WATER AGENCIES USE PLEAS AND PENALTIES TO ACHIEVE CONSERVATION GOALS
After three years of drought that has left the state’s biggest reservoirs well below capacity, water agencies up and down the state are using methods to cajole customers into conserving California’s most precious commodity. The Association of California Water Agencies reports that 62 agencies statewide have implemented voluntary conservation measures and 32 have imposed mandatory water restrictions. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which accounts for a third of the state’s water supply, stands at 66 percent of normal.
The two biggest reservoirs in the state, Shasta and Oroville, are well below their average storage at 76 and 71 percent, respectively. Water purveyors around the state are spending millions of dollars convincing their customers that they need to conserve water. Some are issuing for blatant water wasting and many are imposing drought rates that discourage high usage. In most cases, consumers are getting the message.
In Los Angeles, water conservation teams in clearly marked cars patrol the streets on the lookout for water wasters, the thoughtless few who and when they aren’t supposed to or flooding the gutter by overspraying. Violators get a warning the first time - but after that could be hit with a ticket. Repeat offenders could be dinged up to $600 for ignoring previous warning.
So far, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s 3.8 million customers have cut back by 5 percent of their water use, still short of the percent goal. Starting June 1, outdoor irrigation will be limited to Mondays and Thursdays with no watering allowed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.. The rate system will reward customers who conserve and penalize those who don’t. “We have no choice but to make conserving water the law,” says Nahai, the CEO and general manager of the LADWP. “Cutting back on water use is now our civic duty.”
In the Northern California city of Novato, customers served by the North Marin Water District who are caught washing down the sidewalk, no automatic shutoff on their hoses or overwatering, are issued a warning. If the violation isn’t corrected in a reasonable amount of time, their service is disconnected and it will cost them $100 to have it reconnected. A second violation results in a $200 reconnection charge and a flow restrictor on their service.
Among the areas hardest hit by a third of drought is the San Joaquin Valley, where many farmers rely on the state and federal water projects for deliveries. The Westlands Water District, which serves 600,000 acres of farmland in Fresno and Kings counties, will receive just 10 percent of what it normally gets from the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Central Valley Water Project.
What that means for the district’s farmers is more expensive water, fields and more pressure on an already over-drawn groundwater system. Westlands spokesperson Sarah Woolf said even if the bureau increases water allocations in the coming weeks, it wouldn’t help farmers this year.
The drastic reduction in water deliveries from the Central Valley Project has forced farmers to greatly increase groundwater pumping, which has set off environmental impacts. The district has yet to take criminal action against any of its customers.
In L.A., the DWP has issued 3,600 citations in the past year for water wasters. A second citation results in a monetary fine. One district used a combination of higher rates and a vigorous public outreach campaign to coax its customers into conserving water. The East Bay Municipal Utilities District cut their water use by 13 percent after the district’s 1.3 million customers opted out of the drought emergency.
All those conservation efforts won’t prevent water rates from increasing for the district’s customers, however. Because of the great job of conserving water, EBMUD’s customers will face a 7.5 percent rate increase later this summer. As water sales drop, so do revenues for water districts, which rely on water sales for a lot of their budgets. But, the agencies have a high percentage of fixed costs for overhead and labor, and the sales deficit must be made up somewhere.