Water-saving tips offered at California State Fair

Capital Press

SACRAMENTO — Water-saving tips to weather the drought are key features at this year’s California State Fair, which runs through July 26.

The state Department of Water Resources’ award-winning “Californians Don’t Waste — Save Water in Your Home” exhibit in the Counties Building offers hands-on demonstrations of ways to conserve water in kitchens, laundry rooms and bathrooms.

The agency also has an outdoor booth at the fair’s farm at which experts such as landscape specialist Julie Saare-Edmonds give tips on landscape irrigation efficiency.

“We’re pleased by the turnout at the State Fair and the interest fairgoers show in our exhibits,” DWR spokeswoman Elizabeth Scott said in an email. “We’re also finding that the drought seems to be on everybody’s mind. Not only are folks interested in hearing from us about new ways to conserve, but they want to share with us what they’ve been doing at home to save water. That’s encouraging.”

The 162nd state exposition opened on a cool morning July 10 with the theme, “The Best is Back.” The Golden State’s abundance of crops and farm animals always take center stage at the fair, as its32-year-old farm is one of the most popular destinations for attendees.

The farm’s attractions include a daily farmers’ market, an outdoor kitchen grill, an aquaculture exhibit, an insect pavilion and talks by the University of California’s Master Gardeners. A local supermarket chain also sponsors a “passport” program in which families can learn about crops and healthy eating while they visit the farm and eat a snack at the end.

Nearby, the fair’s livestock building and adjacent shaded stalls feature some 4,500 entries during the course of the festival, as livestock exhibits are shown in shifts. Entrants compete in youth and open divisions.

The DWR’s water-saving tips come as urban areas are under a state mandate to reduce their water use by at least 25 percent from 2013 levels, with some areas facing targets of up to 36 percent. Farms statewide have had their surface water allocations drastically reduced or shut off completely.

The department’s outdoor exhibit includes a low-water garden maintained with a water-efficient irrigation system. The exhibit offers drought-tolerant plant ideas and tips for conserving water with compost and mulch, according to a news release.

Moody Superstar Which Face Will El Niño Show Us This Winter?

A rainfall bonanza could be coming to California Ocean temperature is comparable to strongest El Niño But there is more than one warm-water blob in the ocean


Fresno Bee






California is dreaming again of a cigar-shaped superstar hanging out in the sun for thousands of miles along the equator. El Niño, the moody blob of warm ocean water, is spreading in the Pacific right now.

Last year when El Niño began hinting at an appearance, media mania descended quickly, raising the possibility of a gully-washing winter to break the intense drought. A dud of a winter followed.

This time, the headlines might be right, say seasoned climatologists, such as Kelly Redmond of the Desert Research Institute in Reno. This is beginning to look like the rain festival of 1997-98, when the most powerful El Niño on record helped double average precipitation here.

But Redmond and other scientists always say this phenomenon has many personalities. Nobody really knows which one will show up. Will it suddenly cool down and turn into a wimp, as it did last year?

Maybe not this time.

El Niño prediction has not advanced much in the last 15 years, Redmond says. It is possible for science to learn more and fine-tune prediction, he says, but there








haven’t been many big breakthroughs since the 1990s.

“That said, I’ll be surprised if we don’t see something besides drought this winter,” Redmond says. “It’s darned hard to predict, so you have to be careful not to overstate or understate.”

And that may be the toughest part of following a capricious superstar, scientists say. They are trying to balance the message while explaining the event to folks who often just don’t get it.

Some people think it actually happens in California, scientists say. It does not.

“Some people think it’s a storm system,” says warning coordination meteorologist Jerald Meadows of the National Weather Service in Hanford. “It’s not that.”

WIND, WATER, ANCHOVIES

When you think of El Niño, think coastal Peru in South America, not California. Peruvian fishermen first noticed El Niño changes in the 1800s when their world-class anchovy fishery would sometimes collapse.

The fish need the plankton brought up by rising cold water that mysteriously stops every several years. Since the problem usually happened around Christmas, they called it El Niño — the child, or the Christ child.

Scientists later linked it to the dying trade winds that blow east toward Asia. As the wind dies, the sun heats the ocean down to about 100 yards below the surface. The warm surface water spreads along the equator until it covers an area twice the size of the United States, climatologists say.

The amount of heat energy has been compared to the atomic bomb. In the huge wet season of 1997-98, El Niño had more energy than a million Hiroshima bombs, scientists say. That heat energy causes the high-speed wind known as the jet stream to dip south — a powerful force drawing moisture and storms with it.

“It’s like being on steroids,” said consulting meteorologist Jan Null in the Bay Area.

That kind of power affects weather in many parts of the globe. There is often flooding in arid parts of Peru and Ecuador. Australia and Indonesia often experience drought. And, as the jet stream blasts across the southern states, it can mute the impacts of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season.

Southern California can be pounded with moist storms for months at a time. Moving north in California, the effect tends to taper off, scientists say.

But unless El Niño is very warm and strong, it is not reliable, meaning anything could happen. That may be why the cooler episode of El Niño last year had little effect in breaking the drought, scientists say. And many other things are going on in the chaos of Earth’s weather.

“El Niño is the biggest player we know in global weather,” Null says. “It’s the superstar. But you have to remember, it’s not the only player out there.”

One of those players is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a decade-long swing between warm and cool ocean temperatures.

This longer-term event is influencing California’s drought, helping to create a vast pool of warm water in the Gulf of Alaska, says Fresno meteorologist Steve Johnson.

In the process, a freakish dome of air has risen over the last few years, bouncing storms away from California through the drought. The dome has been nicknamed by forecasters “the ridiculously resilient ridge.”

“I think people should know the warm water is still in the Gulf of Alaska,” Johnson says. “What does that mean for the strong El Niño building at the equator?”

It could be a good thing, because this setup apparently happened during the huge 1997-98 wet season. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation was in a similar warm cycle.

Even more telling, the water temperature right now along the equator is comparable to the ocean temperatures in summer 1997, Johnson says. More meteorologists suspect a very strong event this fall.

Says Johnson: “I think it’s possible we’re in for a hell of a wet season.”

Climatologist Redmond adds that people need to be patient if the downpours don’t start on Nov.

1. The 1997-98 season was not memorable until early February. He says he remembers seeing signs asking where El Niño was in January.

“Then the steady rain started on Feb. 2,” he says. “And it just kept going week after week.”

By the end of February, the community of Earlimart in Tulare County was overwhelmed with floodwater from the nearby White River. The normally small river also spilled onto Highway 99, shutting down the traffic artery.

FACES OF EL NIÑO

Bay Area meteorologist Null knows the splintered personality of El Niño. Null has a big collection of easily understood El Niño analyses, including a breakdown of precipitation in the four types of events.

El Niños are classified as weak, moderate, strong or very strong, depending on how warm the ocean becomes.

There have only been two very strong El Niños dating back 65 years — the 1997-98 and 1982-83 events. Most places in California got more than 150% of average rain and snow. Many got 200%, or twice the normal amount.

But if the event is just one step down in strength

— a strong El Niño — it’s not as certain. Of the four strong events since 1950, two seasons wound up below average in many California locations, including the mountains east of Fresno and east of Sacramento.

“Unless you’re looking at a very strong event, you have to be careful about how you explain it,” Null says.

The next question is a no-brainer: Will California suffer catastrophic flooding during a very strong El Niño? Damage during the 1997-98 monster season ranked 10th among the costliest flood years, according to Null’s statistics.

The other very strong El Niño, 1982-83, is third. The worst year was 1994-95 during a moderate El Niño. The damage was $1.95 billion.

The rest of the 10 worst flooding years included two La Niña years when the water at the equator was cooler than average. It may seem odd, because La Niña often means less rainfall in California. The other four flood years happened when the ocean temperature was average.

“What does that mean? Flooding happens here,” Null says.

Why does El Niño have so many faces? Climatologist Redmond says the variations could have something to do with the locations of the warmest areas, but there could be many other factors as well.

“Does it make a difference if the patterns of warmth are nearer Peru and the Galapagos?” he asks. “We’re talking about a lens of shallow warm water across thousands of miles of the planet. We just don’t know enough about it yet.”

California adopts strict lawn-reduction rules for drought savings

Sacramento Bee

The era of lush, green California lawns moved a dramatic step closer to ending Wednesday.

Drought tolerant plants must dominate lawns surrounding new homes and businesses across California under new regulations unanimously approved by the California Water Commission.

The new rules effectively limit the amount of turf grass around newly-constructed homes to 25 percent of landscaped area. Under prior rules, turf grass could take up about one third of landscaped area.

The restrictions will apply to all homes with more than 500 square feet of landscaped area, essentially all new detached homes in the state. Old rules only applied to homes with more than 2,500 square feet of landscaped area. California detached homes, on average, feature about 3,000 square feet of landscaping, state officials said.

The new restrictions also effectively eliminate any turf grass or other thirsty plants around new commercial and public development, with a few exceptions, state officials said.

Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the California Department of Water Resources to strengthen landscaping restrictions as part of his drought executive order in April. Beginning in December, municipalities will have to adopt rules that are at least as strict as the state’s new “model ordinance.”

State officials made no apologies for the tougher regulations.

“The real driving force behind the model ordinance is to reduce the square footage of turf,” said Mark Cowin, director of the Department of Water Resources, in an interview with The Sacramento Bee.

"It's going to save so many acre-feet" of water, added Nancy Vogel, spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Agency, the department’s parent.

Vogel added that businesses will have to justify their development of large swaths of grass.

"You can't really have turf because it looks pretty," she said. "You have to prove that you're using it for weddings or gatherings or whatever."

Response among developers and industry was mixed. Homebuilding executives said the industry will adapt to the new regulations.

"The industry is already adjusting to some degree in how they plant front yards," said Greg Paquin of The Gregory Group, a Folsom homebuilding consultant.

He said he visited a recently built development Wednesday in the Serrano community, in El Dorado Hills, and found very little in the way of traditional lawns. "There's no grass - it's all natural vegetation,” Paquin said. “There are alternatives that we're starting to see."

Tim Murphy, chief executive of the Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange, said the proposal would add several layers of complexity to California's already regulatory heavy development environment, and some of the smaller irrigation contractors may struggle to adapt.

But he said California's increased emphasis on water savings is "the new normal."

"This will be more cumbersome," he said, "But in the long run, this will be more beneficial to our state, and we have to adapt.”

Ed Zuckerman, president of Stockton-based Delta Bluegrass Company, said the new rules would unnecessarily kill off lawns in California - and might do the same to his and other sod farmers' businesses.

In a typical year, he farms between 1,000 and 2,000 acres of sod depending on the demand.

"If you like to live in Phoenix, Arizona, with gravel in your front yard and no irrigated landscape," he said, "that's what some people would like to push."

He said that while lawns have become pariahs in the drought, they're more beneficial than they get credit for because he said they keep urban areas cool. He worries that when the drought ends, the state's landscaping ordinance will be stuck in place even if homeowners want their grass back.

"You better watch out for what you hope for," Zuckerman said. "You're going to have dust storms in cities, and heat islands in cities, like you've never seen before, and energy bills soaring."

Meanwhile, Sacramento-area residents reduced their water use by 35 percent in June, the first month of mandatory statewide conservation, compared to June 2013, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Regional Water Authority.

As the drought continues in its fourth year, the conservation figures suggest area residents are working to comply with Gov. Jerry Brown’s executive order mandating 25 percent reduction in urban water use compared to 2013.

The June savings weren’t as dramatic as in May, when relatively cool weather enabled Sacramentans to reduce usage by 40 percent. Nonetheless, officials said they were impressed with the results for June, considering the hotter weather.

“While the June savings are impressive, it is critical that residents continue saving – and do even more, if possible – in July and August,” said Amy Talbot, the water authority’s water efficiency program manager, in a prepared statement. “Conserving now will help preserve our local water supplies, including Folsom Reservoir, as well as meet water conservation targets set by the state water board.”

At the Sacramento County Water Agency, water use fell by 41 percent compared to June 2013. Posting big conservation numbers during the summer is necessary if the region is going to meet mandated targets, said water agency spokeswoman Diane Margetts.

“This an excellent number but it is important to remember we need to achieve an average reduction of 32 percent,” she said. “We need to be reaching these high numbers now when the opportunity to conserve is highest – as outdoor water use is highest – because in the fall and winter outdoor water use is normally minimal so the opportunity to conserve is really reduced.”

All of the region’s largest water suppliers cut use by at least 30 percent in June compared to the same month in 2013, according to a Bee survey of district officials.

“Considering the heat and dry weather, June was a good month,” said Placer County Water Agency spokesman Ross Branch. His district’s customers cut water use by 32 percent in June.

Roseville customers cut water use by 39 percent in June. Bobby Alvarez, the city’s interim water conservation administrator, said he expects big numbers in July too. “We are trending really well,” he said. “If you drive around the neighborhoods, you can see a lot of golden brown out there.”

Statewide conservation figures for June haven’t been released yet. Urban Californians cut their water use by 29 percent in May, the last month of voluntary cutbacks.

Targets for water use cuts vary by water district under Brown’s order, with areas with historically heavy per-capita water use, like the Sacramento area, needing to conserve more. Most Sacramento water agencies have to save 28 to 36 percent compared to 2013.

Water Use Cuts in June in the region’s largest agencies (compared to June 2013)

		June Cut
City of Sacramento	475,122
California-American Water Company	201,418
Sacramento Suburban Water	174,304
Sacramento County Water Agency	162,681
El Dorado Irrigation District	128,500
Roseville	122,946
Placer County Water Agency	94,318
Citrus Heights Water District	67,333
Davis	65,783
Folsom	60,347
Woodland	56,610

Source: Bee interviews with district officials

Measur

Xeriscaping

The Old Farmer's Almanac

In many parts of the country demand for water has already exceeded the supply leading to bans on car washing and watering lawns and gardens.

The need to conserve water has made xeriscaping a popular concept in gardening. From the Greek word "xeros" meaning dry, combined with landscaping it is a commonsense approach to gardening using less water. Mother Nature can't be relied upon to supply us with the inch of water a week that most plants require. It doesn't sound like much but that 1 inch of rain equals 62 gallons of water per 100 square feet of garden space!

The practical principles of xeriscaping can be applied to any landscape, making your garden not only water-thrifty but low-maintenance as well. It doesn't have to be all cactus and rocks! You can still have a colorful, lush-looking garden that uses less water by following some simple rules of thumb.

• Mulch is an important weapon against evaporation and provides a cushion during a downpour to lessen erosion and give the rain a chance to soak in rather than running off. It will also keep weeds from competing with your plants for precious moisture.
• Use plants that thrive in dry conditions. Echinacea, salvias, penstemon, agastache, yarrow, and coreopsis are all low water perennials.

Herbs native to the hot dry Mediterranean such as sage, thyme, lavender, and artemisia are good choices.

South African imports such as gerbera, Cape marigold, osteospermum, and arctotis are used to arid conditions. Sedums and succulents hold water in their fat leaves.

Plants with fuzzy or waxy leaves are slow to transpire moisture to the dry air. Annuals are the first to wilt in the hot sun but bachelor buttons, cleome, cosmos, California poppies, calendula, portulaca, and globe amaranth will bloom reliably with less water than most annual flowers.

• Group plants with similar water requirements. Called zoning, this technique cuts work time by keeping plants with the same needs together. You can concentrate your watering efforts and give each zone what it needs. Plant the most drought-tolerant plants in your driest areas. If there are some showy, high-maintenance plants you can't live without, create an oasis for them in a high traffic area where you can enjoy them and take care of them easily.
• Use water efficiently. Water deeply when you do water, to encourage deep root growth. Wet the soil to at least six inches deep every 10 days or so. Try to water in the morning before the sun is high enough to evaporate moisture. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation use a fraction of the water used by a sprinkler and deliver the water where it is needed.
• Add lots of organic matter to your soil to improve its water retention. Well-rotted manure, leaf mould, and compost act like a sponge, helping sandy soil to hold more water without becoming soggy. It also encourages strong root growth.
• Proper grading is important if you garden on a hilly site. Slopes can be terraced to lessen erosion and prevent water from running off. Create semi-circular berms around your plants to help retain water near the base of the plants where it is need most. Dig shallow channels to divert rainwater toward thirstier plants.
• Fertilize sparingly, if at all. Accelerated plant growth increases the need for more water and fosters soft growth which is more susceptible to attack by insects and disease.
• Limit lawn space. Keeping a large expanse of grass looking green in hot dry weather is very water intensive. If you must have a lawn use native grasses or drought tolerant species.
• This brings us to gray water. Many people recycle the water from bathing or washing laundry or dishes to water their gardens. The State of California recommends using this water only on lawns, shrubs, fruit trees, and flowers but NOT on the vegetable garden. This water can contain harmful bacteria, chlorine, phsphates, and other chemicals that could hurt not only you but your plants so use it sparingly.

Using less water in the garden can be challenging at first but once we adapt to a new way of thinking it makes for a very low maintenance landscape that uses half the water of a traditional garden. Work with Mother Nature and choose plants that are compatible with your environment to design a water-thrifty garden that will not only use less of a precious resource but will also mean less work for you.

Chris Souza is Moving North

Chris Souza has accepted the "Head Pro" job at Empire Ranch Golf Club in Folsom, Ca.

He has been working there for about a month now and is very happy with his new position!

If any of you are ever in the vicinity of Empire Ranch, please drop by and say "Hi" to Chris, I'm sure he would enjoy seeing you and maybe playing some golf together!

June Update

Dear Member:

Welcome to summer.  June was nice and toasty as June's are in Fresno and only slightly warmer than normal.

Wanda Bingham turned 90 on June 29 and her birthday was celebrated by a small party on Sunday 28 at the Belmont CC.  

June's water usage was much better than last year and Fresno's targeted savings.  With half the year behind us, we are 16% better than last year and only 4% behind the target.

Click here for a larger view.

The above savings were realized even though most water days (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday), the street gutters are running with wasted water.  Please test check your sprinklers and controllers frequently.  Power outages and gardeners make adjustments we do not know about.  Most everyone is watering in the early morning hours, as we should, and may not see what is happening in our gardens and lawns.  

All savings measures are voluntary to date, but the time is coming when the State Water Resources Control Board will be force all water companies to enforce reductions and take action against water wasters.  Let's be proactive and reduce our usage voluntarily and not be targeted by the state.

Reminder...

Mainline Water Valve Locations

If you received an email last week and you know the location of your mainline water valve, please provide a complete location description which includes a capped opening at ground level, we will add your valve to the "located" list.

The board plans to hire a plumber to locate the missing valves after August 1, 2015. If you know the location of your valve, or would like to find it on your own, you have until August 1 to provide the location. Those members with valves of unknown locations will be charged a pro-rata share of the locating expense.

Businesses find ways to make every drop count

Saint Agnes Medical Center reclaims cooling tower water for irrigation 

Fresno beef processor’s patty plant reduced water use 41% 

Water parks allow ponds and picnic areas to go dry

Fresno Bee

As California’s drought drags on and water supplies get tighter, Valley businesses are finding ways to get more uses from the water they have, or just use less.

Fresno’s water parks are keeping the pools filled, but letting the grass go brown. Nurseries are using irrigation mats or electronic monitors to keep plants watered with less waste. And other businesses are finding ways to reuse the water they have.

In June, Saint Agnes Medical Center in northeast Fresno started reclaiming cooling tower water for irrigation, said facilities director Rudy Negrete.

The hospital used to send its cooling tower water to a drain. Now, the hospital diverts that water to a storage tank, where it can be used to keep the grass green and the landscape lush. And as temperatures rise, the cooling towers use more water. That means there’s more water available to irrigate landscape that’s thirstier in the heat.

Negrete said the hospital is studying other ways to conserve water as well, although he declined to give details.

“We want to be respectful to the use of the water,” Negrete said.

Cargill’s beef-processing plant in southwest Fresno gets its water from on-site wells, and all of the company’s plants treat and reuse water, said Mike Martin, director of communications at Cargill, Inc. The company has repaired leaks and acquired more water-efficient equipment to reduce water use, he said.

The plant’s water is first used for sanitation of the plant and meat, he said. The water is then treated, and methane produced during the treatment is used to heat boilers for the water.

There are two facilities at the Fresno location, one for slaughtering and butchering beef and one for producing

ground beef patties, he said. The butchering plant, which uses the bulk of water, has reduced its water consumption by 17% in the past five years, while the ground beef patty plant has reduced its water use by 41% over that time.

Island Waterpark in northwest Fresno spent about $250,000 in the off-season to prepare for the drought by installing more automated controls and fixing leaks and mechanical failures in the filtration system that treats and reuses their water, said general manager Amber Watson. The park now loses its water only to evaporation, and then only about 3% of it in a day, she said.

Other areas of the park are not as green as they used to be, as the park has cut back on its watering schedule. And park areas that don’t see much use, such as the picnic areas on the outskirts or the golf course, are no longer watered at all, she said.

“Still nice enough to lounge on, but they’re not as green as they’ve been in the past,” Watson said.

Wild Water Adventure Park east of Clovis has also chosen fringe areas to not water, in addition to other tactics such as installing low-flow toilets, said general manager Bob Martin.

The park is not just letting grass go dry but the ponds as well, allowing two to empty and keeping the third minimally filled, he said. The fish will have to be relocated at some point, he added.

At Red Carpet Car Wash, all but one of the company’s locations have a system for recycling water, vice president Michael Bowie said. And its location at Bullard Avenue and First Street is working on a system for treating wastewater, making it fit for reuse.

The company also started two years ago to use highly pressured water for washes. It’s like taking a gushing hose with a tiny hole, building up pressure to create a big spray of mist rather than a torrent, reducing water consumption, he said.

Some locations use under 20 gallons per car, he said. The average person uses about 50 gallons to wash their car at home, he added.

Nurseries, whose business depends on keeping plants alive no matter how severe the drought, have also found ways to make water stretch.

Scott Miller, owner of Gazebo Gardens in central Fresno, said his nursery and landscaping business is educating the public. Most of the questions on Gazebo Gardens’ radio show, “Valley Grown Radio,” are about drought-related issues.

Gazebo Gardens uses an irrigation controller with a built-in cellphone, so it can call the weather station and adjust irrigation depending on the day’s weather. When the company started using it five years ago it was crazy, but now it’s going mainstream, he said.

There’s also a lot of watering done by hand to avoid sprinkler runoff, such as at Gazebo Gardens’ client River Park, Miller said.

Jon Reelhorn, owner of Belmont Nursery just east of Fresno, said that with 30 acres of trees, shrubs and perennials growing, it’s important to conserve water.

The nursery uses capillary irrigation mats that work like sponges, he said. The plants are placed on top of the mat, which catches water that misses the containers and soaks it up, and the plants soak up the captured water. This reduces watering by about 80%.

The nursery also uses drip irrigation instead of overhead irrigation, which is like putting a little hose in the pot, Reelhorn said.

Belmont Nursery looks to not just conserve water with its practices but to educate customers on how to save water as well, he said. They offer customers drought-tolerant plants such as rosemary and teach tricks such as putting mulch on top of the soil to prevent evaporation.

“What we do at the nursery here, by growing and selling plants, we improve your quality of life,” Reelhorn said. “When you think of what the city would be, what the environment would be if we didn’t have trees and shrubs and flowers ... the message is we can still do that and save water.”