Mandatory water rationing for North Bay, Calif., residents is not likely to go into effect before April or May, the extent depending on whether any rain falls to bolster critically low lakes, water officials said Jan. 30.
But some area cities will begin taking action as early as this week to respond to what could be drastic cutbacks.
“It’s early, this is still January, but looking out there, those levels are really, really low, it would have to rain a lot,” said Milenka Bates, city of Sonoma public works administrator.
Sonoma is one of nine cities and special districts that rely on Russian River water supplied by the Sonoma County Water Agency.
The agency Feb. 2 warned those contractors, who serve 600,000 residents from Windsor to San Rafael, that there will be from 30 percent to 50 percent less water this year.
The exact figure will not be known until March 1, but it will likely be severe, said Pam Jeane, the Water Agency’s deputy director of operations.
“We would expect that the amount we tell them will throw them into mandatory rationing, that is what I would expect,” Jeane said.
Jeane said that when rationing takes effect will depend on how fast the cities and districts, which already have water shortage contingency plans in place, can react.
The extent of the problem, announced last week, has caught some offguard.
“It seems drastic to us,” said Glen Wright, Santa Rosa’s deputy director of water resources.
“The agency has a difficult time, it has a lot of issues in the river, flows for fish and recreation and other things. We had been talking of a 30 percent cutback and 50 percent caught us very much by surprise.”
Wright said on Feb. 5 he will ask the city’s Board of Public Utilities and City Council to enact a Stage 1 voluntary rationing plan, the lowest level, just to get the process started.
Stage 1 is a call for residents to voluntarily cut water use by 15 percent.
Other agencies are preparing to respond as well.
“We definitely will have to see what that calculates as a percentage for our customer,” said the city of Sonoma’s Bates.
“We are finalizing our water conservation ordinance, we would be beefing up our current program, our water waster ordinance, and doing a lot more patrols in neighborhoods.”
Last year, the Water Agency sold its customers 65,000 acre-feet of water, which it pumped from the Russian River at its Hacienda stations.
This year, the amount of water could be half to two-thirds as much.
The major contractors are the cities of Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Petaluma and Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon, North Marin and Marin Municipal water districts.
The cities have wells that can be used to supplement the Russian River water by 10 percent to 20 percent. The Marin districts have reservoirs, which themselves are low.
The contractors are members of the Water Advisory Committee, which will begin talking about how they will divide the water up on March 3.
“We all have water shortage contingency plans,” said Matt Mullan, Windsor town manager.
Once the Water Agency provides specific information, Windsor will develop a specific strategy, he said.
In most cases, residential irrigation alone can account for 50 percent of summer water use.
Lake Mendocino is at 36 percent of its water supply pool, the lowest at this time of year since it was built in 1959, and Lake Pillsbury is at 18 percent.
Along with Lake Sonoma, which is at 74 percent of its water supply pool, they are the North Bay’s primary water source and rely on rainfall that this year is half of normal.
“All of us in water supply are well aware of the lack of rain this year,” said Jake Mackenzie, a Rohnert Park councilman who heads the Water Agency’s Water Advisory Committee.
“It is patently obvious ... that it is not only a statewide crisis, but a Russian River crisis.”
The Water Agency has called for voluntary cuts of 15 percent the past two years to deal with low levels in Lake Mendocino. Jeane said that by April, she expects the agency board to have declared a water shortage and ask its contractors to implement mandatory rationing plans as soon as possible.
Barry Orlando, owner of a Petaluma landscape maintenance company, said Jan. 30 many of his customers have already cut their water use by up to 75 percent over the past few years, while others have ripped out lawns and replaced them with drought-resistant plants.
“People are very conscious already,” Orlando said. “You can’t get much lower than they are using now and keep lawns green.”
Dennis Van Maaren, co-owner of EverMay Garden Center in Petaluma, said this will make people “rethink having acres of lawn.”
Van Maaren said customers are concerned and talking about such water-saving ideas as growing plants in barrels and switching from flowers to vegetables.
“We’ve still got the month of February,” he said. “I’ve seen it rain every day in February before.”
Mike Pierre, owner and manager of Mission Ace Lumber & Hardware, says he sells several different water-saving devices such as low-flow shower heads, but despite the threat of water cutbacks there has not been a rush to buy them.
“I have low-flow shower heads but interestingly enough, they always go for the regular ones,” Pierre said. “We don’t do anything until it’s staring us in the face. Then we’ll get concerned.”