Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 1, 2009
2. Supply –
Starting today, L.A. limits water sprinkling to 2 days a week
LA Times
My View: Ranch owner: Reservoir is full of promise
Sacramento Bee
Drought has made reusing 'gray' water an increasingly popular, and practiced, idea
The Riverside Press Enterprise
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Starting today, L.A. limits water sprinkling to 2 days a week
LA Times- June 1, 2009
By Maeve Reston
A final warning to all you lawn aficionados and green thumbs: Los Angeles' mandatory water conservation restrictions — aimed at reducing the city's water use by 15% — begin today.
That means residents can use their sprinklers only on Mondays and Thursdays, and customers who don't cut their water use could face higher utility bills.
Details on the shortage rate are a bit complex. To determine how to avoid higher rates, customers can call the DWP at (800) DIAL-DWP or log into their account at the DWP website to determine their water allotment. The agency has posted all the details here.
And if your neighbor catches you using those sprinklers — on, say, Tuesday — you might hear from the drought police. The DWP is seeking reports of water waste at (800) DIAL-DWP or via e-mail at waterconservationteam@ladwp.com.#
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/dont-even-think-about-it-l-a-water-restrictions-start-today.html
My View: Ranch owner: Reservoir is full of promise
Sacramento Bee-5/31/09
By Mary Wells
Special to The Bee
When my family purchased our ranch 35 years ago in the small foothill community of Sites, we knew there were discussions to flood our land and make it a reservoir. Even so, we hoped we could continue to ranch here for generations to come.
We could not predict back then that California would grow so fast and our state's needs would be so great that a reservoir would become an essential part of solving California's current water crisis.
It would be sad to see our land and our neighbors' land flooded, but I understand that Californians would benefit from storing this water.
For years, California's leaders talked about solving our state's water crisis. In drought years they focused on this issue, but public attention faded with the next rainfall. That short-term thinking has created a long-term problem for everyone.
As the great-great-granddaughter of W.H. Williams, the founder of a small town in western Colusa County in the mid-1800s, and being a grandmother, I think about the past but most importantly about the future.
My children and grandchildren sit on tractors and harvesters and on horseback in Northern California, managing our lands. I want their lives to be as good as they are now, where we maintain our roots to the land that sustains us all while protecting California's environment. This requires unprecedented commitment to resolve our state's water crisis.
Over many years, people have assumed conserving water would solve our crisis. While helpful, conservation alone cannot provide for the future of a growing population.
We as a state have done little for decades to expand the amount of water we can store in wet and normal years to ensure we have water available in drought years to meet the needs of citizens, business, agriculture, and fish and wildlife.
A partial solution to our problem lies in Colusa County, where a natural bowl formation on the west side of the Sacramento Valley provides what the Department of Water Resources calls the best alternative for increased water storage for California.
Known as the Sites Reservoir because the small community bears the name of its earliest landowner, John Lee Sites, some 2 million acre-feet of water – that is 652 billion gallons – could be stored. This offers the most cost-effective and environmentally sound alternative to provide water so that we don't experience shortages each and every year.
With this reservoir, excess water that flows down the Sacramento River, sometimes causing serious winter and spring flooding before heading to the Pacific Ocean, could instead be stored and available when we really need it.
The water could be used to maintain water flow in our rivers during drought years, water that is critical for both fish and river habitats. The citizens of this state decided to place great value upon protecting our environment for future generations. This water storage supports that effort.
The water also would be available to meet the state's contractual obligation to provide water to farming families throughout California, and to protect jobs and the economies of many rural communities. This is especially important for permanent crops, such as orchards and vineyards, where even one year without water is devastating to the survival of the long-term investment in and production of the agricultural land.
The water needs of our state's growing population must be addressed without sacrificing agriculture or the environment. Water diverted to farms is only partially used to grow crops. Much of it flows back into our streams and rivers to be used over again by more farms, cities, wildlife refuges and our Bay-Delta ecosystem.
I cherish my ranch and my home in Sites with all the memories that go with it. For me, the time has come to use our land in a different way. We need Sites Reservoir to help solve California's water crisis.
Californians need to understand and embrace water storage as part of their future. This requires thinking and acting beyond the kitchen faucet that provided water this morning. We must work together to ensure that future generations have the water they need at their faucets, on their farms and in their environment.#
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1903373.html
Drought has made reusing 'gray' water an increasingly popular, and practiced, idea
The Riverside Press Enterprise – 5/30/09
By Janet Zimmerman
When Ardis Beckner-Eggebrecht does her four loads of laundry a week, she uses about 30 gallons of water and saves more than 100.
Her secret? Reusing the water from her washing machine to clean several more loads, then dumping it onto the roses, grapefruit trees and grass outside her Redlands home.
"I thought, 'Why are we dumping perfectly good water out?' " said Beckner-Eggebrecht, a tanned and toned 75-year-old who scoops countless buckets of spent wash water she collects in two plastic trash barrels and totes them to the yard on wash day.
She and other "gray water" enthusiasts say drought-plagued California is missing an opportunity by not using wastewater from bathroom sinks, showers and washing machines to flush toilets and irrigate outdoors; it does not include the drainage from kitchen sinks, dishwashers or toilets, which are high in organic matter and pathogens.
The topic is gaining attention in light of the state's water woes, including restrictions on the water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, mandatory cutbacks by water agencies and higher rates to inspire conservation.
Beckner-Eggebrecht, whose family recycled gray water on their Wisconsin farm when she was a child, said water rates have gone up, but her bill has remained level since she started recycling in earnest a year ago. There have been no adverse effects of sharing wash water with the plants, and the family's clothes are clean as ever, she said.
A typical home with three residents produces about 125 gallons of gray water a day, said Steve Bilson, owner of ReWater Systems, a Chula Vista company that installs code-compliant gray water drip irrigation systems. That's enough to irrigate 2,500 square feet of low-water plants and cut household demand for potable water by 50 percent.
But the state plumbing code, one of the most restrictive in the country, doesn't make it easy, Bilson said. Among the more difficult requirements: Gray water irrigation pipes must be buried 9 inches deep, and no surface runoff is allowed.
Beckner-Eggebrecht's methods are outlawed under the current code, but that will change as early as this summer, Bilson said. A reworking of the state's plumbing code -- with Bilson's help -- will make it easier and less expensive for homeowners to use gray water.
Among the biggest changes: up to two fixtures can be routed outside without a permit, and lines must be under only 2 inches of mulch, he said.
"It modifies (regulations) to be so much closer to what's really needed," Bilson said. "There's so much of that going on out there."
An estimated 1.8 million households in the state use gray water, but only 200 of them are permitted, according to Art Ludwig, of Santa Barbara, widely considered the guru of gray water. He gives information and advice for making a gray water system on his Web site, www.oasisdesign.net.
Many people install unpermitted systems on their own, usually running a hose from their washing machine to the garden, according to Greywater Guerrillas, an Oakland-based group that helps homeowners rig their own systems.
In their do-it-yourself guide "Dam Nation: Dispatches From the Water Underground," the group says biodegradable soaps are a must, and that nutrients in wash water are good for plants.
But they caution that the water should be used within 24 hours, should not be allowed to pool and that homeowners should minimize contact with the water. Scientific studies on the safety of gray water are scarce.
Study In Progress
According to the California Department of Public Health, gray water may contain pathogens that can cause illness and death.
But there have been no known cases of people becoming ill from gray water, Bilson said.
The Water Environment Research Foundation in Alexandria, Va., is sponsoring a study on the long-term effects of using gray water to irrigate landscapes; preliminary results show that gray water is safe for toilet flushing and outdoor irrigation.
The Idyllwild Water District is handing out the plumbing code guidelines and urging customers to install approved systems, said Terry Lyons, the general manager, who noticed numerous jury-rigged systems around town.
They were often drainpipes coming from a laundry room window into a yard littered with lint or suds that sometimes reach the area's creeks, he said.
Under the current code, runoff must be plumbed to an underground leach field or drip irrigation system, and there's a 50-foot setback from creeks.
When he first tried to promote gray water four years ago, Lyons said he couldn't get anybody's attention. Now, after three years of drought, the story has changed.
"It's a good way to take advantage of water we're putting into the septic that then goes into the groundwater," he said. "It's small scale, but every little drop counts."
The process is easier for new homes, said John Raya, a certified green plumber trained in conservation. His company, Plumbing Concepts Inc. in Yorba Linda, installed a gray water system in a Habitat for Humanity home in Riverside last year.
He's also testing a retrofit system that captures gray water from the bathroom sink, stores it in a small tank with chlorine treatment and then uses it to flush the toilet. The system, which fits in a bathroom cabinet, costs about $500.
"It's like a Prius or the first home computers. As (systems) get more sophisticated and more people buy them, the costs come down. You'll see an acceleration in product development, refinement, availability, and you'll see the municipal codes swinging into line," Raya said.
"We're going to see these go from a choice to a mandate very soon, and that will change everything," he said.#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_graywater31.454b497.html
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