Drought Conditions in Redding: It's Time to Conserve

Drought Conditions in Redding: It's Time to Conserve: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Drought Conditions in Redding: It's Time to Conserve: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Katie:
With water supplies being critically low and the warm, dry days that we are experiencing, it's time to conserve our water. In this episode, we circle back with Josh Watkins, water utilities manager with the City of Redding, to get some updates on the current drought conditions that we face in our community.

Steve:
Josh breaks down how the water stages work and what we can expect when we move into stage two. Also, we chat about some things community members can do to conserve water and why we can't retain more of the water here in the North State. Be sure to visit www.cityofredding.org/conservewater for more information.

Josh Watkins:
Hi, I'm Josh Watkins. I'm the water utility manager here at the city of Redding. I manage the two halves of the water utilities, so half of our staff is in water treatment and production. They deal with everything from our raw water sources the Sacramento River, Whiskeytown Lake, our groundwater wells pumping the water out of the ground or out of the river up through our treatment plants to make that water, to disinfect it and make it potable for the public to drink. And then the other half of the utility is the distribution side, where we have all the water mains and pipelines and water meters. And we we get that treated potable water out to our 30,000 accounts that we have throughout the city.

Katie:
And Josh, we did a podcast with you last year, and in that podcast you indicated that there wasn't quite a water crisis in Redding yet. And while it had been a dry year, we still had plenty of groundwater. It sounds like we're in a different place this year, so maybe you could just talk about where we are this year and what's really different from last year.

Josh Watkins:
Yeah. So the main difference is now we're we've really gone through our third consecutive winter or wet, wet season or even though it's March or we're really almost out of it now if you look at historical numbers and when it rains, most, most the most of the precipitation we get is December, January and February. And last year, after two dry years, I guess I was may have been optimistic, hoping that we wouldn't have a third dry winter. But even though we started out this water year really wet in October and December, it's as everyone knows, it's been really, really beautiful outside temperature wise and and bright and sunny. But that's really bad for the water levels in Shasta Lake and and just precipitation in general. So, unfortunately, we've had the last couple of months, January and February have been the driest on record. So you combine that with the low lake levels last year and it's it's just this kind of steady path downward. The lake levels are decreasing. And now we're trying to project forward through summer. And when we should we typically use the most water that we we use throughout the year, obviously, because it gets warmer and we're trying to keep our yards and landscaping alive and maybe have a garden or something in your backyard and keep that watered.

Josh Watkins:
And it's just looking kind of worse and worse because we're through the majority of that wet season and we just haven't had any rain, significant rain recently. And Josh, with that in mind, with these dry conditions, what are you asking Redding residents to do right now? Right now, we are in stage one of our water shortage contingency plan. It's what we were in last year, and we're always in stage one until we move to a higher stage. And so that's monitoring your water use. That's that's conserving where we're necessary. We do have voluntary measures where you can water up to three days a week based on the last number in your address. So if you were if you had an odd number at the end of your address, you would water on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. And if you had an even last digit, you would water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And the only reason that we that we haven't moved into stage two is we're still waiting for our water supply to be decided upon by the US Bureau of Reclamation. Our surface water contracts, both of them come from the Bureau of Reclamation. The older it's called the Senior Water. Right. We're a Sacramento River settlement contractor. That contract, which typically is we almost always have that water available to us.

Josh Watkins:
And if it was a dry year or they call it a critical year, we would have that supply cut 25%. And this year, they haven't told us what that supply amount is going to be. So while our contract says they can only cut at 25%, if you add up all the water that would be available to to this group, which we're a part of, the Sacramento River settlement contractors. There's not that amount of water in Shasta Lake right now. So even though, like I said, our contract says we we should. Be able to get a certain amount. It's just not going to look it's not looking like that just because, as we say, there's not the wet water available to us this year. And then the other contract I mentioned is also through the bureau. It's a we're a water service contractor through the Central Valley Project, and that's a junior water. Right. And those they've already told us that we're not going to get any water supply out of that contract. So those are two main surface water supplies. So our third piece of our water supply are our groundwater wells. There's been a lot of foresight that went into developing our water system so that we would have this groundwater available, and we're definitely going to need it this year.

Katie:
And Josh, maybe we could just go back for a second and talk about the water stages. So we're in stage one. Can you take us through what those other stages are?

Josh Watkins:
So so stage one is voluntary water conservation practices that I mentioned before the watering on certain days. The bottom line is you add water no more than three days a week. And then it's things like having a if you're going to wash your car, have a shutoff nozzle on so that the water is not continuously running. Make sure that your irrigation your sprinklers are watering your driveway or the sidewalk or the street or gutter. And that's just common sense. Any water that's not going on to your your vegetation or lawn is not being used. So there's no need to to water the the sidewalk or let it run down the gutter. That doesn't help anybody. When we go to stage two, it's a 10 to 20%, so up to 20% reduction. And all the items in stage one which were voluntary become mandatory. We will hold our water customers to the watering days based on the last digit in their address. And we have the ability to to to ramp up enforcement and assign administrative fines. We do historically, we we work with customers to, first of all, make sure they may not be aware that that they're doing something that's wasting water. And so we'll work with these people as as it becomes known to us. We'll put door hangers on, we'll contact them and make them aware of any water waste that we observe or has come to our attention. And as a last resort, we would we could go to an administrative fine of $50 per day or per occurrence. And as you move, you move through stage three, the future stages. There are six stages in our water shortage contingency plan, and they're all a 10% increase.

Josh Watkins:
So stage one is a 10% reduction. Stage two is 20%. Stage three would be 30% reduction and the administrative funds increase with each future stage. And if we got to a critical water shortage condition such as a stage five or a stage six, then there could be some pretty drastic restrictions, such as no watering for dust control, for construction projects. If we if we got to a stage stage five, that would we would be prohibiting filling up swimming pools and things like that, that I don't see us going to that stage any time soon or hopefully not ever. But just like any shortage plan, the higher you get into the stage, the more restrictions there are. And just historically, when the city has been in drought conditions, what level stages have we gone to? Last time we went into stage two of our water shortage contingency planning and last time I mean the 2014, 2015 era, the only difference was, is we only had four stages in that plan. And last year as part of our urban water management plan update that we had to give the state, we revised our water shortage contingency plan. The state wanted everybody to have the same number of stages to make it more apples to apples comparison. And so we ended up splitting some of our previous stages into two. So we were only in stage two last time, but we were asking for it was a 36% reduction. So that technically would have been stage three of our current plan with regard to the stages in addition to city social media and other messaging options, will the monthly utility bill include information if and when we get to, say, a stage two or beyond? I guess how can residents know when we do change stages in those restrictions increase? Yes, that's a that's a good question.

Josh Watkins:
Any time we move into a different stage, we have to publicize that put out press releases. We'll include information on your utility bill. So there's going to be a number of different ways that we get that message out. We will put that information out there as appropriate. On the enforcement side of things you mentioned those administrative fines can increase as we go up stages. How is the enforcement itself done? Is the water department. Analyzing year over year water bills to see where reductions aren't happening. Is it mainly reporting by neighbors or community members on others? I mean, how does that process work? Yeah, it would have to be something that either we observe or we would become aware of. The most eyes out there are citizens and neighbors and people reporting back to us. And so that's that's really how we we find out about most of the water waste situations. I mean, if it's something obvious that we notice when our we have about 30 water utility staff at the city here. And so we're constantly driving around, maintaining and working on the water system and the wells and our tanks and reservoirs. So we have our own eyes throughout the city, but most of the time we get tips from the public about neighbors or businesses that are maybe wasting water one way or another.

Katie:
And last time on the podcast, we talked a little bit about the difference between or some confusion, I guess you would say, in the community between Bella Vista Water and Centerville Water between city of Redding Water. What's that relationship looking like this year? As I understand it, they've got some more severe restrictions on their end than what the city of Redding is asking of their water utility users right now.

Josh Watkins:
I know that Bella Vista is asking for 40% reduction in water use compared to previous years, both Bella Vista and actually most of our most of our neighbors, the city of Shasta Lake Centerville, they don't have the senior water right that we do that I was talking about before. So they don't have that additional supply. And then most of them don't have the number of groundwater wells and mainly just because they don't sit over the good part of the Redding groundwater basin. A lot of those agencies have limited ability to go to groundwater as a backup, although, for example, the city of Anderson is 100% on groundwater wells and they sit over the the deepest, healthiest part of the groundwater basin. So you probably won't hear much of anything about from the city of Anderson about water restrictions or conservation measures just because they just have a very healthy and available supply of groundwater. So I believe Centerville is in a very similar situation to Bella Vista. They have had their surface water cut back to the point where they're probably in that 30 to 40% conservation stage.

Katie:
Historically, has the city of Redding or Anderson shared any water with those water districts?

Josh Watkins:
I can't speak for the city of Anderson. I'm not sure what ties they have, although we do have an emergency tie with the City of Anderson. I can't say for sure when the last time that was used we would be able to supply some water either way between the Redding, the city of Anderson, for example, Bella Vista and Centerville, the city of Shasta Lake. We also have ties with all of those agencies. And last year, the city of Redding transferred water to almost all of our neighboring agencies. So just the way that it worked out, we had some extra supply and they were in need. And and so we were able to change some of our operations. We pumped more groundwater and we were able to transfer some of our surface water to Bella Vista, Centerville, the city of Shasta Lake, Shasta CSD and Clear Creek Community Services District. Also this year, I can't guarantee that we will have water available to transfer. It's we've kind of had some requests and we're we're having these discussions locally with with the other managers from these water agencies. But it's just too soon to tell with really how much water is going to be available and if we could even help out some of our neighbors.

Steve:
Josh, I'm curious on the relationship between new construction and water. I know we talked a little bit about the Bella Vista area. I know there's some new subdivisions and a church going in over there.

Steve:
Obviously, they're a bit more dire right now than we are with our stage. But here in the city of Redding, does that ever come into play with new subdivisions or large developments happening and the expected increase in water usage that will come as a result?

Josh Watkins:
Yeah, we're not we would have to get pretty far down our water shortage contingency plan to have a moratorium on new building and new connections just given our our size. We have like I mentioned before, we have over 30,000 water service connections. Our population for the city's around 90,000 people. And so a subdivision coming in into the city of Redding, even if it was dozens or 100 homes, it'd be less of an impact. Proportionally, a smaller subdivision coming in somewhere like Bella Vista or a neighboring city, just really based on our our size, we're able to to absorb. And it doesn't make as big of a difference on our overall water use. Now, it could be something that we would we would have to address. But at this point, we we can we can handle the and I'm not sure how many new houses we had even last year or projected this year, but it's not a significant increase to our water use. We can make up that use with just general conservation measures. If all of our customers conserve a little bit, it goes a long way.

Josh Watkins:
And then based on the stages that we're in now, I know speculation is always a tricky subject with government entities, but we're still waiting for one of those surface water contracts to come back and let us know how much water we're going to have. Where where do you think we're headed this year, do you think? Stage three, stage four. If you had to wager a guess, where do you think that we'll end up?

Josh Watkins:
I'm very confident that we'll move into stage two in April, kind of given what we're hearing of what may our surface water supply may be. So, given that very confident we'd move into stage two, that would be up to a 20% reduction and I would say maybe a 5050 chance that we could move into a stage three, which would be we'd be asking for conservation between 20 and 30%. I guess I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up in stage three past that. At this point. I would say that's unlikely. We often hear people asking about the water rights. I know you talked a little bit about those senior and junior rights. Can you talk a bit further about that? Any time the question comes up, why does the North State send so much water down to central and Southern California, and how does that piece fit work? And why can't we keep more for ourselves? How does that all work? Water rights and water law in California really all over. It's very complicated. What I've come to realize is there's there's no two even agencies that are exactly the same as we've talked before. Our neighbors, whether it's Shasta Lake or or Anderson or Bella Vista, we're basically in the same area. Yet we have very different either water rights or water supply sources. And so there's just not one there's not one one size fits all as far as the water that does go south of us, even though precipitation, that rainfall falls here, the north state and is an even held behind the dam and Shasta Dam and that's located in the Shasta County. The right to that water is not only for other water agencies. There's also other factors that come into it, whether environmental resources.

Josh Watkins:
So you need you need a certain amount of water for for fish and aquatic species. The fish there's also temperature guidelines that the fishery agencies are really want to keep. For example, the temperature of the water in the Sacramento River here in the Redding area, because this is where the the salmon and the steelhead and those other fish are spawning. They need that water to be basically less than about 56 degrees throughout the summertime. And so that requires a certain amount of water to be released from Shasta Dam. It gets complicated with, like I said, the temperature of that water and there's things called the cold water pool that's in Shasta Dam. And so basically, if you get deep enough in the lake, the water is going to be down in that 50 degree range. And so if they can let that water out, they can make sure the baby salmon eggs and the salmon fry, they have a better chance of surviving and being able to grow big enough to migrate back out to the ocean. So you combine those environmental factors with salinity control and the delta and water quality and the delta. So they need the state, whether it's well, whether it's the state or the federal agencies that control the water sources, they need to release a certain amount of water to keep the saltwater out of from the San Francisco Bay, from coming into the Delta. And there's just a whole number of factors that come into play. So when you combined those environmental factors, water quality, salinity, water rights that other agencies have down throughout the state not only gets complicated, but it does use up, especially in a dry year, it uses up almost all of the water that is available.

Katie:
And shifting gears then to focus on what residents can do here, what can you give us some common ways that people can save water at their home? Like what's the most common way that people waste water at their home?

Josh Watkins:
Well, the our biggest use is is outdoor irrigation and watering of your lawn or your vegetation, trees, gardens, things like that. So in the summertime, compared to a typical hot summer day, compared to a cold, typically wet winter day, our water use goes up 4 to 5 times in the city. So whereas in the in the wintertime, we may be producing say 10 million gallons a day in the city. In the summertime, that's over 45 million gallons a day. So the majority of that use is being used outside. So what we're really asking people to do are to dial in their their sprinklers and make sure that that water that that is being irrigated. That is. Not being wasted so that they're not watering more than just the lawn or the vegetation and then also to dial it back. A lot of people probably overwater their lawns. And in a normal year or so, it's we're asking people to dial that back to three days a week of watering. And just by doing that and kind of paying attention, if there's if you if you if your irrigation system is leaking, that's where most of our our high water uses come from, is when people have leaks that they may or may not even realize. And so we we have algorithms and we can tell we have flags that come up in our billing system. When somebody uses, say, 25% more than they did the same month last year or a previous month, that that flag comes up to us and we'll contact our customers and say, hey, we noticed that a pretty big increase in water use.

Josh Watkins:
Did you know that? Did is there could you have a leak? Is there something that that you've noticed? And it's it's pretty surprising how broken irrigation pipe even though it's it's not running all the time but when that for example, it's that zone, that irrigation zone is on and that water is flowing out. It may be underground and you don't even notice it, but a significant amount of water can be lost that way. And not only do we need that water for other uses, but it's it's not beneficial benefiting the customer either to have that leak. They're paying for that water and they're not getting the use out of it because it's just soaking into the ground, most likely where they don't need it. So we're really asking people to take a look at their irrigation system to to double check that that they don't have these leaks, that if you if you have a pool or a hot tub or something like that, that your pool is not cycling or or your filter is not running continuously and discharging water or anything like that.

Steve:
Josh I know that we encourage community members to go to cityofredding.org/conservewater to find out more of these tips, tricks, advice on how to conserve water. Does the utility offer any type of advisor services? I know, for example, the electric utility has energy advisors where they can come out and take a look at better ways to insulate your home or wrap water heaters or whatever that might be.

Steve:
Does the water utility have the ability to offer anything in that nature?

Josh Watkins:
Yeah, we can we can help people, especially if they have a high water bill. The high usage compared to a previous month, we can send somebody out and help either troubleshoot or come up with some ideas of where to look. No, we can't. Everything behind the water meter is private, so we can't be helping make repairs to the private irrigation system or water supply lines to the house. We can kind of help them think through and and maybe find where where that leak or that problem is. The website also offers ideas for drought either drought tolerant, drought resistant landscaping hardscape being. And we give there's there's pictures of different kind of landscape themes and ideas. And so you can go through there. I know what they say the saying the picture is worth 1000 words, but I really like to look and I'd like to be able to pick out kind of what what kind of plants and landscaping to see that before I make a decision. And so you can go through some of these pictures and kind of get a theme or an idea of of what you may like to do. And then there's we have the plants names and the botanical names. So you could go to a local nursery and and really know what you're looking for instead of just starting starting in the dark.

Katie:
I know some people have mentioned on social media the idea of tearing out their lawn or completely dry escaping the front of their houses. I've seen some houses driving around Redding that are currently doing that. I guess at what stage does that become absolutely necessary or is that just kind of more a personal preference at this point? Like you could still have a lawn in stage two or potentially stage three?

Josh Watkins:
I don't think we would require that we're going to ask for conservation in other ways. So maybe it's just the size of a lawn. You could have you could still have a lawn, but maybe it's not as big as it was. Or or or you could you could have a lawn. You could be watering it once, twice a week. And maybe, maybe it's not quite as green or doesn't look as nice as it has in the past. But it's still there. It's still alive. You'd be using less water and being you would be conserving more than somebody who had a much bigger yard and was watering or much bigger lawn and was watering it to the point where the water is flowing off or it is wetter and maybe greener than than it should be this year.

Katie:
So Josh, the city of Redding has a water contingency plan that was recently done. You can correct me on the date that that was put out, but maybe you can talk about what that is and what it talks about.

Josh Watkins:
So last summer, as part of updating our urban water management plan, we also updated our water shortage contingency plan. And the state had asked all the all the water agencies to have the same number of steps and stages so that they can really compare apples to apples. And so we we previously had a four stage plan and we expanded some of the stages or split them. And now we have six stages to our our water shortage contingency plan. Now, all that information is on the city's website, under the water utility, and it lists list each stage and what the the trigger would be, most of them. They're really divided by 10% reductions amounts. So for example, stage one is up to a 10% reduction in water use. It's it's year round, but it's voluntary. So stage two is up to a 20% reduction. It takes all of the the suggestions and water conservation practices and stage one that we're voluntary and it makes them mandatory. And stage two, then when you get to to stage three, it's up to a 30% reduction. And it takes the the everything that was in stage, stage two and then adds the maximum number of hours that you can be watering or using a sprinkler system and then so, so on and so forth for stage four, three, six. So as I mentioned before, I really don't expect that that we will get past stage three. Hopefully we can we can make everything work with even just staying into stage two when we move into that in the future. But I'd really refer people to the city's website so you can see the language that's in there, see the all the restrictions.

Josh Watkins:
I can't we don't want to go through all of them and try to. I'll miss something. I can't reiterate everything. It's a it's a lengthy document, but it is a good resource. And it should answer some questions and give some specifics of the types of things that either are prohibited or that we're asking people to cut back on their water practices. One other thing that I wanted to kind of reiterate. We talk about the city of Redding's water sources and water rights and our water availability, and we compare that to neighboring water agencies and cities, water districts, things like that. One thing we do, the city has it's not across the board, but in some cases we do have higher cost of water that we charge our customers. But through this drought, through previous droughts, if you notice, we do have a typically a very secure water supply. And so while we may our customers may pay more for that water, we feel that they're really getting a good value and that we're able to either absorb some of these conservation measures or we don't have to immediately react and make everybody cut large percentages just because we have a dry month or two or even a dry year. So being at the end of the third dry year, we don't have the same luxuries that we've had before, but it's something that I wanted to we try to remind people and realize that they are getting good value for what they're paying for, for our water.

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