Water conservation is no longer an option

California has always been a study in never having enough water. Southern California even more so. With a population of more than 38 million Californians living on the edge of disaster, now is the time for residents to reconsider their water usage and their commitment to environmental sustainability. To delay any longer is reckless.

On June 4, 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of drought after the driest spring in California’s recorded history. Few noticed. Since that uneventful day, water districts have issued warnings calling for Southern California residents and businesses to do as little as possible in response to dwindling water availability.

When it comes to conserving water, doing a little is never enough.

Voluntary water conversation measures do help. Asking people to use less water is smart advice considering that there are more and more Californians every year, trying to get by with less and less water. Reducing individual water consumption can and should happen on numerous levels. Learning respect and restraint is the first step. Respecting finite resources while practicing restraint in all aspects of our lives is the only path to abundance.

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Source: The Coast News

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Agencies get aggressive in efforts to curb water waste

Since November, Bill Stephens and his fellow water cops have issued more than 450 warnings and tickets to water wasters in Riverside County. They’ve targeted commercial, industrial and institutional customers in the Eastern Municipal Water District from Moreno Valley to Temecula.

This month, Stephens started to cite residents for excessively using water. After two warnings, homeowners will be fined $100 or more.

“You see a lot of waste. You just see it everywhere,” Stephens said.

He mainly writes citations when water is streaming off landscaped areas or sprinklers are spraying onto pavement.

Water cops are the way Eastern, California’s fifth-largest water district, is emphasizing the statewide drought. There are few equivalent programs in San Diego County, where officials are relying almost entirely on voluntary conservation despite some calls for mandates.

One exception is the Padre Dam Municipal Water District in Santee, whose employees recently were deputized to report water misuse, including irrigating between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Violators are sent a warning, and repeat problems can result in fines of $75 or more.

“It’s time to get serious,” said Mike Uhrhammer, spokesman for the Padre Dam district.

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Source: The Union Tribune

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Landscape rules on how much lawn is enough differ by city

KEEPING that thick, verdant blanket of grass watered in these dog days of summer is about as economical and conservation-minded an enterprise as gassing up the family SUV for the weekly commute or a long-distance vacation. It costs a bundle, and pretty soon you have to do it all over again.

But before yanking out the Marathon and replacing it with concrete or AstroTurf, it’s best to check out the myriad landscaping rules, regulations and ordinances individual municipalities enforce. Just because Los Angeles homeowners can put, pour or plant nearly anything in their frontyards doesn’t mean Long Beach residents can too.

Equally confounding is that some cities are promoting water conservation, while still requiring that yards be at least half grass. Officials are scrambling to catch up with a conservation movement that many of its residents already have embraced.

“It’s hard, because changing the zoning ordinances is a long process,” said Jesse Brown, assistant planner for Burbank. “It can take a year and needs City Council approval.”

Add to that the different philosophies among city planning departments, and headaches are born.

“We have almost no regulations whatsoever,” said Michael O’Brien, a planning associate for Los Angeles.

“If you want to plant a drought-tolerant garden, you can,” said Glendale’s Neighborhood Services Administrator Sam Engle. “As long as you follow the guidelines.”

And therein lies the rub, or shrub, if you will: If you’re going Sahara, check in first with local government.

Longtime Burbank homeowners Margie and Louis Dell had Laramee Haynes do the checking for them. The Pasadena landscaper told the couple that they could implement their drought-tolerant design, which included pebbles and recycled concrete, as long as they met the city’s requirement that no more than 45% of their front- and street-facing yards be hard-scaped.

He tore out their tired turf and replaced it with flowering paprika yarrow, lilac verbena, red California fuchsia, deer grass and oak trees, all anchored by redwood mulch. Window planters are filled with succulents.

The driveway, once a solid mass of concrete, now is made of pebbles and broken recycled concrete. A brook filled with recycled water flows through the backyard and spills into a pond stuffed with goldfish that feed on mosquitoes and algae.

The Dells got fired up to make the changes after attending a Burbank water conservation workshop.

A trip to the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants in Sun Valley, where a botanist explained drought-tolerant landscaping, sealed the deal. The nonprofit organization promotes native gardens and offers more than 300 varieties of native plants for sale.

“Our neighbors love our garden,” Margie Dell said of her new landscaping, which requires watering only twice a year. “They want to know how to do it.”

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Source: Los Angeles Times

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Fort Bragg, CA bans car washing to save water

The city of Fort Bragg issued an order Thursday asking its residents to conserve water.

Fort Bragg wants to reduce the amount of water used in the city by 10 percent.

The city now prohibits the washing of cars and prohibits restaurants from serving water unless it is on special request of the patron.

Other activities the city asks people to refrain from include filling or refilling swimming pools and watering landscaping between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

To help people comply with water conservation efforts Fort Bragg offers tips for saving water used indoors and outdoors.

The 31 tips published by the city of Fort Bragg encourage the fixing of leaky faucets and the unnecessary flushing of toilets.

Recommendations for outdoor watering ask that watering devices be adjusted to spray with precision.

Among the tips is a recommendation that hoses be fitted with a nozzle that allows the user to spray only the amount of water needed.

If conservation efforts do not succeed, Fort Bragg will increase its demands for conservation, according to a statement from the city.

Source: The Ukiah Daily Journal

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California drought expected to worsen

The drought parching California is expected to extend into 2009 and state officials hope efforts announced Thursday will help ease some of the problems.

The Department of Water Resources says it will create a 2009 “Drought Water Bank,” a program designed to facilitate water transfers.

“We are in the midst of a drought right now and California potentially faces another dry year in 2009. It’s clear that we must find solutions to our water crisis,” says Lester Snow, DWR director. “A water bank provides a valuable tool to help provide water to communities who need it most. This is just one of the many ways the state is working to address the drought.”

To implement the 2009 Drought Water Bank, DWR will buy water from willing sellers, primarily from water agencies upstream of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

This water will be transferred using State Water Project or Central Valley Project facilities to water agencies that are at risk of water shortages in 2009 due to drought conditions and that require supplemental water supplies to meet anticipated demands.

Water acquired by the 2009 program would be available for purchase by public and private water systems in California based on certain needs criteria.

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Source: Central Valley Business Times

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Florida: Leaders Must Protect Resources

A recent letter by the St. Johns River Water Management District to “clarify some misinformation” shows us just how out of touch it really is.

The misinformation pertains to a discrepancy cited by a concerned citizen regarding the amount of water that the water management district wants to hand over to a California-based water bottling plant, Niagara.

The outrage expressed by citizens and local governments is not as much about the amount of water up for grabs as the fact that the district wants to allow an out-of-state company to bottle our groundwater at virtually no cost when we are experiencing water shortages.

While the district keeps preaching water conservation, it continues to issue consumptive use permits to golf courses, water bottling plants and sod farms.

At the same time, the district wants to issue permits to utilities in Central Florida to take water out of the St. Johns, because we have apparently squandered our once vast groundwater supplies.

The district recommended approval of the withdrawal permit for the Yankee Lake facility in Seminole County, despite the fact that the technical staff report indicates that the per-capita daily use of water in Seminole is expected to be the exact same in 2025 as it is today. I guess conservation really isn’t much of a priority or concern, after all.

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Source: The Florida Times-Union

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Florida on Water Conservation: This talk must lead to action

Near the end of the month, more than 100 representatives of governmental, industrial, agricultural and environmental organizations will descend on Orlando for the first annual statewide Water Congress. Marion County Commissioner Stan McClain, who as board chairman two years ago led our community’s public opposition to water transfers, will be among the delegates.

The gathering sprang from a January report to Gov. Charlie Crist and the Legislature by the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, a legislatively created group of movers and shakers charged with advising our elected leaders on how to keep our state livable as more and more people come to live here.

The chief recommendation outlined by the Century Commission in its January report was to conduct a water summit wherein expert participants would brainstorm for ideas to preserve our water supply for all types of uses for the next 50 years — and hopefully, and this is the tricky part, see those ideas translated into sound water policy.

As has been the case on water, Marion County has been well ahead of the curve. Almost 18 months ago, county officials released the Water Resource Assessment and Management Study, or WRAMS, an exhaustive three-year study outlining our community’s water needs for the next 50 years.

The key findings were as follows: our water usage, with current population trends, will at least double; groundwater would provide only half of what we would need for that growth; the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to make up a big part of the deficit — some 35 million gallons a day, or more than a third of the shortfall — was to enact “an aggressive water conservation program to include conservation rate structures, enforced watering schedules, landscape and irrigation system restrictions, and education.”

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Source: Ocala.com

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How dry we are! Let’s act like it, too

The exposed stumps and shoreline of Folsom Lake tell the story this year.

With reservoir levels so low, Californians can’t afford to waste a drop. Conservation has to be part of a multi-pronged strategy to stretch supplies and survive droughts.

To that end, Assemblyman John Laird is trying to pass a bill that would require a 20 percent reduction in urban per-capita water usage by 2020. Cities and counties would have flexibility in how to reach this target, but they could no longer casually water their sidewalks, as occurs almost every day in Sacramento, Los Angeles and other cities.

Laird’s legislation, AB 2175, has passed the Assembly but is in trouble in the Senate. Its survival could depend on two local senators – Mike Machado of Linden and Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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Water Bottler wants to build a water pipeline. It seems to be a profitable business!

LANSING, Mich. – A water bottling company has won approval from state regulators to complete construction of a well and pipeline in Osceola County.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says Nestle Waters North America’s proposal meets permitting requirements. Regulators previously have determined the project isn’t likely to adversely affect surface or groundwater resources.

Greenwich, Conn.-based Nestle plans to withdraw 150 gallons per minute from an aquifer in the county 70 miles north of Grand Rapids. The permit also authorizes the installation of casing beneath wetlands for a future pipeline. The DEQ announced its decision Thursday.

Nestle bottles water in Michigan under the company’s Ice Mountain label.

Source: The Chicago Tribune

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Poll: In Nevada, 50% Willing to Conserve Water to Fight Climate Change

Half of Nevada residents would support restrictions on their water use to help stretch the region’s shrinking supply in the face of climate change, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal opinion poll.

Fewer than one third of Nevadans polled said they would oppose new restrictions on water use, while 19 percent of respondents were undecided.

Among the likely voters interviewed in six Western states, those in Nevada and Utah were most willing to accept new limits on their water use.

Activist Bob Fulkerson was pleasantly surprised by the results in Nevada.

“It shows that people are willing to do a lot more with water conservation, and that’s encouraging,” said Fulkerson, who is executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

Several recent scientific studies warn that climate change could reduce rainfall and snow accumulation in the Rocky Mountains, leading to longer and more severe droughts on the Colorado River. The Las Vegas Valley gets 90 percent of its water from the river.

Though Nevadans remain split over whether climate change is real or unproven, 57 percent of those polled said the benefits of reacting to the phenomenon will be worth the economic costs.

Fifty-six percent of respondents said they thought efforts to address climate change would create new jobs in agriculture and alternative energy research and production.

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Source: The Ely Times

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