Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 2, 2008
1. Top Items -
L.A. County
Long Beach
Groups plan suit against
The
Sacramento
The Sacramento
How global warming challenges the old Bay Area assumptions
The
SoCal to lend water to Westlands: Additional resources to ease pressure on some crops.
The
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L.A. County
Long Beach
By Troy
If
In a report to the Board of Supervisors, acting Director of Public Works Dean D. Efstathiou said the impact of the drought on county residents will vary depending on which water agencies they use.
But if dry conditions persist, the county districts that will experience the greatest shortages include the
Among the approximately 200 retail water agencies in the county, county government serves residents in the Antelope Valley, Malibu, Acton, Lake Los Angeles, Pearblossom, Littlerock, Val Verde, Topanga Canyon, Kagel Canyon and Marina del Rey.
Since
Other rules include limiting sprinkler use to 10 minutes or 15 minutes, depending on the sprinkler type, and the prohibition of using a hose that doesn't have a water-conserving pressurized cleaning device to wash off driveways and other outdoor surfaces.
A full list of rules is available at www.lbwater.org.
"Those residents that depend heavily on water imported from
"However, due to the extraordinary conservation efforts and the continued drawdown of our storage supplies, we should be all right for the remainder of this calendar year."
In response, the supervisors voted to issue a countywide water supply and conservation alert urging residents, businesses and cities to intensify water conservation efforts and cut usage 15to 20 percent.
The supervisors also directed county departments to reduce water use 10 percent by the end of this year and look for ways to save an additional 10 percent next year.
They directed officials to update the water-wasting ordinance for unincorporated areas and urged state lawmakers to expedite the award of water bond funds from Proposition 84 and 1E to local agencies and the county.
"The supervisors are asking people to save water, but we certainly need to do a lot more than that," said David Sommers, spokesman for Supervisor Don Knabe.
"Everyone has to pitch in here: residents, business, government and particularly the county has to be a good steward of its water resources because of the sheer volume of buildings and land we oversee on the public's behalf."
Sommers noted that the county oversees 306 holes of golf among its golf courses and 65,528 acres of open space at nature areas, parks, golf courses, botanic gardens and the Arboretum.
"If we can increase the use of recycled water in even a fraction of that, that's a huge savings in what the county can do in terms of water reduction," he said.
The action follows a proclamation June 4 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declaring the first statewide drought in 16 years due to dry weather conditions.
Recent court decisions have affected water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta because of depleted fish populations.
And lower-than-normal snowmelt runoff, depleted water supplies in the state's major reservoirs, climate change and an eight-year drought in the
Melinda Barrett, water conservation manager for the county's water districts, said water-saving tips are available at www.bewaterwise.com or www.smartgardening.com.
To report overwatering, call 1-800-675-HELP.#
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_9759822
Groups plan suit against
The
By , Staff Writer
The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, a group of south Valley farmers and water users, claims
The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, headed by
As required by law, both groups sent letters warning officials of their intent to sue within 60 days. The two separate actions were not coordinated, the groups said.
"The Delta is going to drown in a sea of pollution if we don't get the municipalities and industry to comply with the law,"
Stockton City Attorney Ren Nosky said he had heard of the letters but had not seen them and couldn't comment. Public Works officials with the county could not be reached Tuesday afternoon. Mark Madison, director of
The coalition claims invasive species, water quality and diversions are major factors in the estuary's decline. The farmer's coalition has threatened to sue the owners of a power plant in the west Delta, and already has sued the state for supporting populations of striped bass, which critics say eat threatened Delta smelt.
Environmentalists such as
That's why his alliance is threatening to sue
Some of these spills find their way into city storm drains, which empty into waterways feeding the Delta. The end result is toxic for fish and dangerous for those who eat fish,
The coalition's allegations do not concern wastewater that is treated by the city, but rather stormwater. The city and county, which share a stormwater permit, have failed to reduce pollutants that wash off the streets and down the drain, the coalition says.
Coalition spokesman Michael Boccadoro called stormwater runoff a "significant and growing threat" to the health of the Delta.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080702/A_NEWS/807020324/-1/A_NEWS05
Sacramento
The Sacramento
By Matt Weiser
If
The husband and wife bought a home in east
They didn't own a car until four years ago, when their eldest son, then 18 months old, was being treated frequently for food allergies. They bought a Prius.
So when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought June 4, Hartridge decided it was only right to let her front lawn die to save water.
"The whole water conservation ethic is very important to me," said Hartridge, a state employee who bikes or rides the bus to work.
But that ethic didn't agree with her neighbors, or with the city.
Before Hartridge could plan new landscaping, a neighbor complained to the city about her brown lawn, and the Code Enforcement Department slapped the family with a citation.
Their small brick home was declared a "public nuisance" in violation of city code section 17.68.010, which states that front yards "shall be irrigated, landscaped and maintained."
A $746 fine will be next unless they correct the violation.
"In order to make the lawn go, I would have had to keep watering it intensely, and since the drought was declared, I decided that wasn't a good idea," said Hartridge. "Honestly, I think there's a disconnect within the city about priorities."
Two weeks ago, The Bee reported that
"On one hand they're mislaying their water meters, and on the other hand they going out and putting enforcement on people who don't have green lawns," Hartridge said. "And there's water running down the gutters of my neighborhood every day."
City laws forbid landscape irrigation on Mondays (code section 13.04.860), between noon and 6 p.m. (13.04.860), and to such an extent that water runs into gutters (13.04.850).
All these violations could be seen on Hartridge's street this week – one street among thousands in
Neighbor Lois Guy, a retiree, thinks the situation is "crazy."
"It's private property, after all," she said Tuesday while trimming hedges at her home around the corner from Hartridge's.
"They're in the process of doing something (with the lawn). So they should be left alone while they're trying to improve it."
Dennis Kubo, city code enforcement manager, said his department does not communicate with the Utilities Department about drought concerns or water efficiency. His department only enforces health and safety and "general welfare" codes.
"The zoning ordinance tells us that the property owner's got to have landscaping. So that's what we have to do," he said.
The city's landscaping rule is intended to maintain neighborhood visual standards to prevent one neighbor's tastes from harming another's property values.
The rule was the subject of much conflict last year when amended to provide gardeners leeway to grow more than grass.
Sacramentans can now grow large trees, shrubs and, yes, even food in their front yards without fear of reprisal.
But the rules still require front landscaping to be irrigated, which means scores of homeowners could be penalized for growing cacti or other drought-tolerant vegetation.
"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing when it comes to the city," said Karen Baumann, who triggered last year's controversy after she was cited in 2005 for inadequate lawn cover after she removed grass to plant vegetables and flowers in her front yard.
Hartridge was already having trouble keeping her lawn green when nature turned up the heat this spring. She watered every other day and even tried reseeding. But it didn't take.
For her it was a natural decision to stop watering the grass after the governor's drought declaration. But she never got a chance to plan new landscaping before the lawn police arrived.
Last Thursday, the day after the citation came in the mail, she called Code Enforcement to find out how to correct the violation.
She was told an e-mail with landscaping solutions would be forthcoming. It never arrived.
She also called her city councilman, Steve Cohn, who did not respond. Cohn also didn't return a call from The Bee on Tuesday.
Last weekend she decided to cover what's left of her small lawn with redwood mulch, which she spread around a few hydrangeas and azaleas that survive with occasional water.
Hartridge awaits reinspection by Code Enforcement. She does not know when that will happen or whether her yard will comply.
Probably not, Kubo said. Mulch is allowed only as one of the "design elements ... integrated as part of the landscape," according to code section 17.68.010(1)a(1)b.
"If it's just one tree out there, maybe a couple of plants and then the whole front yard is loaded with bark," he said, "then no, that's not going to meet the criteria."#
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/1054905.html
How global warming challenges the old Bay Area assumptions
The
Repeat after me the first rule of environmental activism: "Think globally, act locally."
But wait. What do we do when global concerns are at odds with what we hold dear at home?
That question hangs over the Bay Area as surely as last week's smoke obscured our skies. The environmental agenda is being redefined by the very real threat of climate change. In the process, some of our basic articles of faith - such as keeping development away from the bays and the hills - could be called into question.
"As much as I don't want it to, I think global warming changes the measure of how we think about sustainability in a region like the Bay Area," says John Eddy of the
Arup held a panel last week in
Some information was familiar, such as time-lapse images of the shrinking Arctic ice cap. The evening also stressed design's role in finding remedies - no surprise, given that Arup's work ranges from the engineering of the Contemporary Jewish Museum (where the panel was held) to the planning of entire cities in China that are to be carbon-neutral.
The twist was that the central issue - We the People are overwhelming the Earth - makes it necessary to think about responses that would have been dismissed with scorn a decade ago by many people in the room.
Nuclear power, for example. Sure, the waste glows for thousands of years, but the energy offers an alternative to the coal that spews the carbon dioxide partly to blame for overheating Earth's atmosphere.
Part of the answer
"It becomes a question of how you evaluate risk," said Mahadev Raman, an Arup principal on the panel who confessed, "I have come to the reluctant conclusion that nuclear power is part of the answer" in moving away from coal.
If this sounds detached from Bay Area life - nobody's proposing a reactor on
The most obvious danger associated with climate change is that ocean levels will rise as water runs off from glaciers and the ice sheets that cover Antarctica and
Development taboos
Now look at the Bay Area - where, thanks in large part to the environmental movements that blossomed in the 1960s, more than a million acres of open space has been ruled off-limits to development. The biggest taboo of all is the notion of filling the bay.
In fact, at least 25,000 acres of salt ponds are in line to be converted back into wetlands.
Having grown up in the Bay Area, I'm not complaining. The green movement has preserved our lustrous sense of place and protected essential wildlife habitats. There's a reason people pay so dearly to live here.
At the same time, it's ludicrous to deny that all this has pushed growth to outskirts of the region and beyond, where the days are hot and the drives are long.
That didn't matter in the past - out of sight, out of mind - but in the long-term context of climate change it's not as easy for a BART rider like me to shrug that clogged freeways are for losers.
Pushing people away from the fog-cooled bay pushes up energy consumption, for starters. The typical
As for automobile use, the average drive for commuters from eastern
The easy reaction is to say that sprawl is bad, and that growth should be confined to new higher-density pockets within existing cities and suburbs. But that's hardly a cure-all.
Consider the planned transformation of
And even if we froze things as they are, that wouldn't be enough.
"Our carbon footprint doesn't need to stop growing, it needs to shrink," Eddy said. Theoretically, he suggested, "One way to do that would be to bring every commuter in from the
Difficult questions
So, if we're serious about doing our part to make a real dent in carbon emissions, what next? Do we earmark some salt ponds for high-density housing? Develop portions of bucolic
I don't have the answers. But I do know this: The questions are changing. And the stakes are high.
The ways we waste
The average
Seventeen million barrels of oil are used to make the plastic for the bottled water consumed by Americans each year.
Flushing toilets account for an estimated 32 percent of the residential water use in the
The average plastic bag is used for 20 minutes - and won't degrade naturally for at least 100 years.
Of the 62 billion pieces of junk mail produced annually in the
One-third of the world's urban population lives in what the United Nations defines as slum conditions.#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/01/DDM411GD8J.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea
SoCal to lend water to Westlands: Additional resources to ease pressure on some crops.
The
By Dennis Pollock
More water will flow to drought-stricken
The additional water will help alleviate pressure on permanent crops like nuts and grapes, said Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for the Westlands Water District. But Woolf said it will not be enough to save crops that have already been abandoned and are now wilting in the sun.
Mark Borba, a Riverdale grower, said the additional water -- including some ground-water transfers that started last month -- will still fall short of the amount needed during the three months of rationing by at least 150,000 acre-feet.
"But when you're dying of thirst, even a thimble full of water is helpful," he said.
Borba said Westlands' full federal allocation of water is 1.15 million acre-feet. The district is getting 40% (about 460,000 acre-feet) of that amount this year.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has agreed to lend 25,000 acre-feet of water for use by Central Valley Project and State Water Project contractors, said Tracy Pettit of the state Department of Water Resources.
MWD is deferring delivery of its water, Pettit said, meaning that amount will be available for use by farmers facing rationing limits through the end of August. Woolf said Westlands will have to replenish the supplies later this year.
In addition, Pettit said, DWR is lending 37,000 acre-feet of water to Central Valley Project contractors out of San Luis Reservoir.
Among those who can share that water are the Westlands, San Luis Irrigation and Panoche Irrigation districts.
DWR also announced that up to 50,000 acre-feet of ground water will be pumped into the California Aqueduct this summer.
The water comes from wells in Westlands and will be transferred to district farmers who do not have ground-water access.
The pumping, authorized by Gov. Schwarzenegger when he declared a nine-county drought emergency but opposed by environmental groups, likely will benefit only a few farmers, Woolf said.
Attillo Zasso of the State Water Project said it will likely amount to about 25,000 acre-feet. That's because it's a slow process.
It can take 24 hours to pump 6 acre-feet, for example, depending on the well's capacity.
Zasso said pumping of ground water into the canal started June 21. Eight wells had produced 240 acre-feet as of midnight Monday.
Environmentalists had said they would fight the proposal to pump salty ground water into the canal that delivers drinking water to millions of south state residents.
Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportsfishing Protection Alliance, said his group would sue if water were pumped without a federal permit under the Clean Water Act. He could not be reached to comment on the latest developments, and DWR officials said they were not aware of a suit being filed.
Woolf said ground water is tested to assure that it meets state drinking standards before pumping begins. She said there are other factors that make pumping ground water challenging, including the fact that pipelines have not been used in more than 17 years.
In addition to the water transfers and exchanges, the DWR will push $12 million in grants to urban water agencies and nonprofit organizations for water conservation efforts.
The money can be used for rebate programs, public education and outreach, leak detection and retrofit of systems for greater water efficiency.
Of the $12 million, $2 million is earmarked for disadvantaged communities.
Rick Soehren, chief of DWR's office of water use efficiency, said the state grant process normally can take up to a year.
But in this case, the deadline for proposals is July 21 and grants will be announced by the end of July.
DWR will hold an online workshop on the grant program Tuesday at 10 a.m. More information on the workshop and grant program can be obtained from the DWR Web site, www.water.ca.gov. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/706421.html
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