Mount Helix homeowner Rosalie Dosik turned her unused pool into a waterwise backyard oasis and the winning project in the Helix Water District 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest. The annual competition recognizes outstanding water-wise residential landscapes based on overall attractiveness, design, efficient irrigation, and appropriate plant selection and maintenance.
Colorado River water managers could be pulled back to the negotiating table as soon as next year to keep its biggest reservoirs from declining further.
The 2019 Drought Contingency Plan was meant to give the U.S. and Mexican states that depend on the river a roadmap to manage water shortages. That plan requires the river’s biggest reservoir, Lake Mead, to drop to unprecedented levels before conservation among all the lower basin states — Arizona, Nevada and California — becomes mandatory. California isn’t required to conserve water in the reservoir until it drops to an elevation of 1,045 feet above sea level.
The state Senate’s Rules Committee Wednesday approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointment of San Diego attorney Fern M. Steiner to the California Water Commission. Sen. Toni G. Atkins, D-San Diego, who chairs the committee, said Steiner has a record of negotiating major agreements in the public and private sectors.
“As we face another year of drought and the growing impacts of climate change on our water supply, having experienced problem-solvers like Fern on the California Water Commission is more important than ever,” Atkins said in a statement.
Steiner, an employment lawyer, is on the San Diego County Water Authority’s board and serves as a trustee for San Diego Youth Services. Her appointment now goes to the full Senate for confirmation.
Chula Vista resident Paul Rodriguez gave up struggling to maintain his thirsty green lawn in favor of a new landscape design featuring California native plants and shrubs. The Sweetwater Authority Board of Directors selected Rodriguez’s makeover as its 2021 Landscape Makeover winner.
The Rodriguez home before the landscaping makeover. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
The WaterSmart Landscape Contest is an opportunity for homeowners to showcase landscape designs focusing on beautiful alternatives to traditional turf-oriented designs. Entries in the makeover competition are judged on five qualities:
A trail lets visitors stroll through the property. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
Rodriguez and his wife participated in a free Water Authority WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series course. It provided the foundation allowing them to embrace a design replacing the lawn. They also attended several native plant workshops hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. The family were attracted to gardening with native plants due to their low water and no fertilization needs. They also liked the added benefit of creating a natural habitat for pollinators and birds.
Milkweed provides food for endangered Monarch butterfly caterpillars. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
The transformed landscape now includes several manzanitas and large Ceanothus shrubs in the back yard, which reminds Paul Rodriguez of hikes in Mission Trails Regional Park. The front yard adopted a California Coastal Sage scrub garden habitat. It only requires hand watering twice a month during the dry season.
It is a pollinator’s paradise with sages, buckwheats, and verbenas that attract birds and bees. Milkweed provides a food source for endangered Monarch butterflies. Milkweed leaves are the only food monarchs will eat. They also lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Striped caterpillars feed on the leaves as they develop.
The new landscaping features native plants. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
As the winner of the 2021 WaterSmart Landscape Contest, Sweetwater Authority presented the Rodriguez family with a certificate of recognition and gift card as a thank you for setting a waterwise example for other residents.
(Editor’s note: The Sweetwater Authority is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)
San Jose’s largest retail water provider on Tuesday announced new rules aimed at increasing water conservation as the state’s drought worsens and reservoir levels drop — chief among them a limit on watering lawns and landscaping to no more than two days a week.
San Jose Water Company, which serves 1 million people who live in San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, parts of Cupertino and Redwood Estates, said the new rules take effect immediately.
The summer of 2021 could go down as one of the hottest and driest summers in California’s history.
“In Northern California, where we get a lot of our water supply, it has been one of the driest 18 months on record in 120 years,” said Goldy Herbon, a Senior Water Resources Specialist for the San Diego County Water Authority.
Herbon said there is no snowpack in Northern California and the Colorado River is almost down to 60% of its normal water levels.
That’s usually very bad for counties that import a lot of their water. However, Herbon said the San Diego County Water Authority and its member agencies like the city of San Diego have invested billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements over the last 30 years that have given San Diego County enough to withstand any potential water restrictions brought on by drought.
In Los Angeles, people have been hearing about the dangers of drought for decades. But in this land of infinity pools and backyard putting greens — better suited for rattlesnakes and scrub — water never seems to run out.
Yet little Redwood Valley in Mendocino County, which gets a bountiful 38 inches of rain in an average year and sits near the headwaters of the Russian River, has been devastated by this year’s drought. Each resident has been told to use no more than 55 gallons per day — enough to fill a bathtub and flush a toilet six times.
And in San Jose, where less than half of its usual rain has fallen this year, people have been asked to cut water use by 15% — a target that could become mandatory if locals fail to comply.
When it comes to the impact of drought, location is key. Rain and snow vary greatly across California’s myriad microclimates, leaving some towns, mostly in the north, accustomed to yearly refills of their rivers, reservoirs and aquifers. Others farther south have fewer natural supplies of their own, and in parts of the Central Valley, the drought never really left.
Satellite images recently released by NASA show how drought has affected Northern California’s Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, the largest reservoirs in the state. NASA compared images taken earlier in June with images taken in the summer of 2019 to illustrate how water levels have declined over the two-year period.
The Fort Bragg City Council’s special meeting on Monday went fairly quickly — all of 10 minutes — and unanimously approved the purchase of a desalination and reverse osmosis machine for no more than $335,818.50.
At the last city council meeting, city staff requested the council set aside $600,000 to pursue various options during this summer’s expected drought, including hurdles with sourcing and permitting.
The flow in the Noyo River, which is the city’s primary water source in summer and fall months, is at levels below the worst drought year on record, 1977.
Statewide drought conditions are highlighting the value of regionally and locally controlled water supplies in San Diego County, where the Water Authority announced June 21 that the region is protected from drought impacts this summer, and through 2045, despite continued hot and dry conditions. No shortages or regional water-use mandates are in the forecast – the result of three decades of strategic investments that create an aquatic safety net for San Diego County’s $253 billion economy and our quality of life.
The region’s diversified water supply portfolio includes highly reliable and locally controlled supplies, including desalinated seawater from the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. It also includes high-priority, low-cost, conserved water from the Quantification Settlement Agreement, the nation’s largest conservation-and-transfer agreement. The combination offers significant protection against droughts and other emergencies even during multiple dry years.
I offer my sincere thanks to all San Diegans for everything you have done to make sure that we have enough water to meet the region’s needs now and for decades into the future. You have invested through your water bills and your water-smart practices, and those efforts are paying off in tangible ways.
At the same time, it’s important that we all continue embracing water-use efficiency strategies that have become part of our regional ethic. Simple but important steps include turning off the faucet while brushing teeth, fixing irrigation system leaks, and using hoses with automatic shut-off nozzles.
Thanks again for all you do, and remember to stay water-smart this summer!
