Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 20, 2009
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
As we use less, we could pay more for water
The San Francisco Chronicle
Native garden tour in Silicon Valley draws enthusiasts
The
Our View: Obama to Valley farming: Dry up
The
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As we use less, we could pay more for water
Dwindling demand for anything - gasoline, DVDs, hamburgers - usually forces prices down.
Not with water. Shorter showers, brown lawns and water-efficient dishwashers translate into red ink for water agencies because their revenue relies heavily on how much water everyone uses.
When people use less, water agencies struggle to cover their large, fixed costs.
Their solution: Hike prices.
"We're out there telling people to use less water, and yet a lot of the revenue we have is based on what people use, said Gary Breaux, finance director for the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.3 million people in Contra Costa and
The district was the first in the Bay Area to enact water rationing last year after the driest spring since the Gold Rush days. Now it faces a conservation-related shortfall of about $12 million.
Last week, the agency's board of directors moved to end drought-related rationing and to boost regular rates by 7.5 percent.
Across the nine-county region, water agencies are facing the same catch-22 after three years of dry conditions and receding reservoirs. Many of them are raising rates - in large part because customers are heeding the call to conserve.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the largest water district in the region, is leaning toward 10 percent annual rate increases over the next four years. Marin Municipal Water District plans a 7.3 percent bump.
Customers are perplexed, to say the least.
At a public workshop last week at the East Bay water district's headquarters in Oakland, Berkeley resident and environmental consultant Juliet Lamont lambasted a water system that would thrive on selling more, rather than less, water.
"Right now the system says if you use more water, (water districts) get more money," Lamont said, adding that during the mandatory water cutbacks, "people stopped using hoses and letting water run down the driveways. That should end permanently, drought or not."
Fixed costs
Ninety percent of the district's costs - salaries, debt service - are fixed, Breaux said. Only about 10 percent of its costs fluctuate - electricity, chemicals and certain maintenance fees.
But a whopping 80 percent of the agency's monthly revenue comes from the amount of water it sells. When customers use a normal amount of water, the system works. But during a drought or a cool summer, revenue tumbles. Because water districts operate at a break-even level, they are forced to react with price increases when demand plunges.
Some districts in
David Zetland, a UC Berkeley water economist, says water pricing in
EBMUD customers now pay $1.82 for each 748 gallons they use, up to 5,236 gallons - which is enough to fill about 100 bathtubs. For comparison's sake, a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee costs $1.75.
For each 748 gallons after that, up to 11,968 gallons, customers pay $2.26, or 24 percent more. Above 11,968 gallons, each 748 gallons costs $2.77 - a 23 percent increase.
Zetland proposes that customers in the two upper tiers pay closer to $4 and $8 respectively.
"If you double the variable costs of water, conservation goes up and (water district) costs for energy and treatment go down," Zetland said. "You could actually have a 'profit' which you could rebate back to the water misers. If you use little water, you could actually have a negative water bill."
Even if Bay Area water officials agree, they face a major roadblock: Consumers like cheap water.
Ron Thompson, an
Pricier water inevitable
Despite consumer outcry, pricier water is necessary and inevitable, experts say.
"Water rates are going up, as they should," said Heather Cooley, senior research associate at the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in
"Shifting people toward these new rate structures needs to be done - but it can't be done overnight."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/19/MNU41732JU.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea
Native garden tour in Silicon Valley draws enthusiasts
The nascent "de-lawning" movement was on proud display around the
"We killed the grass with plywood," said Pamela Chesavage, happily. Instead of a carpet of turf, her
One yard at a time, native gardeners are striking a blow against Miracle-Gro, Weed-B-Gon and fleets of lawn mowers, reclaiming small corners of the valley and returning them to nature.
Nativists used to be environmental zealots whose rigid anti-water orthodoxy created dull and dusty summer yards. Now, they're pragmatists. Water is expensive — and in short supply. Faced with drought, climate change and spiraling energy costs, an increasing number of homeowners are embracing an approach to landscaping that marries traditional environmental concerns — sustainability, biodiversity, restoration, conservation — with aesthetics.
The gardens on the tour, visited by more than 4,000 on Sunday, are not your 1970s weary xeriscapes. They are more thoughtful and seductive, with a greater sensitivity to aesthetics. Wild things — domesticated — can be lovely, many visitors agreed.
Since 2003, the Bay Area's pioneering native garden tour has showcased more than 40 gardens in a do-it-yourself, open house format. Supported by more than 200 volunteers, the annual event spread over a dozen neighborhoods, is sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Water District and others.
"They're beautiful," said Sally Tazuke of
In
In the affluent
For years, native plants were largely ignored in the race to market plants like petunias, begonias, impatiens and hollyhocks — a horticultural homogenization that made yards in
The nursery industry wasn't interested in producing plants from locally collected seeds, but preferred to titillate gardeners with plants that were new, exotic — and thirsty.
Now even Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores sell a few local native plants.
Because some of the most prized plants are still not widely available in the nursery trade, gardeners will wait in line for the opportunity to buy special specimens. Next weekend, the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society will host a sale at
Under Sunday's cobalt blue skies and blazing sun, Glenda Jones recalled her once overly tidy yard with diseased firethorne and invasive Algerian ivy.
"We killed the grass by withholding water," said a proud Jones, who lives in a corner of
Now her yard is filled with an array of plants that are thankful for sun, native clay soil and chemical-free care. Her crop of poppies is so abundant that she needed to cull some to make room for less prolific plants.
"I love the poppies the most," she said. "I'm a
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12179914?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
Our View: Obama to Valley farming: Dry up
The Merced
Editorial
The Obama administration dispatched Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to
The most obvious question was how much would go to drought relief in the San Joaquin Valley, especially since Salazar was in California at the same time as the March for Water was being conducted on the Valley's west side.
The answer was a simple one from Salazar -- the vast majority of this money won't be seen in the farmworker-dominated communities that are experiencing 40 percent unemployment because of drought conditions.
But there was plenty of money for projects in
No wonder so many Valley farmers, farmworkers and others in agriculture-related businesses are so angry with the federal government on the water issue.
Officials in the Obama administration, including Salazar, don't understand
The four-day water march from Mendota to the San Luis Dam would have been the perfect opportunity for Obama officials to throw a little money the Valley's way to let residents know that the pain being felt in communities such as Mendota is acknowledged in Washington, D.C. The symbolism would have been significant.
Instead, Salazar stiffed the Valley's west side. This is one more indication of the region's lack of political clout. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said the federal stimulus money going to other water projects was "very disappointing." He should have said he was outraged, and the Obama administration had abandoned some of
"There is absolutely nothing in there that would benefit us," said Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for Westlands Water District. Valley farm-water agencies wanted funding for fish screens in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that would allow for more water to be pumped southward. They also wanted money for a pipeline to move water between Valley districts.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein says there will be some money for the region in the $40 million drought-relief portion of the package for Western states. She contends that most of that money will go to
Many farmers get water from the estuary, but declining fish populations have led to pumping restrictions. The curtailments, combined with the three-year drought, have left growers with little water to grow crops, and that has resulted in massive joblessness in west-side communities.
Salazar went on a helicopter tour of the Delta Wednesday with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who praised the funding announcement. But the governor also said these funds will not immediately help Valley farmers, and the communities that rely on agriculture, and they need help now.
Schwarzenegger is correct, and it was good that he let Salazar know his water announcement didn't go far enough. We'd also like to see more passion out of the governor on the plight of the Valley communities during this drought.
There's a lot of anger in the Valley right now, and there's good reason for it. #
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/story/800183.html
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