[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 4/24/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

April 24, 2008

 

1.  Top Item -

 

East Bay water managers plan for drought

San Francisco Chronicle – 4/24/08

By Kelly Zito, staff writer

 

East Bay water managers are mulling a slew of measures - from ordinary bans on car washing to drastic water bill increases - to protect their critically low reservoirs.

Other Bay Area water districts haven't reached that point. Yet.

 

But amid concerns about changing weather patterns and the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, many consumers and businesses in the region could see changes over coming years in where they get their water, how it gets to them and what they will be permitted to use it for. One element isn't likely change: Water users will be asked to do less with less.

 

"All the research around the impact of climate change in California shows potential prolonged droughts, drier winters, more wild swings between drier years and wet years," said Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to residents of the city as well as communities on the Peninsula. "As water agencies and as consumers, we need to manage our water more wisely. There will never again be a period in California where we don't have to think about water conservation."

 

Winnicker and officials from 10 other regional water agencies met Wednesday to renew a campaign urging consumers to use less water. The meeting came one day after the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which provides water to 1.3 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, announced that its board is examining mandatory water restrictions, price increases and even water allotments in an effort to stretch its dwindling supply.

 

Unless rains soak the Bay Area in the next several weeks, the district expects to have about 425,000 acre-feet of water by early fall - 175,000 acre-feet below its optimal 600,000 acre-feet. The board will vote on whether to impose rationing May 13. One acre-foot is the amount of water it would take to flood an acre to a level of one foot. One acre-foot of water equals about 325,000 gallons, which can supply a household of four for one year.

 

"The danger is, if we don't protect our water supply now, it could be dry again next year and that 175,000 could turn into 300,000, and then you start to devastate the area," said Charles Hardy, spokesman for East Bay MUD. He is convinced his district's stepped-up measures will preserve its supply until its reservoirs can refill.

 

Growth not to blame

Hardy discounts population growth as a factor in the water shortage: He said the district uses the same amount of water - about 230 million gallons a year - as it did nearly four decades ago when the population was two-thirds what it is today.

 

Currently, the snowpack feeding into the Mokelumne River, which in turn flows into the district's large Pardee and Camanche reservoirs, is about 50 percent below average. Last winter also yielded meager water; and this March and April are among the driest in the district's 85 year-history.

 

The agency does face some quirks and limits that others do not, Hardy said. For one, the Mokelumne River watershed is fairly small in relation to others; second, this year's winter storms dumped more rain south of the river basin.

 

So far, agencies in the North Bay, San Francisco and the Santa Clara Valley have escaped with only voluntary water reductions - on the order of about 10 percent.

But even with some comparatively flush reservoirs in the region - Marin's are at 101 percent of capacity - experts say consumers may see more restrictions.

 

"This is a wake-up call that's been a long time coming, and it's not going to be confined" to East Bay MUD, said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland. "This is going to be a challenge for water districts throughout the state."

 

Gleick said water planners have largely tackled the low-hanging fruit of conservation - helping pay for low-flow toilets and the like. Now they must set more ambitious goals, such as recharging aquifers and reusing treated wastewater to flush toilets and to irrigate lawns and golf courses.

 

"Currently we dump a lot of it in the ocean," he said, speaking of treated wastewater. Let's put it to use where we need it."

 

Erratic rainfall

The Bay Area has enjoyed a run of relatively wet years, following a drought from 1987 to 1993. In the last few years, however, rainfall has become more erratic, making water planning difficult. The 2006-07 winter was particularly tough.

 

"That winter was so dry we had to release water from reservoirs to meet demand in the summer," said Don Strickland, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources. "And we haven't had much since then to put back in - so the reservoirs are getting really low."

 

Strickland spoke recently with a Central Valley pistachio farmer who is only getting 35 percent of his request from the state's water project. He's now digging a 2,000-foot-deep well.

 

In the Bay Area, water supplies pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have fluctuated due to a court battle over protecting endangered fish. The Santa Clara Valley Water District, for instance, said its flows from the delta are down by nearly one-third, forcing the agency to rely more heavily on its reservoirs.

 

"We're still in good shape now, but with water you never know what's around the corner," said Susan Siravo, agency spokeswoman. "With the uncertainty in the delta right now, we don't know what's going to happen."

 

Unlike other districts that aim for a four-year supply of water, the Marin Municipal Water District system is built to handle only half that. General Manager Paul Helliker said Marin is "always two years away from a drought."

 

To forestall that, Marin supervisors are planning a desalination plant on the San Quentin peninsula that would pump about 5 million gallons out of the bay each day, satisfying about one-sixth of the county's annual water needs.

 

East Bay MUD is working on a large-scale project of its own: a $690 million cooperative system with Sacramento that would siphon water from the Sacramento River at Freeport, a town south of Sacramento on Highway 5. If completed as planned, the project could pump tens of millions of gallons a day to consumers during dry times.

 

"We knew a drought was coming, and that's why we do the work on conservation," Hardy said. "When Mother Nature shuts that spigot off, your planning has to take in more than that."#

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/24/BAVK10AKT9.DTL