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KUSP Latest » The Water Squeeze http://blogs.kusp.org/features Just another KUSP Blogs site Fri, 04 Sep 2015 17:48:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Watsonville Adds Water Restrictions http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/28/watsonville-adds-water-restrictions/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/28/watsonville-adds-water-restrictions/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2014 19:29:01 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8915

A scene like like could lead to a $500 fine. Courtesy of Stephen Laufer J.D. Hillard | KUSP News This week Watsonville’s City Council approved new restrictions on water use following an emergency mandate issued by Governor Jerry Brown last month. The emergency measure was aimed at reducing outdoor water use in urban areas. A [...]]]>

A scene like like could lead to a $500 fine. Courtesy of Stephen Laufer J.D. Hillard | KUSP News This week Watsonville’s City Council approved new restrictions on water use following an emergency mandate issued by Governor Jerry Brown last month. The emergency measure was aimed at reducing outdoor water use in urban areas. A lot of water districts have a variety of restrictions already, the mandate specifies all districts have to adopt measures such as prohibiting watering that causes runoff or washing cars without a nozzle that shuts off. In order to comply Watsonville adopted the mandated limit for outdoor watering: no more than two days per week for less than 15 minutes. The city would provide technical assistance to violators, though repeat violations could lead to fines up to $500. One place where the change may show up is sports fields, which are often watered three or four times per week. Pajaro Valley Unified School Districts’s Brett McFadden says if the district cuts back watering on its grass fields it could create safety issues. “You open yourself up to patches of grass dying and then they’re torn up and you have an uneven field,” McFadden says. Nancy Lockwood, who oversees environmental projects for the city, says if a customer shows a need to water outside the schedule, there’s an option to develop an irrigation plan. “But for the vast majority of residents and businesses, the two-day-a-week, 15 minutes is going to be adequate to keep their lawn alive – not necessarily going to be a lush green - but it’ll be alive and then hopefully we start to get rain, the lawn will green up again,” Lockwood says. The state mandate was issued in July after a report showed most water districts had failed to reduce water use by the 20 percent the Governor had called for. Water districts that fail to comply may see fines of up to $10,000 a day. Watsonville residents who need help identifying leaks or adjusting automatic irrigation can call the city for assistance. That number is 768-3133.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/28/watsonville-adds-water-restrictions/feed/ 0 At Farming Workshop: Drought and Salty Wells http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/15/ag-education-focus-turns-to-water-issues/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/15/ag-education-focus-turns-to-water-issues/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:54:37 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8889

At Farming Workshop: Drought and Salty Wells

By Wes Sims | KUSP News During droughts cities tell residents to stop watering outside. Farms don’t have that option. This drought highlights the challenge growers face maintaining agriculture while preserving water supplies. It's become part of the curriculum for a program that educates community leaders about local agricultural issues. Drying Landscape Marine Biologist Mark [...]]]>

By Wes Sims | KUSP News During droughts cities tell residents to stop watering outside. Farms don’t have that option. This drought highlights the challenge growers face maintaining agriculture while preserving water supplies. It's become part of the curriculum for a program that educates community leaders about local agricultural issues.

Drying Landscape Marine Biologist Mark Silberstein is giving a walking tour of the Elkhorn Slough, near Moss Landing. “From this vantage point you really get the broad sweep of Elkhorn Slough. You sort of get the big picture,” Silberstein says as the tour reaches a point offering a view of much of the preserve. Silberstein is executive director of the non-profit Elkhorn Slough Foundation, and one of a dozen instructors at Focus Agriculture, an annual nine-week lecture series designed to give members of the community, an on-site understanding of farming in the Pajaro Valley. “This is called the Springfield Terrace, where before the Second World War, there was artesian water," he says. "There was so much water pressure that fresh water bubbled out of the ground.” Contaminated Wells, Fallowed Land But not anymore, because of salt-water intrusion, and more recently, a critical lack of rainfall. Jess Brown, the executive director of Agri-Culture, the Watsonville-based non-profit that administers Focus Ag, says the drought raised the priority water use discussions.

Lou Calcagno at his dairy farm. Photo: Monterey County Weekly “We’re very lucky to have Lou Calcagno, who has been a supervisor for many years but he’s a dairy farmer," Brown says. "And what’s interesting is that he talks about how Elkhorn Slough, where his dairy is, was a fresh water body, and now it isn’t. It’s salt water.” Calcagno offered this example: “Just recently, the Fish and Game bought a property next to me. They had a well, it was 800 feet, it went salty. The 850 acres that was farmed, it’s no longer farmed. It’s growing weeds.” Reclaimed Water or Taking Land Out of Production Farming in California coastal areas has suffered from salt water intrusion for a long time, an issue Lou Calcagno deals with as a dairy farmer and as a Monterey County Supervisor. Calcagno supports the increased use of recycled water as one way to replenish the groundwater supply. “When you leave Moss Landing and you drive to Salinas or you cross the river to Monterey, all that ground is being irrigated with reclaimed water, which we call purple line, sewer water from the City of Monterey, former Fort Ord, Marina, Seaside, Salinas, Moss Landing, and Castroville. We take all that water and reclaim it.” Though the Elkhorn Slough Foundation maintains about ten percent of its surrounding lands in some kind of farming or ranching, Mark Silberstein says another way existing groundwater supplies can be preserved, is by not farming areas that are unproductive. “We’ve taken 600 plus acres of steep - what we felt were overly steep or eroding hillsides - out of production. That equates to approaching 2,000 acre feet of water a year that was being pumped out of the ground year after year that’s now banked in the ground.” The Task at Hand Two thousand acre feet would be about four percent of the amount that farms take out of Pajaro Valley wells each year. Focus Ag class member and Watsonville City Council woman Trina Coffman-Gomez says, clearly, there’s work to be done. “All of us need to take our part and be responsible for conserving what we can, because it, it’s basically the monetary value of our area. It’s no longer money. It’s water. Water is that gold that’s in our valley here, and we need to make sure we do the best with the resources that we have here and work together with it." 2013 was one of the driest years on record, with water use in the Pajaro Valley, the second highest in the last decade. And that was before drought conditions got as bad as they are now.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/15/ag-education-focus-turns-to-water-issues/feed/ 0 Environmental Groups Criticize Proposed Desalination Rule http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/06/environmental-groups-criticize-proposed-desalination-rule/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/06/environmental-groups-criticize-proposed-desalination-rule/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:15:14 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8807 At Wednesday's hearing to review the rule, Sean Bothwell, an attorney from the environmental group Coast Keeper, argued the proposal currently allows too many conditions under which a project could draw seawater in a more destructive manner. “It lists just a suite of different factors. And really I see those as just opportunities for permitees to be ‘I don’t want to do subsurface intakes and here’s all the reasons to show that my project, which I designed, can’t meet that.'” Under the regulation, desal plants would have to use treated waste water to dilute waste brine. Hayley Percy of the Southern California Watershed Alliance argued that would increase the energy intensiveness of the system. “It seems crazy to design a water supply system that spends an enormous amount of energy to send water to southern California, use it once, spend a lot of energy to purify that waste water and then discharge it into the ocean.” Meanwhile, representatives of water districts praised the proposal for providing guidance where currently the regulation is uncertain and for giving allowance to the specific challenges of projects in different settings. The deadline for public comments on the proposed regulation is August 19^th, which is the day of the next hearing.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/08/06/environmental-groups-criticize-proposed-desalination-rule/feed/ 0 California Approves $500 Fines For Residential Water-Wasters http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/16/california-approves-500-fines-for-residential-water-wasters/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/16/california-approves-500-fines-for-residential-water-wasters/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2014 20:04:48 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8657

California Approves $500 Fines For Residential Water-Wasters

A scene like like could lead to a $500 fine. Courtesy of Stephen Laufer ...voluntary conservation measures have failed to achieve the 20 percent reduction that Gov. Jerry Brown was hoping for. By L. Carol Ritchie (via nprnews) - Californians who waste water will have to pay up to $500 a day for [...]]]>

A scene like like could lead to a $500 fine. Courtesy of Stephen Laufer

...voluntary conservation measures have failed to achieve the 20 percent reduction that Gov. Jerry Brown was hoping for.

By L. Carol Ritchie (via nprnews) - Californians who waste water will have to pay up to $500 a day for their extravagance under new restrictions approved Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board. The move comes after the board concluded that voluntary conservation measures have failed to achieve the 20 percent reduction in water use that Gov. Jerry Brown was hoping for, reports The Associated Press. In fact, a survey by the board showed a 1 percent increase in water use in May compared to the same month a year ago. Residents will be fined for wasteful outdoor watering, including "watering landscaping to the point that runoff flows onto sidewalks, washing a vehicle without a nozzle on the hose, or hosing down hard surfaces such as sidewalks and driveways," AP reports. Also banned: using drinking water in ornamental fountains that don't recirculate, and washing a car without a shut-off nozzle. Although several southern state agencies have made significant cuts in water use in recent years, most residents just don't understand the seriousness of California's three-year drought, the worst since the 1970s, said Madely Glickfeld of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. According to the Los Angeles Times, Glickfeld cited "lush lawns and freeway sprinklers spraying next to the electronic Caltrans signs urging water savings." Water board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus told the AP that the fines will spread the burden of the drought beyond farmers to city and suburban residents. "Our goal here is to light a fire under those who aren't yet taking the drought seriously," she said. "We're all in this together."]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/16/california-approves-500-fines-for-residential-water-wasters/feed/ 0 Why Monterey Isn’t Rationing Water and Santa Cruz Is http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/11/whys-santa-cruz-the-only-monterey-bay-area-water-district-with-rationing/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/11/whys-santa-cruz-the-only-monterey-bay-area-water-district-with-rationing/#comments Fri, 11 Jul 2014 14:21:31 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8650

Why Monterey Isn’t Rationing Water and Santa Cruz Is

Before rationing took effect, Santa Cruz checked water use with an aggressive public information campaign. Photo: Wes Sims. By Wes Sims | KUSP News Two of the larger districts in the Monterey Bay area rely on rivers for their water. Under rationing, in Santa Cruz, if your family uses fifteen hundred gallons over the limit, [...]]]>

Before rationing took effect, Santa Cruz checked water use with an aggressive public information campaign. Photo: Wes Sims. By Wes Sims | KUSP News Two of the larger districts in the Monterey Bay area rely on rivers for their water. Under rationing, in Santa Cruz, if your family uses fifteen hundred gallons over the limit, Water Director Rosemary Menard says "You’d be looking at about 75 dollars a month in fines." Meanwhile, on the Monterey Peninsula, there are no fines. Here's why there’s rationing in one place and not another. Since May 1st in Santa Cruz, if you use more than a certain amount of water in a month, you get fined. Water Director Rosemary Menard walked me through what would be a pretty big water bill, for someone trying to keep a green lawn, or a swimming pool that uses 9-thousand dollars a month. “If you’re a single family residential customer inside the city, you’d be looking at about 75-dollars a month in fines for, um, the 15-hundred gallons over your allotment of about 75-hundred.”

Rosemary Menard assumed directorship of the Santa Cruz Water District just in time to shepherd it through a historical drought. Photo: Wes Sims.During the summer, the water in the San Lorenzo River usually doesn’t meet demand. The Loch Lomond reservoir fills in that gap. Santa Cruz’s rationing fines and a big publicity campaign are designed to reduce water usage. So what we’ve been really working on is trying to maintain Loch Lomond at a high enough level at the end of the dry season this year 1:10 so that if we have another dry year next year, we have enough another dry year next year we have the flexibility and some additional capacity to meet customer demand kind of in the second or third or fourth or fifth dry year that might come in a row. Toby Goddard, the districts’ administrative services manager explained why, at a public event. "Well, the short story is, it didn’t rain this year. And the streams from which the city draws its water supply are expected to flow about one-tenth of their normal amount. And so our supplies are drying and our reservoir storage never recovered from last year, and we’re trying to reduce demand so that we have some water in storage for next year in case the drought drags on." "You know, we’ve been having a really good response from our customers. We have about 94% compliance based on the May consumption data, and that is really great." A minute ago, you heard Cal Am spokesperson Catherine Stedman say: "On the Monterey Peninsula we don’t expect to impose rationing at this time." That’s because … "Water bills already already are priced so steeply that people have been using less water for years." The Monterey Peninsula Water District takes most of its supply through wells that draw from the gravel underneath the Carmel River. This dries up the natural habitat of Steelhead trout … and the district faces an order to cut back most of what it draws from the Carmel River by the end of 2016. Water Demand Manager Stephanie Locke: "The Monterey Peninsula has lived in a conservation mode for the last twenty years. What we do on a daily basis is what other agencies are putting into place in response to the drought." For the past several years the Monterey District has encouraged conservation by charging increasingly higher rates. Remember that water bill in Santa Cruz … how before rationing, it would have been about thirty one dollars? Cal-Am’s Catherine Bowie says the same usage would cost twice that much in Monterey. "You’d have 60 units in the first tier and 60 units in the second and the total would come out to 63 dollars." The peninsula has been paying a lot for water since before the drought. This may be why Stephanie Locke expects the district to use less water than it can take from the river … even during this historical drought year. "So I think that overall our savings, we’re at just below sixty gallons per person per day, making us one of the lowest water users in the state of California, has been to our advantage and is keeping us from having to go further at this time." There is the hope that warming of the Eastern Pacific could result in an El Nino that might bring substantial rainfall. But Toby Goddard says there have been dry El Ninos. "It really doesn’t factor into our dry year planning this year because we can’t count on it." What water users in both districts can count on is dryer lawns and shorter showers.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/07/11/whys-santa-cruz-the-only-monterey-bay-area-water-district-with-rationing/feed/ 0 After Measure O, Supply Project Continues http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/06/05/after-measure-o-supply-project-continues/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/06/05/after-measure-o-supply-project-continues/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2014 19:01:57 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8418 Julia Calderone | KUSP News Voters on the Monterey Peninsula turned down the ballot measure that would’ve handed the water management baton from private company Cal Am into the hands of the public. 56 % said no to Measure O. A yes vote on O would’ve allowed the regulatory Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Management District to determine whether public ownership of the peninsula’s water system would be cheaper for ratepayers in the long run. If so, the public utility would've bought out Cal Am’s facilities on the Monterey Peninsula. But Measure O proponent Ron Cohen says that opponents feared that this new role for the district would halt their exploration of new water sources. Overwhelming Opposition "Pretty much every political person, except for a few, were against the measure. They were worried that the timing was poor and that it would distract from this new water source. Now they don't have that anymore and it's up for them to come up with a new water source." Views of the measure didn’t split along typical political lines. Among those critics was Congressman Sam Farr, who is usually considered progressive. In addition to this criticism, Cal Am itself spent much more than the measure’s proponents. General Manager of the District, Dave Stoldt, says that the business of the district would’ve continued even if measure o had passed. The public utility would’ve continued to chip away at their desalination facility, groundwater replenishment project, and aquifer storage and recovery. "We still would've had our head down pushing very hard on getting the water supply project finished. But now that measure o has not passed, that's still our charge, it's business as usual." But aggressive campaigning by Cal Am makes Stoldt unsure about their future of cooperation. "When I say business as usual I'm not really sure where our working relationship is going to be. We need to be partners on many projects, but obviously there were things said during the campaign that we're going to have to see where all that works out." Delays Make the Case For Public Ownership Cohen fits the fate of his effort to acquire the utility into the context of the peninsula’s water supply problem. Cal Am has been under pressure to replace the Carmel River as its primary water source since 1996. If they don’t accomplish that soon, Cohen believes that the next time voters get to decide on taking over their utility, the proposal might get a warmer welcome among voters. "Eight years ago we had a similar vote to measure o, it was defeated just like measure o was. And Cal Am was not able to produce any water since then. Now, we have a new vote, we did a lot better than we did in that election, and it's a question of, if they can't produce, we think we'll succeed next time around." Projections are already that cal am is going to fail on meeting its cease and desist order to cut back pumping from the Carmel River by the end of 2016. But Stoldt says that desalination is progressing, and aims to reach 70% design by September or October.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/06/05/after-measure-o-supply-project-continues/feed/ 0 California’s Drought Isn’t Making Food Cost More. Here’s Why http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/23/californias-drought-isnt-making-food-cost-more-heres-why/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/23/californias-drought-isnt-making-food-cost-more-heres-why/#comments Fri, 23 May 2014 23:00:45 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8218

California’s Drought Isn’t Making Food Cost More. Here’s Why

Farmworkers pull weeds from a field of lettuce near Gonzales, Calif. Salinas Valley farms like this one rely on wells, which haven't been affected much by the drought. Photo: George Rose/Getty Images By Dan Charles | NPR - The entire state of California is in a severe drought. Farmers and farmworkers are hurting. You might expect this to cause food shortages and higher prices across the country. After all, California grows 95 percent of America's broccoli, 81 percent of its carrots and 99 percent of the country's artichokes, almonds and walnuts, among other foods. Yet there's been no sign of a big price shock. What gives? Here are three explanations. 1. Some farmers have backup water supplies. Drive southwest from Fresno, and you can easily see the drought's impact. In this area, farmers rely on the Westlands Water District for irrigation. In a normal year, Westlands delivers water to each farm through a network of underground pipes. That water is drawn from artificial rivers that link this area to dams and reservoirs hundreds of miles away, mostly in the northern part of the state. This year, because of the drought, Westlands cannot deliver any of that water. And the result is bare dirt where vegetables normally would grow. Sarah Woolf takes me on a tour of her family's farm, and points toward one dry field. "It had onions in it last year, and we're not farming it at all, because we don't have enough water supply," she says. (Woolf is also on the board of the Westlands Water District.) But that's not the whole story in this region. I still see plenty of green: fields of alfalfa and garlic and leafy almond orchards. They exist because many farmers here have a backup supply of water. They're pumping it out of underground aquifers. This is happening all across the state. According to a new report from the University of California, Davis, the extra water that farmers will pump from their wells this year will make up for about 75 percent of the cutbacks in water from dams and reservoirs. But this can't go on forever: That groundwater is limited. Woolf tells me that just this morning, she heard about problems at one of their wells. "We have to actually drill down and drop the well deeper, which is a very bad sign," she says. It means that the water table is dropping; the aquifer is drying up. 2. Some parts of California are less dry than others. Agriculture in California is spread around different parts of the state. One key region is the Salinas Valley, sometimes called America's salad bowl. "In June, 90 percent of the lettuce in the United States is grown in the Salinas Valley," says Daniel Sumner, an economist at UC Davis. Yet there's "no effect of the drought yet in the Salinas Valley." Those farms don't get water from California's dams and reservoirs, even in a normal year. They've always been able to rely on wells, and nothing's changed this year. So fear not; there's plenty of baby spinach and mesclun mix. In the winter, meanwhile, salad greens mostly come from areas far to the south, near the Mexican border. Those areas get their water from the Colorado River, which is also in relatively good shape this year thanks to snowfall far upstream. 3. The limited water is going to crops that consumers are most likely to notice. Allen Peterson farms land near the town of Turlock, on the east side of the Central Valley. He grows mostly almonds, but also some corn and alfalfa, which he sells to dairy farmers nearby. An irrigation canal runs right past his orchards. It's a concrete channel 18 feet wide and 6 feet deep, full of water. That water supply is relatively secure; it comes straight from Lake San Pedro, created by a dam that the Turlock Irrigation District helped to build. So Peterson is still getting about half of his normal allotment of water. It's enough to grow a crop, but not on every acre. "I've kept water on our almond crop, which is a higher-value crop. I've left fallow some corn ground, to make sure I have enough water for my almonds," Peterson says. That means he won't have corn to sell to his neighbors, the dairy farmers. Those dairy farmers are suffering from the drought. They're bringing in feed from far away, and it's expensive. Farmers in California are also growing less rice. In other words, water is flowing toward food that consumers eat directly, because that's where the money is. Those also tend to be crops that California dominates. Less water is going toward production of crops like alfalfa or rice, which are available from other places or that consumers don't eat directly. As a consequence, consumers are shielded from the drought's effects. Sumner, the agricultural economist, says this is economics in action. "People move the water to its highest-value use. People pay attention to markets. If you can't get something from California, you get it from somewhere else. That's what markets do. They're good at it," he says. Of course, the drought is having an effect, just not a big one so far. A few farms have bulldozed almond and citrus trees because of water shortages. It's possible that citrus prices will rise next winter, because of shortfalls in production. If the drought continues into next year, meanwhile, some of the current coping strategies may not work so well. The unrestricted use of groundwater is increasingly controversial. Some water experts are calling for limits on the amounts of water that farmers can draw from underground aquifers.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/23/californias-drought-isnt-making-food-cost-more-heres-why/feed/ 0 How the Drought Looks from the Fields of Salinas Valley http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/02/drought-from-salinas-valley/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/02/drought-from-salinas-valley/#comments Fri, 02 May 2014 22:47:26 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=8007

In the Central Valley farmers face significantly reduced supply of water. That’s not the case in the SalinasValley, where farmers continue to draw from wells. Wes Sims reports fields remain in production, though growers are taking steps to conserve. Cliff Stout, general manager of Classic Salads, demonstrates the harvesting of kale that his company grows in the [...]]]>

In the Central Valley farmers face significantly reduced supply of water. That’s not the case in the SalinasValley, where farmers continue to draw from wells. Wes Sims reports fields remain in production, though growers are taking steps to conserve. Cliff Stout, general manager of Classic Salads, demonstrates the harvesting of kale that his company grows in the Salinas Valley. The fresh stalk cracks and snaps in his grip. “We take our hands around the top few leaves, leaving those behind, and we basically strip the plant of all its leaves, removing kind of the yellow ones or the not so good-looking ones and under…” Now in its 14^th year of operation, Classic Salads, farms 850 acres of specialty salad and vegetable items. All while keeping an eye on drought conditions throughout California. “So we’re very thankful for these wells and not depending necessarily on surface water to take care of our crops.” While surface water from rivers and streams,supplies urban users in Monterey County, the engine that powers agriculture is the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin;a massive underground aquifer filled with fresh water that growers access from their own wells. But a lack of adequate rainfall impacts that water source too. Robert Johnson, Assistant General Manager of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency says Nacimiento Reservoir is down to 22% of its capacity. Lake San Antonio is down to 2%. Conservation Through Technology Johnson’s figures show Monterey County agriculture pumped well over 446,000 acre feet of groundwater in 2012. And that was before the onset of drought conditions. He says farmers are getting the message. “They know that they need to conserve water because it’s the life blood of their business," he says. "And they’ve put numerous conservation methods in place, like drip irrigation.” Which is a method that Cliff Stout already has in place at Classic Salads. “The drip lines put the water right at the plant base and the root,” Stout says. With the possibility of continued drought, Christina McGinnis … who manages resources and policy in the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office, says new technology can help. One such device is called the soil moisture sensor. “And essentially what it does, it provides computer data to monitor what kinds of moisture levels are occurring in the soil so that the farmer knows when to irrigate more or less,” she says. Assistant Agricultural Commissioner Bob Roach says technological improvements will continue to make farming more efficient. But it takes time. “It’s not like all of a sudden you’re going to find the magic bullet that’s going to cut your water use in half. You just have to keep working at it.” And that works for Cliff Stout. “We’re always trying to conserve," he says, "whether there’s a drought or not.” ]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/02/drought-from-salinas-valley/feed/ 0 Sediment Necessitates & Complicates San Clemente Dam Removal http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/04/23/san-clemente-dam/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/04/23/san-clemente-dam/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:00:47 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=7886

Sediment Necessitates & Complicates San Clemente Dam Removal

There are two big dams on the Carmel River. One of them, the San Clemente, is about to be demolished to restore fish habitat. But with a reservoir full of sediment behind it, that’s a delicate process. KUSP’s Wes Sims reports. San Clemente Dam. Photoby Wes Sims. With the threat of winter storms mostly faded, [...]]]>

San Clemente Dam. Photoby Wes Sims. With the threat of winter storms mostly faded, California American Water is continuing its $83 million project to remove the San Clemente Dam and restore the river to its original state. The work, located 18-miles up the Carmel River from the Pacific Ocean, involves capturing 2.5 million yards of mud and rerouting the river. A Dam That Has Outlived Its Usefulness A stairway leads to a narrow concrete walkway, separating the top of the reservoir from the spill-way, one-hundred-ten feet below. Built in 1921, the San Clemente Dam is set to be torn down because of diminished functionality, seismic vulnerability, and threatened fish habitat on the Carmel River. The dam hasn’t been used for water supply since the mid 1990s, because 95% of its storage capacity is silted up with sediment. CalAm Engineer, Aman Gonzales is manager of the San Clemente Dam Removal Project. “The challenge was what do we do with the sediment?” he says. “There’s about two and a half million cubic yards of sediment here. At a ten-yard dump truck, you’re talking 250,000 truck loads to get that sediment out of here.” So instead, the sediment is being left in place. Loren Letendre president of the Carmel River Watershed Conservancy explains the process. “They’re going to drain the sediment field that’s behind the dam so that it basically will stay in place,” Letendre says. “Remove the dam and leave a small amount of concrete in place to keep the sediment from moving anywhere, take all the concrete from the dam and put it up above the gap to make sure the river never migrates back and pushes all this sediment, this 3-million tons of sediment, downstream. The end benefit is to restore the river back to its original functioning and to allow another eight miles of steelhead passage for rearing.” Future Uncertain for The Other Dam There is one other dam on the Carmel River. Located 7-miles further upstream, the Los Padres Dam serves what CalAm spokesperson Catherine Stedman refers to as an environmental function. “Because during the summer when the Carmel River dries up, we are able to make releases from Los Padres Dam to have water flow down the river which helps keep it running and which is good for the habitat” Stedman says. It seems there’s no clear agreement on the future of the Los Padres Dam. Dave Stoldt is the general manager of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District. The agency that manages water service provided by CalAm. “There are some fisheries biologists who would like to see the Los Padres Dam eventually removed,” he says, “and there are others who think that a regulated river benefits the fishery far more than removal of the dam would. California American Water is starting to look at options to remove the dam in the long term. We’re starting to look at options to keep the dam or some other form of regulation on the river.” In the meantime, contractors on site at the San Clemente Dam continue their prep work for demolition to begin this summer, with the entire dam removal project wrapping up in late 2016 or early 2017.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/04/23/san-clemente-dam/feed/ 0 Coming Soon: Water Rationing http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/03/08/coming-soon-water-rationing/ http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/03/08/coming-soon-water-rationing/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2014 21:14:03 +0000 admin http://blogs.kusp.org/features/?p=7632

Santa Cruz Water Director Rosemary Menard urges residents to use low-flow shower heads and other implements to save water during the drought. Photo: J.D. Hillard / KUSP By J.D. Hillard | KUSP News You probably knew it was coming: Since it became clear we haven’t been having a normal winter, water managers around he Monterey Bay [...]]]>

Santa Cruz Water Director Rosemary Menard urges residents to use low-flow shower heads and other implements to save water during the drought. Photo: J.D. Hillard / KUSP By J.D. Hillard | KUSP News You probably knew it was coming: Since it became clear we haven’t been having a normal winter, water managers around he Monterey Bay have been considering how to reduce demand. Santa Cruz was the first to announce penalties for using more than a certain amount. The measure takes effect in May. The newly appointed water director said that timeline allows the agency to adjust the restrictions if conditions change. The fines take effect when a household uses more than 10 ccf in a month - that works out to about 60 gallons per person per day for a four person household. Menard says this shouldn't be too disruptive indoors. "So that's showers, it's laundry, it's dishwashers. It's cooking. It's flushing the toilets," she says. "And right now that's a number that's pretty close to what people are using." What the allotment wouldn't allow for is much if any water system water for landscaping "The ability to irrigate your lawn your garden your shrubs and trees is going to be severely limited." Rosemary Menard assumes her role at a time when the natural inputs to the water system are faring slightly worse than they did in the drought of 1976-77. She notes that the district has done a better job shepherding a reserve than it did prior to that event. That's an approach she says she'll continue. "We're taking a very conservative stance on what needs to be in the reservoir at the end of the dry season in the event that we need to have storage going into another dry year." The restrictions go as far as they can without taking much economic toll. De La Veaga golf course is reducing its usage, only watering greens, but it will continue using the water supply. Meanwhile, the privately-owned Pasatiempo golf course may be supplied with recycled water.]]> http://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/03/08/coming-soon-water-rationing/feed/ 0