Long drought ends for Santa Clara County

Months of wet weather have washed away much of the drought that plagued California over the last four years. With local reservoirs in Santa Clara County now filled to the brim and a healthy snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, water district board members agreed last Tuesday night to walk back mandatory water restrictions, while still calling for a 20 percent reduction in water use.

Unlike most of the Santa Clara Valley Water District board meetings over the last three years, district staff came forward with some good news about the local water supply. The northern Sierra Nevada mountains received an overwhelming 217 percent of normal precipitation since the start of 2017, and Santa Clara County has received 7.2 inches of rain — nearly an inch more than normal — as of Jan. 17.

All of the county’s reservoirs are either full or nearly full, and two of the state’s major reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, are both at 124 percent of normal capacity, according to Deputy Operating Officer Garth Hall. Even in the event that the rest of 2017 is dry or even a “critically dry” year, groundwater storage will remain normal through the end of the year, Hall said.

The big question at the Jan. 24 meeting was whether to roll back the call for conservation made by the water district in June, which sought a 20 percent reduction in water use compared to 2013, and recommends that cities and water retailers impose mandatory water cuts on residents. If the water restrictions are completely lifted, board members argued, the years-long effort to encourage residents to conserve may be lost.

“We spent substantial resources convincing people to conserve,” said board member Tony Estremera. “That’s why we’re so reticent to make it voluntary and make it sound like everything is okay.”

Imposing water restrictions and pretending drought conditions still persist in Santa Clara County is going to be a hard sell to a community that knows better, said Anthony Eulo, the environmental services program director for the city of Morgan Hill, and one of several speakers calling on the board to suspend the mandatory water-use reduction.

“Our local reservoirs are as full as they can be, our state reservoirs are as full as they can be. There is essential water in the bank,” Eulo said. “More importantly, we need to remember the community knows this.”

Board members agreed to a compromise, voting unanimously for staff to come back with a resolution that continues to call for a 20 percent water use reduction target, but without the mandatory requirements on cities and water retailers. The resolution would include any restrictions imposed by the State Water Resources Control Board, which is expected to come out with permanent, long-term conservation measures next month in lieu of emergency short-term water reductions.

State requirements are likely to include a prohibition on runoff, water budgets for retailers, a greater emphasis on water shortage contingency plans and more requirements for agricultural water providers, according to Jerry De La Piedra, the district’s manager of longer-term planning and conservation. All of these would be included in a framework designed to make water conservation a way of life in California, he said.

The district, similarly, will likely continue to provide landscaping rebate programs to encourage residents to ditch water-hungry lawns, and forge ahead with grants for new technology like smart meters, giving residents greater control over their own water use.

Board chair Dick Santos said the kind of conservation Santa Clara County residents have shown over 2016 — a 28 percent reduction in water use compared to 2013 — needs to become normal practice in the coming years, regardless of drought conditions, because the state can’t rely on a deluge every winter.

“We’re in an arid region for the rest of our lives, and history will repeat itself again,” he said. “We have to put money in the bank for the rainy days that don’t come.”