Residents urged to save water amid drought worries

Coachella Valley managers propose tiered pricing system

By SAMANTHA YOUNG
Associated Press

May 9, 2008

SACRAMENTO - Californians are being asked to water their lawns less, plant native shrubs and install more-efficient irrigation systems to stave off water shortages and mandatory rationing amid growing worries about a possible long-term drought.

The increasingly urgent call to conserve water comes as state officials said May 1 that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, a key source of the state's water supply, has fallen about one-third below normal levels.

"We need to recognize that we're in a water shortage and begin to act accordingly," state Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said.

While officials say it's too early to impose rationing, cities and water districts around California are preparing plans for mandatory conservation to deal with a possible drought.

Farmers in Central Valley and cities from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego are already coping with significant cutbacks in water deliveries.

Pumping out of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta - the heart of California 's water delivery system - has been scaled back this year to comply with a judge's order to protect a threatened fish species.

The bleak snowpack exacerbates those pumping cuts, water officials and farmers say.

"It's problems stacked on top of other problems," said John Harris, a western Fresno County farmer who isn't farming about a third of his 12,000 acres this year. Growers in northern San Diego County are stumping citrus and avocado trees due to water shortages. Farmers in Fresno and Kings counties haven't planted about 200,000 acres of crops, about a third of the land irrigated by Westlands Water District.

In Southern California , the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 18 million people, recently raised its water rates by 14 percent and has cut deliveries to farmers by nearly a third. It also launched an advertising campaign urging homeowners and businesses to reduce outdoor watering by at least a day.

"We're in a pretty painful water supply picture," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, the district's general manager. "We don't want to institute rationing, but if this continues you will see us take a look at that next year."

New housing and retail developments in Riverside County are on hold because the necessary water supplies cannot be guaranteed.

In the Coachella Valley , which includes the sprawling resort communities around Palm Springs , water managers have proposed a tiered water pricing system. The idea is to charge customers who use more than their fair share of water, said Mark Beuhler, assistant general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District, which supplies water to 130 golf courses and about 100,000 homes.

"We saw the writing on the wall," Beuhler said. "It is probably the most single effective thing we can do to achieve conservation."

Associated Press Writer Juliana Barbassa contributed to this report from San Francisco . 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material  herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have
expressed  a  prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit
research and  educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Source:   http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=41494&

SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&S=1