[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 3/24/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

March 24, 2009

 

2. Supply –

 

 

Bay Area water picture: Some will face strict rationing, others won't

San Jose Mercury News

 

Marin group helps residents harvest rainwater for conservation, irrigation

Marin Independent Journal

 

Prepare for drought, emergencies, analyst tells Inland water vendors

Riverside Press Enterprise

 

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Bay Area water picture: Some will face strict rationing, others won't

San Jose Mercury News – 3/23/09

By Paul Rogers

 

Citing three dry years in a row, Silicon Valley's biggest water supplier will vote this morning on whether to call for a 15 percent mandatory summer cutback, the first water rationing in Santa Clara County in 18 years. Yet, just over the county line, Fremont residents will face no restrictions.

 

On the Peninsula, Redwood City residents will be asked to voluntarily conserve but Los Altos residents may be required to. Sonoma County will face draconian cutbacks of up to 30 percent. Marin County won't face any.

 

What gives?

 

"It all depends on geography and source of supply. It's about where your water comes from," said Paul Piraino, general manager of the Alameda County Water Agency. "Every source is not created equal, particularly in a dry year."

 

Bay Area communities face an uneven — some might even think unfair — water picture in the months ahead. Whether you face restrictions depends on how much your water provider relies on local reservoirs, Sierra Nevada snow, groundwater or San Francisco Bay's delta, along with the politics of its board.

 

Unlike in Southern California, where one gigantic wholesale supplier, Metropolitan Water District, provides much of the region's water, the Bay Area has no single provider. Over the past 150 years, as communities have grown at different rates, they have looked to different places for water.

 

This year, cities along the Peninsula that depend on the Hetch Hetchy system are in pretty good shape. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is calling for a 10 percent voluntary summer reduction, the same as last year. The agency's water starts as Sierra Nevada snow, then flows through Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, and down to Crystal Springs Reservoir along Highway 280.

 

Because of heavy February storms, the Sierra snowpack is currently 88 percent of normal. Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is two-thirds full, normal for this time of year, and it will fill more as snow melts. And Crystal Springs Reservoir is 90 percent full.

 

"Mandatory limits at this point? It would have to be bone dry from now on and there'd have to be a surge in consumption. We certainly don't expect that," said Tony Winnicker, a spokesman for the commission.

 

The Hetch Hetchy system provides water to 2.5 million people in San Mateo and San Francisco counties, along with some parts of northern Santa Clara County, including Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Milpitas and Alviso.

 

If the Peninsula is well off, the South Bay is not.

 

The staff of the Santa Clara Valley Water District on Friday recommended that the district's board call for a 15 percent mandatory summer cutback at its meeting today. The district — which provides drinking water for 1.8 million people in Santa Clara County from Los Altos to Gilroy — has no enforcement powers because it is a wholesale provider of water.

 

But the board could ask the district's 13 retail suppliers, such as the San Jose Water Company and the cities of Sunnyvale and Morgan Hill, to set up new pricing rules that charge customers more if they use more than a set amount. The district also is expected to ask every city in Santa Clara County to approve an ordinance that would ban lawn watering during daytime hours, require nozzles on garden hoses and limit watering to odd-even days, with fines for violators.

 

The district gets half its water from local groundwater pumping and half from the San Francisco Bay's delta. In making the announcement, the district said cutbacks are needed because state officials have reduced delta pumping to 20 percent of contracted amounts, and federal officials have reduced it to 50 percent. Despite February rains, large reservoirs that feed the delta are only half full from two dry years.

 

But other Bay Area districts that draw heavily on the delta are not requiring mandatory rationing. A 10 percent voluntary call has come from both the Alameda County Water Agency and the Zone 7 Water Agency. Together they serve 525,000 people in Fremont, Union City, Newark, Pleasanton, and Livermore.

Alameda receives some Hetch Hetchy water. Zone 7 folks say they have plenty of groundwater.

 

"We just don't think we're there yet for a mandatory call," said Zone 7 spokeswoman Boni Brewer. "Until we really need it, it would just be a pretty drastic measure to take."

 

Meanwhile, Oakland and Berkeley have had 15 percent mandatory cutbacks with higher rates since last May because their provider, East Bay Municipal Utility District, has no groundwater basin and relies on a low-elevation Sierra Nevada watershed where there's limited snow.

 

Environmentalists suspect some larger water districts are being pressured by farm groups and Southern California agencies to play up a water emergency to help build public pressure for more dams. But they encourage conservation.

 

"In California there exists a hydraulic brotherhood of agencies who wish to perpetuate the old-style dam-building and plumbing fixes," said Jonas Minton, water policy adviser to the Planning and Conservation League in Sacramento.

 

But he added: "Just like a family facing an uncertain economic future, it makes sense for us to tighten our water belts to be ready for the future."#

http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11980357?source=rss

 

Marin group helps residents harvest rainwater for conservation, irrigation

Marin Independent Journal – 3/23/09

By Mark Prado

This summer, Forest Knolls resident John Lerch will use recently collected rainwater stored in three large cisterns to irrigate his vegetable garden.

His irrigation setup is among 18 rooftop "stormwater harvesting systems" established with the help of a $60,000 Marin Community Foundation grant to a San Geronimo group that is demonstrating ways to conserve water, help fish and recharge groundwater.

 

"It's been working great," said Lerch, who has collected 3,300 gallons of water to feed his artichokes, tomatoes and other plants. "All three tanks are full. I'll use the water through a garden hose I can attach, and gravity makes the water flow."

 

The systems are simple. Rainwater falls on a standard roof, where it is funneled into a downspout. But instead of spilling onto the ground or ending up in a stormwater pipe, water is diverted and stored in a cistern and then can then be used to water gardens.

 

"It's a very simple system," said Paola Bouley, conservation program director at the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, which is heading the project. "People are hungry for this."

 

By storing rainwater for irrigation, water from county reservoirs is saved. In Marin, 33 percent of water demand during the summer is used for landscaping. The county also has a water deficit, which means a dry year would require rationing.

 

The cistern systems also keep water from rushing off hard services and into creeks. That type of runoff carries sediment that can harm local fish populations, including endangered coho salmon. Marin's coho population is at a 15-year low this year.

 

"Roofs, parking lots, all these impervious surfaces that we have around our homes and business have a direct impact on the streams where the fish are and bring consequences for their survival," Bouley said.

 

It does not take long for cisterns to fill. A typical home collects 600 gallons of water from a 1,000-square-foot roof after an inch of rain has fallen. The cisterns are equipped with a valve that releases water as it becomes full.

 

SPAWN encourages users to create a swail that forms a "rain garden." As water collects, the water drains through the soil into the natural aquifer, recharging creeks.

A 200-gallon resin cistern costs about $220; a 300-gallon model costs about $300, and Bouley said a simple 1,500-gallon system can be installed for less than $1,000. SPAWN officials say they hope to get another grant to set up more systems.

 

"We have two very large cisterns and a smaller one that collects 2,300 gallons of water," said Julie Vogt, San Geronimo Valley resident. "It's all rainwater that helps to grow plants. It works very well."

 

The water goes to native plants on Vogt's property - the plants that are being grown by SPAWN, which paid for the cisterns.

 

Vogt also created a rainwater garden that resembles a creek system, complete with fake salmon. It is fed by water that comes off the roof.

 

"We used to have a green lawn here. Now it holds water that seeps back into the earth naturally," she said. "It feels like you are doing the right thing."#

http://www.marinij.com/ci_11979333?source=most_emailed

 

Prepare for drought, emergencies, analyst tells Inland water vendors

Riverside Press Enterprise – 3/24/09

By JANET ZIMMERMAN

Most water districts are just starting to plan for drastic shortages and the rationing that could likely follow, a water use strategist said Monday.

 

Suppliers should already be prepared for how to handle up to a 50 percent slash to the water supply -- not just from drought but also a major earthquake or other emergency -- and know where water use can be sacrificed, said Larry Farwell, a consultant for the state Department of Water Resources.

 

"Get your plans in place so you're ready to protect your communities if things get bad," said Farwell, who led a "Ready to Ration" workshop at the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in Chino.

 

It was the third in a series of meetings the state has held to help agencies prepare for continued water deficits.

 

Of the 30 Southern California water agencies at the workshop, most have imposed voluntary conservation measures. Only two have mandatory conservation that limits outdoor watering to certain days and prohibits landscape runoff.

 

Representatives said they are waiting for Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state's largest wholesaler, to make a decision on cutbacks to retailers. The district's board of directors is set to vote April 14 in Los Angeles on a 10 percent to 20 percent reduction to the agencies it supplies.

 

In the meantime, retailers should streamline billing systems and software to eliminate problems when it comes time to ration and impose tiered rates to penalize flagrant water wasters, he said. They should also be developing groundwater storage and making use of recycled water.

 

"The entire economy depends on water. The idea that we need to make it less expensive so people can use more is so last century," Farwell said.

Many water districts in the Inland area are ahead of the curve, he said.

 

Cucamonga Valley Water District in Rancho Cucamonga began its public education campaign on conservation in 2007, knowing that shortages were imminent after a court ruling that reduced exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect an endangered fish species and threatened ecosystem, said Martin Zvirbulis, the district's deputy general manager.

 

Since then, the water district adopted a tiered-rate system that charges more for the biggest water users. In the next 30 days, the district's board is expected to adopt a five-stage rationing plan that creates "water budgets" for customers in Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Ontario and parts of unincorporated San Bernardino County.

 

The first stage alert requires a 10 percent cutback. The next stages prohibit watering outdoor landscape up to six days a week.

"It's a new way of life. Just get used to it," Zvirbulis said. #

http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_drought24.3b82f94.html

 

 

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