California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 15, 2009
2. Supply –
'Spare the Water' alert seeks voluntary compliance
Sacramento Bee
Schools seek recycled water
Glendale News-Press
County passes water cut mandate
Ukiah Daily Journal
Wasting water, a precious commodity
Tracy Press
This summer, kids can dive into water conservation
San Diego Union-Tribune
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'Spare the Water' alert seeks voluntary compliance
Sacramento Bee-7/15/09
By Matt Weiser
The city of Sacramento has issued a "Spare the Water" alert through Thursday in response to temperatures expected to exceed 100 degrees each day.
Residents are urged to postpone water use until early morning or after dark, such as lawn watering and using dish and clothes washers.
The alert is voluntary and intended to preserve stored water supplies during periods of high demand. It also saves the city energy to purify and pump water during midday, when energy costs peak.
"The demand for water stretches the city's treatment and pumping capacity," said Maurice Chaney, city spokesman. "We're imploring our customers to take simple steps."
The alert is the first of its kind under new citywide water rules that took effect in June.
One of the rules states that anyone who pays their water bill to the city of Sacramento is banned from watering landscaping between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily.
For more information, view www.sparesacwater.org or call the city operator at 311.#
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2026762.html
Schools seek recycled water
Stimulus money could supply cheaper water for irrigation, but not for drinking
Glendale News-Press-7/14/09
By Melanie Hicken
Three local schools could become the newest users of recycled water if Glendale Water & Power receives $800,000 in stimulus funds under an application the City Council authorized Tuesday.
The grant would go toward the construction of a water line to bring recycled water to Hoover High, Toll Middle and Keppel Elementary schools — all located along a block of Glenwood Road — for the irrigation of the schools’ sports fields and other landscaping.
The utility will submit a formal application for an $800,000 grant from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which received more than $280 million in stimulus funding. An initial application was submitted in February.
While recycled water cannot be used for human or animal consumption, it can be used for irrigation and comes with a 25% discount.
“The three schools have quite a bit of area that they need to irrigate,” said Senior Engineer Raja Takidin. “Now they are using drinking water. So we want to use recycled water supply, which we have plenty of.”
The project is on a priority list that the California State Water Resources Control Board will vote on in September, but that does not ensure the city will receive the funds because other steps must be completed, said Christine White, a marketing analyst for the water board.
All funds come from the federal government, so they are insulated from the state budget crisis, she said.
As the city moves into mandatory 10% water conservation — compelled by reduced imports from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies 70% of the city’s water — recycled water use is more important than ever, Takidin said.
“It’s always there. It’s not affected by the conservation ordinance or Metropolitan restrictions,” he said. “By using this water it replaces much more expensive water from Metropolitan.”
But building the infrastructure required to provide recycled water is expensive, he said, which is why the grant funds would be helpful. The funds would cover about 70% of the estimated $1.1-million construction of the water line.
Currently, the utility has about 45 customers — including Oakmont Cemetery and Forest Lawn — who use recycled water to irrigate a combined 1,500 acres, Takidin said.
As a part of the utility’s five-year strategic plan, which was presented to the City Council in March, city officials hope to increase the use of recycled water to 2,500 acres by 2014.
In recent outreach meetings held to gauge public concern about the impending water conservation measures, increasing the city’s use of recycled water was a common suggestion among property owners, officials said.#
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2009/07/15/education/gnp-recycled15.txt
County passes water cut mandate
Ukiah Daily Journal-7/15/09
Over the strenuous objections of board chairman and 3rd District Supervisor John Pinches, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved an emergency water conservation ordinance that will require a 50 percent reduction in water use from Lake Mendocino throughout this drought season.
The ordinance only applies to water use from the lake and not to groundwater or other water sources.
Pinches was against the measure, claiming it put Mendocino County in the position of declaring its willingness to give up 50 percent of its water right to the lake.
Pinches said he was outraged that Sonoma and Marin counties were not being forced to give up as much - and, he claimed, Marin County water consumers were seeing no cuts at all.
Pinches pointed out that while annual rainfall is down this year, it is not really down that much. Average annual rainfall is down only about six inches from normal, he noted.
"I'm not so sure we're in so much of a drought," he said, adding that it's a lack of water storage that's causing the problem. "We need to do a better job getting more water."
More people are using more water since the lake was built in the 1950s but nothing has been done to add water storage to our system, creating the "drought' conditions, Pinches said.
It's a "regulatory drought," he said, which drew agreement from 2nd District Supervisor John McCowen, who nonetheless disagreed with Pinches and supported the conservation mandate.
With the current water supply problem, McCowen said, it's "prudent to conserve and stretch the supply" into the fall until the next rains begin.
McCowen said the emergency mandate sends a signal that the shortage is serious.
"I don't see this as running up the white flag," McCowen said.
The "regulatory drought" is caused in large part by the 2004 federally mandated 35 percent cutback in water diverted from the Eel River through Potter Valley to Lake Mendocino and thereby the Russian River. Added to that are agreements on flow out of the lake into the Russian River, which are meant to save fish populations.
Supervisor Kendall Smith said she favored the measure in part because she felt the county needed to ensure that all users of Lake Mendocino water do their part to cut water use, something she said she didn't believe was being taken seriously earlier in the year.
"I believe there was a sluggish response" with respect to compliance with the state orders in March, she said, referring to local government response to the state mandates.
The State Water Resources Control Board mandated that as of April 1 users of Lake Mendocino water in Mendocino County should be cut back 50 percent and users of Lake Mendocino water in Sonoma County by 25 percent.
Pinches pointed out that Sonoma County sells some of its Lake Mendocino water to Marin County (which he said violated the original agreement on the use of Lake Mendocino water) and that Marin water users are not being cut back at all.
According to the ordinance findings, the city of Ukiah passed its first water conservation measure in April as did Redwood Valley Water District. Millview Water District passed water cutbacks in May.
The county emergency water ordinance was passed 4-1 with Pinches voting no.
The ordinance will require all Lake Mendocino water users to report monthly on their 50 percent cutback based on any one of the following:
Their maximum Lake Mendocino water allowed based on a state water right permit.
Their maximum Lake Mendocino water allowed based on a contracted water right with the Russian River Flood Control District.
Their average Lake Mendocino water use between July 15 and Oct. 2 of 2004, the baseline year, or if those exact records aren't available, the average of five years of Lake Mendocino water use during those months.
Some other calculation approved by the Mendocino County Water Agency.#
Wasting water, a precious commodity
Tracy Press-7/14/09
by Christina D.B. Frankel
Imagine, if you will, that you are in a hot, arid place, watching a woman dressed in colorful garb as she walks tirelessly for miles. The woman has a simple container on her head, balanced with a practiced air. She finally stops, fills her container with water, and trudges back. The water is life, precious enough to spend hours a day fetching it.
She reaches her destination, tired from the journey, and then to your amazement, empties the container on the ground! The precious water is soaked immediately into the parched earth. It’s inconceivable, you say, that she would spend all that effort and waste the water, knowing how important it is to her.
Yet, that’s what we do.
Water is a resource, a scarce resource, yet we treat it as a guaranteed right. We have an unrealistic expectation of an endless supply, because we can turn on a spigot and get water at any time.
Ultimate convenience makes people indignant when they are asked to conserve water. The naked truth, though, is that there is less water to go around but more people to use it. That’s why we need to evolve as a state and a community to use less water.
The first crucial step to conserving water is to be informed about how much water you use, and to do that, all you need to do is look at your water bill. For Tracy residents, the water bill lists the units of water you use, per cycle and keeps a history of how many units you have used in one year. One unit is 100 cubic feet of water, which translates to about 748 gallons of water.
Therefore, if you have used 10 units for a month, you used a total of 7,480 gallons in a month. This conversion is an invaluable tool to help the public understand its water usage, but it is absent from not only the city bill, but also the city Web site.
What is on the city site, though, is how much money you are charged per range of water units in summer and winter. Summer is more expensive, of course, and you are charged $1 a unit if you use less than 18 units (or 13,464 total gallons), $1.49 dollars a unit if you use less than 29 units (or 21,692 gallons) and $1.65 dollars a unit if you use less than 287 units (or 214,676 gallons).
To get your “per person” water usage, you need to do some simple calculations: Get your average number of units (total all your units and divide by 12), and multiple this number by 748 gallons to get the total amount of gallons your household uses on average per month. Then take that total, divide by 30 (for the number of days in a month), and divide by the number of people in your house.
For comparison, the state average is 192 gallons per person per day, San Joaquin County is 214 gallons per person a day, and in Australia, still in the midst of an epic drought, they are down to 45 gallons per person a day! So how did you do?
For those with traditional yards, you are probably spending 60 percent of your total water consumption on landscaping. Flushing the toilet, taking a shower and washing your clothes uses 65 percent of your indoor water total. However, if you have a home older than 1992, you’re probably sucking 3.5 gallons per flush, to a whopping 7 gallons a flush, compared with the low-flush toilets required now, which use only 1.6 gallons.
And if you have a traditional washing machine, you use about 50 gallons of water per load, compared with the high-efficiency washing machines, which uses 16 gallons on average. When looked on as a total, the numbers add up and can be staggering.
Now can you picture yourself taking a 5-gallon bucket full of water and dumping it on the ground, in honor of flushing your toilet?
For a change: Calculate your water usage. Awareness is half the battle when making a change.
To make a difference: Take shorter showers and turn down the shower so it’s not on full pressure.
To make a stand: Replace your water-guzzling toilet with a low-flush variety. Switch to a high-efficiency washer.#
This summer, kids can dive into water conservation
San Diego Union-Tribune-7/15/09
By Jennifer Davies
When the weather warms up, there is nothing more enticing for kids than water … whether it be running through the sprinklers, wading in a kiddie pool or playing with the hose. - JupiterimagesWhen the weather warms up, there is nothing more enticing for kids than water – whether it be running through the sprinklers, wading in a kiddie pool or playing with the hose.
The problem is that our current water shortage is giving parents pause about indulging children's aquatic aspirations. Here are some ways to teach your kids about water conservation while still letting them have some fun:
Explain yourself: Saving water can seem like an abstract concept for many kids, says Chris Robbins, water conservation supervisor for the city of San Diego.
When he gives talks to school groups, he brings along a big jug of water. He asks the kids to pick up the 1-gallon container so they can feel how heavy it is. He asks them to think about how hard it would be to have to carry the jug a long way to help them realize that water is a precious resource and not something to be wasted.
Have a conservation challenge: Teach your children simple rules by making it a game. Give them gold stars for turning off the water while they are brushing their teeth or washing their hands. Have your kids look for leaks around the hose and in the yard and give them a treat if they find one.
Put a piece of tape in the bathtub to mark how full they can make the tub. Give them a timer if you have an older child who likes to take showers. Think of creative ways to reward conservation.
Go for a two-fer: If you break down and let your child play in the kiddie pool, try not to fill it up so high. After you're done, make sure to tip it out on your plants or grass.
If you have a watering can handy, you can dip it into the pool and water your plants inside, too. Kristen Crane, water conservation administrator of the city of Poway, sometimes has her kiddie pool double as bath time. If your kids are going to have a water balloon fight, let the field of combat be your grass so the water isn't wasted.
Have fun: Both Robbins and Crane say kids should be able to enjoy water – within reason. Don't run the hose or the sprinkler for hours on end, as that water really does just go down the drain.
Still, Robbins points out that a child's water usage really is, well, a drop in the bucket. “Kids really don't have much of a water footprint. Half of all water gets used in exterior irrigation,” he explains. And remember, the easiest way to curb water cravings is to head to the beach or a community pool.#
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