand that amount by another 70,000 acre-feet, which is enough water to supply 140,000 homes.

The authority already earns return-flow credits for the Colorado River water it withdraws from Lake Mead and returns to the reservoir in the form of treated effluent.

Without such credits, the Las Vegas Valley would have outgrown its 300,000 acre-foot annual share of the Colorado River in 1993.

Mulroy said the community can squeeze even more out of the return-flow credit system by reducing landscape watering and other outdoor uses that don't result in water being sent back to Lake Mead.

"It's like a reward for outdoor conservation," she said.

News of the return-flow credit deal comes on the heels of a landmark agreement signed in Las Vegas on Thursday that spells out how Colorado River water will be distributed during extended drought.

Southern Nevada gains access to about 40,000 acre-feet a year and a one-time reserve of at least 400,000 acre-feet under the sweeping interstate pact.

But Mulroy said winning permission to collect return-flow credits for imported groundwater rivals all that.

"I think it's equally big. Now you have a 40 (to) 50-year water supply, if you stay on your conservation path," she said. #

http://www.elynews.com/articles/2007/12/19/news/news10.txt

 

 

DROUGHT ISSUES:

Thirsting for answers in dry Georgia

USA Today – 12/19/07

By Larry Copeland, staff writer

 

ATLANTA — Georgia had experienced dry spells before, but a drought that gripped this state from 1998-2002 seemed to sound the clarion call.

 

The Legislature, worried that fast-growing Atlanta was consuming water at the expense of the rest of the state, created a regional authority to chart a plan to manage the resource.

 

When a relentless drought hit last year, however, the agency's water-saving recommendations mostly had not been implemented.

 

Drought had ravaged San Diego, too, but its legacy was far different.

 

A six-year drought that ended in 1992 prompted conservation measures and other steps that enabled the metropolitan area to add a half-million people without substantially increasing water usage.

 

The sharply contrasting ways that normally rainy metropolitan Atlanta and semi-arid San Diego County have dealt with growth and water consumption are an instructive tale that might offer clues to Georgia legislators as they try again in January to divvy up the region's precarious water supply.

 

A key difference in the two approaches is the conservation ethic. San Diego, which averages about 10 inches of rain a year in a region where water conservation is part of the fabric of life, has one. Atlanta, which averages nearly 50 inches annually — but not for the past two years — does not.

 

San Diego long has been on the cutting edge of conservation. The city Water Department, for example, this month moved forward on a pilot project in which treated sewage would be purified and used to boost water supplies.

 

That kind of innovative action has not been seen in north Georgia, where the main water source, Lake Lanier, now looks more like a lunar landscape than a sparkling reservoir where water-skiers once pooled and the region is on track for its driest season on record. Gov. Sonny Perdue announced Tuesday that 61 drought-stricken counties have cut usage by 15%.

 

Strong, consistent leadership is necessary to create a conservation ethic, and that's been missing here, says environmentalist Sally Bethea, executive director of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a group that seeks to protect Atlanta's prime watershed. "There's been a lot of nice talk, education programs and studies on water conservation," she says. "But I have not seen leaders providing real incentives and regulatory programs that would yield measurable reductions in our use of water."

 

Brig. Gen. Joseph Schroedel, regional head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Southeast, says Atlanta should learn from San Diego about how to grow without greatly increasing water usage. "They came up with conservation measures that allowed them to add 500,000 people, and they're consuming no more water than they did 500,000 people ago," he says.

 

Wake-up call for San Diego

 

The 1986-92 drought in Southern California was a seminal moment for the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA). The agency then was importing 95% of its water from the giant water district to the north that serves Los Angeles, says Assistant General Manager Dennis Cushman. It cut that amount to 73% and implemented pioneering water-saving efforts, including a measure for toilets that later became the national standard, Cushman says.

 

San Diego required that toilets use no more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush, down from as much as 7 gallons. The county offered incentives of $75-$100 per toilet to retrofit older homes and required property owners to make the changes before they could sell their homes. More than 600,000 toilets have been retrofitted, saving millions of gallons of water, Cushman says.

 

Other steps San Diego has taken: The water authority gave away 500,000 low-flow shower heads. It's offering $175 vouchers toward the purchase of high-efficiency washing machines, which use 65% less water and 55% less energy than standard top-loading machines. The Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College teaches residents landscaping techniques that use less water. Yet San Diego, where 2007 rainfall is almost 60% below normal, still faces potential water shortages next year.

 

Dilemma for Atlanta

 

State Sen. Seth Harp, like millions of other Georgians who rely on the same relatively small river system as Atlanta, worries that the metro area's growth will retard that of communities downstream on the Chattahoochee River.

 

"Unless (Atlanta's growth) is severely limited and regulated, those of us who are downstream are going to be high and dry, and are rapidly becoming high and dry," says Harp, a Republican from Columbus, 110 miles to the south.

 

Harp sponsored a bill that would have required owners of pre-1993 homes to retrofit with water-saving plumbing fixtures. The bill, which he says would have saved millions of gallons of water a day, died two years ago in the Legislature. He says the real estate industry lobbied heavily against the bill.

 

The Legislature in 2001 created an agency to form a water management plan for 16 counties in metro Atlanta.

 

That body, the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, predicted it could cut water usage 11% by 2030, spokeswoman Grace Trimble says, primarily by retrofitting toilets; conservation pricing, in which customers pay higher rates for greater water use; and fixing leaky pipes in distribution systems.

 

The district is making progress: 98% of its residents are served by utilities that have conservation pricing and 94% by utilities that have leak-detection programs, Trimble says.

 

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has launched a $4 billion overhaul of the city's leaky sewer and water pipes.

 

Across the metro area, an estimated 18% of water is still lost to leaks, says Jill Johnson of Georgia Conservation Voters. Reducing that to 10% would save up to 50 million gallons of water a day, she predicts.

 

There's a reason Atlantans didn't conserve in the past, Harp says.

 

"Usually about the time everybody is screaming bloody murder, there will come a huge rain," he says. "Ironically, the worst thing that can happen now is to get a heavy rain." #

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/drought/2007-12-18-drought_N.htm

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