[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 2/13/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

February 13, 2009

 

2. Supply –

 

San Diego's Plan Hits Water Savers, Hogs Evenly

The Voice of San Diego

 

Rainfall too little, too late?

The Capital Ag Press

 

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San Diego's Plan Hits Water Savers, Hogs Evenly

The Voice of San Diego – 2/12/09

By Rob Davis

 

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Even San Diegans who have torn out their lawns, planted drought-tolerant landscaping and scrimped on irrigation will have to cut their water use if supplies are reduced in July.

 

That's the approach the San Diego Water Department is contemplating and selling at forums across the city this week. The plan is still being drafted and will require City Council approval. But as it currently stands it will penalize residents who've been civic-minded, requiring them to cut the same percentage as the water hog with the plush yard next door.

 

Across San Diego County, water consumption will be redefined in the coming year. Both of San Diego's major supplies are constrained and storage reservoirs are low. A region that has historically allowed its residents and businesses to use as much as they want is undergoing a radical shift. Come July, San Diego residents likely will be told how much they can use.

 

The city's plan calls for residents who've conserved to cut water use by the same percentage as massive users such as CalTrans, which dumped 635 million gallons on San Diego freeway shoulders between July 2007 and June 2008. Those who are efficient will have to cut their use by the same percentage as those who aren't.

That has brought protests from city residents who have conserved.

The city says the approach is the most equitable. At a recent news conference, Mayor Jerry Sanders said the city could not guarantee cuts would be fair.

 

"You're never going to make everybody happy," he said. "In fact we'll probably upset everybody to some extent. And that probably is going to mean that we're in the ballpark of where we should be."

Other water agencies believe they've found ways to fairly distribute water cuts to avoid penalizing those who have conserved.

The Sweetwater Authority plans to follow the same model as San Diego -- with one difference. Homeowners who use less than average will not be required to cut further.

If a 20 percent cut comes, residents whose consumption is already 20 percent below average will not have to cut more. Higher users will.

 

"We're targeting the people who have used a lot of water," said Mark Rogers, the authority's general manager. "I don't want to penalize people who've already been conserving."

If the authority has to cut consumption and doesn't require all of its customers to do it, it will have to ensure that the largest users exceed the goal. They'll have to make up the difference. "If we ask 20 percent I think we'll get it," Rogers said.

Other agencies will hike rates to provide an incentive for large users. The Helix Water District in La Mesa will double the largest users' bills. Big users will "get a real loud price signal," said Mark Weston, Helix's general manager.

Alex Ruiz, the department's assistant director, doesn't believe that will affect enough savings. The city must guarantee that its approach works. The city will receive a set amount of water from the San Diego County Water Authority based on historic usage. The city will pay two to four times more for each gallon that exceeds that allocation.

San Diego's approach has another notable difference: The city doesn't plan to charge more for the water it sells -- even though the Water Department's budget is dependent on water sales. A 20 percent cut in sales will bring a 20 percent revenue cut. Ruiz told a forum this week that he believes the city can withstand the drop simply by tightening its belt.

 

Other agencies are adopting what they call "drought rates" to make up the foregone revenue. Customers who save 20 percent would have the same size bill they did before. They'd pay the same for less water.

Weston said his district couldn't withstand a large revenue drop without cutting its maintenance budget or reducing customer service. Helix will use drought rates.

 

"We have a lot of fixed costs that don't change," Weston said. And deferring maintenance, he said, would only cause more costly problems in the future.#

 

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/02/13/environment/857cityplan021209.txt

 

Rainfall too little, too late?
Snowpacks still well below normal for this time of year

The Capital Ag Press – 2/13/09

By Tim Hearden

It's the break that California farmers and ranchers have been waiting for. But is it too little, too late?

Stingy as it may have been with its precipitation yields, the round of rain and snowfall that arrived late last week signaled - finally - the start of a wet pattern that's expected to last at least a couple of weeks, weather experts say.

>From Thursday, Feb. 5, through Monday, Feb. 9, Redding received 0.86 inches of rain, Fresno got 0.82 inches and Bakersfield registered 1.22 inches - hardly enough to replenish water-starved reservoirs or ease fears of a debilitating drought this summer.

But more storms are on the way this weekend and next week, as a stubborn ridge of high pressure has released a grip it had held on the West Coast for much of the winter, National Weather Service meteorologist Cynthia Palmer said.

"We are in a wet pattern, which is more typical for our winters," said Palmer, who's based in Sacramento. "Things have finally shifted with the ridge, and it's now backing more over the Pacific ... allowing lows and troughs to come into the West Coast."

The pattern will likely produce periods of rain and snow interrupted by breaks of a day or two. The next couple of systems will keep snow levels at about 2,000 feet, Palmer said Tuesday, Feb. 10.

"The good thing is these are much colder systems coming in, so we're looking at relatively low snow levels," she said. "There will be more snow producers for our mountains, and even some of the foothills could see some snow out of this."

Any snow would be welcome news for summer runoff prospects.

Snowpacks are still well below normal for this time of year, said Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the California Department of Water Resources.

Levels in the Northern Sierras are 47 percent of normal, while they're 61 percent of normal in the Central Sierras and 71 percent of normal in the Southern Sierras, she said. Statewide, the snowpack is at 60 percent of normal, she said.

"It's gone up slightly but not substantially" as a result of the most recent weather systems, Lynn said Tuesday.

Jack Cowley, who grows hay and runs 1,000 mother cows on 1,500 acres in Montague, in Siskiyou County, is skeptical that anything that comes will help him.

"Where I'm at in Little Shasta Valley, we're really not getting a lot of this moisture," Cowley said. "It's just passing around us. This last storm a couple of days ago gave us almost nothing. The ground got white a little bit, and that was it."

In fact, Cowley was on his tractor Tuesday doing some of his springtime work because the ground was so dry, he said.

A reservoir for the local water district can hold 50,000 acre feet of water, but it has only 7,000 acre feet in it, he said.

Lynn has said California would need extraordinary rainfall this season to bring the state's reservoirs even close to their normal levels.

As of the Department of Water Resources' latest summary, Shasta Lake was still at 31 percent of capacity, Lake Oroville was at 28 percent, Folsom Lake was at 24 percent and the San Luis Reservoir was at 32 percent.#

 

http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=48713&TM=11928.08

 

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