Restrictions of 10-35 percent are coming in California

 

Gov. Jerry Brown's last winter for Californians to voluntarily curb water use by as much as 20 percent were met with mixed results. Many large water users, such as golf courses, already had been implementing smart-water practices by then, and those who hadn't been soon started. However, smaller users, including private residential customers and others exhaled a casual, dismissive "Huh? What?" But when Brown recently announced the first mandatory statewide drought restrictions in California's history, people from the Oregon state line to the border with Mexico took notice.

 

"What the governor wants from this bill is to get everyone's attention," said Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Association. "He got it."

 

On April 1, Brown issued an executive order directing the State Water Resources Control Board to impose 25 cutbacks on the 400-plus urban water districts throughout the state. Just how those cutbacks will be achieved, however, is a work in progress that will unfold in the next several weeks. According to the SWRCB, the preliminary framework targets reducing "potable urban water use" by 25 percent through February 2016. Preliminary plans for meeting those cuts were published April 7, and a public comment period will run through April 13 before a final rule is published, probably next month.

 

"We might have some ideas soon about what this might mean," Kessler said. "But we're probably looking at May 4 or 5."

 

Even then, 25 percent won't mean 25 percent for everyone, and in some cases far from it. The proposed cutbacks, which will range from 10-35 percent will be based on per capita usage across 411 urban water suppliers statewide. Heavy users will be hit hardest, and those districts will have to cut as much as 35 percent to ensure statewide goals are met. Some lighter users will have to cut less than 25 percent, perhaps as little as 10 percent. To determine whether the necessary cuts have been met, water use from June 2015 through February 2016 will be compared to water use from June 2013-February 2014.

 

Golf courses using only reclaimed water, which represent about one-third of the state's nearly 900 facilities, likely will be exempt from any mandatory cuts, Kessler said. New legislation drafted in January technically places groundwater under state regulation. Since January, however, the SWRCB has had bigger issues than managing well water.

 

"As a practical matter, there are no constraints on (well water) because it is so new," said Kessler.

 

Water districts required to cut use by only 10 percent include San Francisco, Monterey and Santa Cruz. Cuts of 20 percent are part of the plan for Los Angeles, San Jose and Orange County. The proposed standard of 25 percent will apply in places including Livermore, Riverside, Sacramento, Fresno and Stockton. For the heaviest water uses, the plan calls for cutbacks of 35 percent in such places as the Coachella Valley and Truckee. 

 

Cutbacks levied by the state apply to individual water districts, which in turn will mete out restrictions to their customers. That means users within the same district might be subject to different restriction levels.

 

"Water in California is very complicated because of pricing and conveyance," Kessler said.

 

The cutbacks are the result of four years of drought, mostly in the northern and central regions of the state, which happen to be the same areas that collect water and send it southward across hundreds of miles of pipe toward Los Angeles, which already has been operating under its own mandatory 20 percent cutbacks since 2010.

 

This much already is clear: The plan will not include agriculture, which is the state's largest water-using industry by far, and the 411 individual urban water districts will have a great deal of latitude to interpret the rule and develop a plan for individual customers to ensure it is in compliance. And it is important for water users to work in concert with their districts so they know exactly how they will be affected, says independent irrigation consultant Mike Huck.

 

"A lot of this is going to be left up to the individual water districts," said Huck, a former superintendent and USGA agronomist. "It's important to get organized and get with them now."

 

The cutbacks already in place in Los Angeles allow for golf course superintendents to irrigate as they see fit as long as they meet a water budget established by the department. That budget is based on ET, climate and other factors. Those baselines and restrictions were established using the Model Efficient Landscape Ordinance, or Assembly Bill 1881, which was developed after a sustained drought nearly 15 years ago. 

 

The hope is that other water districts around the state will adopt a similar plan for establishing water budgets for golf courses.

 

"No water district presented with that protocol has ever said no to it, but you never know when you might find one district that wants to be difficult," Kessler said. "Any golf courses in such a water district would suffer mightily."

 

For now, the only specific mention of golf in the proposed regulation is a requirement for large water users to report monthly usage, using standards already in place, to the SWRCB.

 

Those who don't meet the demands placed on them by individual water districts face myriad potential penalties, including fines of up to $10,000 per day.

 

Los Angeles golf courses that violate the 20 percent mandate are placed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the state's largest water utility distributing nearly 140 billion gallons of potable water per year, on the same restrictions as residential users. Those limits are much more restrictive, including limiting water use at certain times of the day and throughout the summer.

 

"That is a death sentence for a golf course, especially in the summer," Kessler said. "There is tremendous incentive to be in compliance, and it works."