Clovis seeking users for recycled water

Fresno Bee

The city of Clovis has a precious commodity available: water.

The city has become prolific at producing recycled water — once better known as sewage — that can be used for landscaping and irrigation.

But its largest user, Clovis Community Medical Center, is consuming 3 million gallons a month, a fraction of the city’s monthly output of about 84 million gallons.

Clovis continues to look for new customers while expanding the number of sites on the east side of the city that are plumbed with purple pipes to accommodate recycled water for the city’s landscaped areas.

“On peak days, we are only using 25% of what we have available,” says Luke Serpa, the city’s public utilities director.

84 million gallons of recycled water city of Clovis produces monthly

That means 2.1 million gallons per day, about 7 acre-feet of liquid gold, is being sent from the plant to Fancher Creek. In the winter months, when demand is nonexistent, all the water is sent to Fancher Creek. The Fancher Creek water naturally recharges back into the ground or mixes with agriculture water for irrigation.

The water is treated to the “tertiary level,” which means it’s clean enough to drink, city officials say, but that’s prohibited under state law. It’s conveyed through purple pipes, the industry standard for non-potable water.

When the city planned the purple pipe system, it was only supposed to go to newer parts of town. Areas on the east side were plumbed for the pipes, evident from purple pipes that are seen above ground in many east Clovis neighborhoods.

Eventually, the purple pipe will irrigate the southeast side of the city, which is now being built, and the future growth area east of Willow Avenue and north of Shepherd Avenue.

For now, the city is using the water in its larger parks on the east side of the city, Pasa Tiempo Park at Barstow and DeWolf avenues and Sierra Meadows Park at Temperance and Sierra avenues. Serpa says it could extend to other large city parks.

The other areas are being considered in light of California’s new long-term drought rules, which requires Clovis and its users to cut water consumption by 36%.

As the city grows, it will need more capacity to handle waste water from other parts of the city, meaning more water will be processed and available at the water reuse facility near Ashlan and McCall avenues that does filtration and cleansing. Ultimate build-out for the water reuse plant is 8.4 million gallons per day, up from its current capacity of 2.8 million.

“We are trying to see how we can use recycled water in other places,” Serpa says. “I expect there to be changes in the plan, to extend the purple pipe into existing parts of town, but going into existing areas is much more expensive.”

State has no limits

The best reason to use recycled water: The state — so vigilantly watching Californians’ water use — has set no limits on the recycled resource.

It’s a major reason why Clovis touts its use and wants to convince more businesses and public agencies to participate.

The city’s use of recycled water and increased use of surface water through its allocation from the Fresno Irrigation District have revived some water tables for city wells.

“There’s been a drought, so obviously it’s not due to the wet weather,” Serpa says of the rising water tables. “We’ve actually seen some of the levels rise over the past year.”

For now, landscape irrigation is the main use. It’s unlikely the city can ever get recycled water to homes, because it would require installing new pipes and back-flow preventers for each residential user to keep recycled water from mixing with potable water from the city’s drinking water supply. It can be used on crops, even edible crops, under certain conditions.

For more than a year, Clovis Community Medical Center has used the city’s recycled water. The hospital runs its sprinklers throughout the day, greening its 14 acres of grass and sating its thirsty plants and trees.

Initial results are convincing. Recycled water costs about half as much as potable water, the hospital can preserve its potable supplies, and water tables under nearby wells have risen, says John Hall, director of facilities and construction for the Clovis hospital.

“We feel we are doing the right thing for the community, and we’ve saved some money,” Hall says.

He and other hospital officials are regularly besieged by questions about the constantly running sprinklers. Clovis Community Medical Center has posted large signs around the medical center campus announcing that “Our new campus uses recycled water and drought-tolerant landscaping.”

Hall says callers find it difficult to understand that recycled water doesn’t deplete community water supplies.

“It is hard for people to understand that the No. 1 best way to save water in the drought is to use recycled water,” Hall says.

The best part, he said, is that there are no restrictions for the amount of time or number of days recycled water can be used.

Serpa is encouraged by Clovis Community Medical Center’s willingness to use recycled water.

“If a leader in the health-care field like Community Medical Center can use it, hopefully that gets the ball rolling,” he says. “Maybe people will start looking at recycled water as a resource and not as a waste.”

Flowing elsewhere

Caltrans also is using the city’s recycled water along Highway 168.

Caltrans District 6 spokeswoman Gloria Rodriguez says recycled water is used on landscaping between Shepherd and Temperance avenues and that the agency is fixing its watering system to expand recycled water use to the freeway between Bullard and Temperance avenues.

Caltrans also uses the recycled water for street sweepers and to reduce dust on construction projects, she says.

Clovis also continues to look for more users, and an obvious target is Clovis Unified School District. The district has several campuses in newer parts of the city, and the state has found that recycled water poses no threat to students, especially since watering is done during hours when students are off campus.

The district could also save money on its water bills while enhancing its school play areas by not having to limit watering on many campuses.

When the district prepared projects for its most recent bond measure in 2012, the bulk of the $298 million was for repairs and upgrades, such as solar panels to reduce electric bills. Drought was not on the radar, but it is now, says Kelly Avants, district spokeswoman. The problem the district has today is that no money is immediately available for a recycled water project.

The district is in the initial phase of developing a 10-year plan to “minimize our reliance on wells and city water on our campuses,” Avants says.

Later this year, the district is expecting “one-time” money from the state. It could be used to finance connections to the city’s purple pipe system, but it’s premature to project a timeline, she says.

“We have been looking at this as one of the facility projects that is long-term beneficial to the district and the community,” she says.

The most likely targets for the city’s recycled water are the 160-acre Reagan Educational Center and other schools on the eastern edge of the district. Since much of the city’s purple pipe infrastructure runs along Locan and Temperance avenues, Freedom Elementary and Red Bank Elementary also are likely targets. And, because Harlan Ranch is plumbed with purple pipes and eventually will become part of the system, Bud Rank Elementary could eventually use recycled water, too.

“We are absolutely interested in using that water,” Avants says. “It is something we hope to start using soon.”

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California slashes water use for upstate farmers

USA Today

State officials announced major water cutbacks for Northern California farmers Friday, a historic step that could challenge claims the agriculture industry is getting a free pass during the state's epic drought.

The cutbacks will affect some of California's oldest water rights holders — farmers who laid claim to surface water more than a century ago — for the first time in four decades. They will not be allowed to draw water from the San Joaquin River, the Sacramento River and the delta that forms where the two rivers meet. State officials said the rivers simply don't have enough water to meet the demands of all rights holders.

An agricultural field is irrigated in Thermal on Nov. 24, 2014.

 (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

This isn't the first time during the current drought that state has cut off supplies to surface water users, including farmers. The water board has already "curtailed" nearly 9,000 water rights this year, all of them "junior" water rights that were established post-1914.

California water officials announced the decision Friday to tell more than a hundred senior rights holders in California's Sacramento, San Joaquin and delta watersheds to stop pumping from those waterways.

 (Photo: News10-KXTV)

But for the first time since a severe drought in the late 1970s, California is starting to tell "senior" water rights holders, who laid claim to surface water before 1914, that there just isn't enough water for them. The cutbacks announced Friday impact rights holders who established their claims between 1903 and 1914.

And more historic cuts could be coming over the summer. The State Water Resources Control Board said Friday that it's continuing to monitor conditions in watersheds across the state, and that cutbacks could be on the horizon for even more senior rights holders.

"Curtailment notices for other watersheds and for more senior water right holders in these watersheds may be imminent," the water board said in a statement.

State officials said in a conference call that the water rights being curtailed comprise 1.2 million acre-feet, but it's unclear whether the cutbacks will save quite that much. The water board has indicated in recent months that curtailments for senior rights holders were coming, leading some farmers to store extra water in preparation.

Water wasters exposed to heat

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES 

Pssst. Ready to water that beautiful lush lawn of yours? The one that’s the envy of the entire neighborhood.

If you live in Southern California, you’d better wait until after midnight. Preferably on a cloudy, new-moon night during a power outage when it’s so dark even night-vision goggles won’t give away your position. Otherwise, you could wind up the star of the latest drought-shaming video posted on YouTube or Twitter.

“Yeah, I put your address out there. The world is watching a lot more,” says Tony Corcoran, one of several people who spend their spare time these days canvassing the tony communities of Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and elsewhere, looking for people wasting water during the worst California drought in recent memory.

Corcoran alone estimates he’s put up on You-Tube more than 100 videos of water-wasters, complete with their addresses.

Others tweet out addresses and photos of water scofflaws, using hashtags such as #DroughtShaming. Still others are snapping smart-phone photos of them and sending them directly to authorities.

Not everyone is happy about it.

One woman, quickly tiring of Corcoran’s lecture on conservation while she watered her plants, turned her hose on him.

In Beverly Hills, where he was showing a reporter and photographer water running down the street in front of a mansion, the angry resident called police. Two patrol cars quickly responded, but the officers took no action.

In Hollywood, Sam Bakman, who manages a condominium complex, said his building was recently shamed wrongly by somebody on Twitter over a broken sprinkler head that was quickly repaired. He showed a reporter the city-issued restrictions on watering and pointed out his sprinkler timers fall well within the guidelines.

“If they thought we were doing something wrong, why not come knock on my door?” he asked.

Corcoran, a restaurant group administrator who kept his New York attitude when he came to laid-back Los Angeles awhile ago, is unrepentant.

“The whole point is to get people to change, not to shame,” he said.

Dan Estes, a Los Angeles real estate broker, has gone so far as to build his own free app, DroughtShame, that records the time and place where people see waste.

Unlike some shamers, he doesn’t believe in getting in people’s faces or outing them. Instead, people who use his app send the information and a photograph to him, and he forwards it to the appropriate water agency.

“I drought shamed the preschool next to my apartment,” Estes said. “Timer was off on their sprinklers. Those things were on for five hours, and the sidewalk was a river.”

Twenty minutes after he reported it, the sprinklers were off.

Fresno water use dives

Fresno Bee

Fresno water customers used 3.3 billion gallons less water in May compared to the same month in 2014, a drop-off of 24.8%, according to the city Department of Public Utilities.

The reduction helps Fresno in the effort to meet a state-ordered 28% cutback between 2013 and the beginning of 2016.

The big water savings probably was influenced by stepped-up water conservation restrictions that began in August. The city began allowing only two days of watering per week, instead of three.

Officials say the city has been on a downward trend for water use over the last seven years. The effort has picked up speed in the last few years as the four-year drought has taken hold.

“Water use for May is down 33.2% when you compare it to May 2013,” city spokesman Mark Standriff said. “That surpasses the overall 28% goal mandated for Fresno.”

Water Savings Tips

Fresno Bee

Here in dry, dusty California, dealing with the worst drought in state history has become the “new normal.” In my home, we’ve cut back on showers and watering the lawn.

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Sacramento region cut water use by 23 percent in April, report shows

Sacramento Bee

Sacramento-area residents cut their water use by 23 percent in April as compared to 2013, a better performance than any other month this year but still short of state-mandated conservation targets that take effect this month, the Regional Water Authority reported today.

Read more...