The Antioch City Council will discuss the idea of adopting a resolution on Tuesday which will establish a 15% Voluntary Drought Management Program which will help conserve the available water supply.
According to the staff report, the City’s Voluntary Drought Management Program consists of the following measures:
- 15% voluntary water reduction goal
- Focus on reduction in outside (irrigation) use by 25%
- Reduce sprinkler timer for significant water savings
- No penalties or increase in customer fees
- Customer incentives and rebates available
Included in the next water bill, will be an information sheet about the program which is shown here: (Click to enlarge)
This comes after the Governor declared a statewide drought emergency on January 17 and called upon local urban water suppliers and municipalities to implement their local water shortage contingency plans.
Historically, Antioch purchases 70% of its raw water from the Contra Costa Water District with the balance coming from its intank on the San Joaquin River. Since January, the City has purchased almost 100% of its water from the Contra Costa Water District and unless the rest of the spring is abnormally wet, the city expects to continue purchasing water through at least this time next year.
It should be noted that the Contra Costa Water District’s primary source of water is the Central Valley Project with allocations determined by the Bureau of Reclamation. In February, it was announced that that the Contra Costa Water District allotment this year would be no more than 50%.
In response, at their March 19 meeting, the Contra Costa Water District adopted a 15% voluntary reduction plan that went into effect on April 1. The focus now is to encourage customers to reduce their outdoor water use, primary landscape irrigation, with the goal of maintaining as much Los Vaqueros Reservoir storage as possible in the event the drought continues on into next year.
Traditionally, 60% of customers water use is for irrigation, the Contra Costa Water District is asking its customers to cut back 25% of their irrigation use in order to achieve the overall 15% goal.
According to the Staff Report, staff believes that the proposed 15% water reduction goals can be easily achieved through public outreach and education and by better managing the City water resources at all levels within the community. Customers who meet their 15% water conservation goals will realize savings on their water bills.
The program is considered voluntary and customers have the option to determine how to best implement their reductions.
5 comments
The majority of Antioch residents don’t understand the meaning of sustainability.
“There’s plenty of water. The earth is covered with it!”, chanted the fool who drank ocean water.
Actually, there is plenty of water, if you look at it from a different angle.
Consider this, nearly 80% of our water we draw off of the Delta and convey through the CVP and the SWP shared canal (California Aqueduct) goes to large corporate farms in the southern central valley (Kern County). Consider too that the biggest crops among those down there are almonds and cotton. Then consider that 4 of 5 almonds grown here are exported, primarily to Asia. Now… historically, that region was not a fertile farming region. Man made it that way, (as we did with the Delta). Also, consider that the jobs gained/lost through those corporate farms are minuscule and the financial reward too is minor to California’s GDP (a percent of a percent). What you have is a very strong lobby from corporate farms taking way more than half of the water we send down south (LA water consumption pales in comparison to Kern Counties draw to those farms for irrigation).
You might ask yourself, “why should I cut back so people who don’t even live here can eat almonds that provide no really substantive economic gain or jobs benefit to our state, all while we wreck our Delta by allowing salt water to push further in, and ruining the ecosystem?”(the Delta has many economic and environmental issues at stake if we allow the salinity to go higher as a result of the potential increased draw).
This can all be found online if you look, from very reputable sources in the know on how water is allocated in our state.
In any given year, the majority of the water we suck out of the Delta is used to grow almonds we then send out of state and country.
While I fully agree that most people would do well to rid themselves of their lawns and plant drought resistant landscapes, install low flow showers, and do other conservation measures to save water (I’m in the process of doing so myself now), don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.
Built in to Antioch Water Enterprise Fund is money for the purchase of water from CCWD when the water it takes from the river becomes to salty (typically when it exceeds 250ppm). Under an agreement with the State (Department of Water Resources) the state pays Antioch a portion of the cost to purchase water from CCWD (this goes back to a 1920 lawsuit Antioch filed which went all the way to the California Supreme Court).
Rather than a 15% cut-back, the city should be asking households to you less than 200 gallons of water per day, since many of us already have cut back and use far less than 200 gallons a day (typical average is 250 gallons a day per household) having put in low flush toilets, shower heads, efficient washing machines and dishwashers, and changed our landscaping to use less water.
Antioch is the only city in Contra Costa County which has Pre-1914 Water Rights which are superior to “Water Contracts” like that of CCWD.
Why do we have to cut back if we got water rights from back then? Are we bein set up for higher rates? Somethin don’t go right readin the two last coments. Don’t trust those government people.
I will cut my water when Antioch City Council works to cut down on crime.
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