Drought Survey via Russian Riverkeeper

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Drought Update

The slow steady rains yesterday produced the highest inflows of the season to Lake Mendocino and bumped up storage levels by 3,800 acre feet of water! As you can see, we still have a long way to go to get out of this drought and yesterdays rains were very helpful. Keep those positive thoughts, prayers and rain dances coming so we squeeze even more out of the weather system that will come through Wednesday. After a brief break Thursday- Friday we should see another chance of rain by the end of the weekend!

Lake Mendocino storage is measured in acre feet. One acre foot of water equals 325,000 gallons or water for family of 4 for a year or one acre of land with a foot of water on it.

Drought Survey Answers from last week

Last week we conducted a Drought Survery asking what you are doing to conserve water, along with some other drought questions. We thought you'd like to see the results. A big THANK YOU goes out to everyone who took the time to answer this anonymous survey!

1). Which conservation measures are being taken in Sonoma County?

The Sonoma County Water Agency has called for a voluntary reduction of 20% from last years water use
Healdsburg and Cloverdale have mandatory water restrictions at 20 and 25% respectively
Ukiah Valley has mandatory water restrictions at 50% from last years water use
all of the above
Answer: 4 69% of respondents were correct

2).Do you have enough information to cut your water use back 20%?
Yes (82%)
No (18%)

3).Do you know how to read your water meter?
Yes (75%)
No (25%)

The most effective way for households to cut down on water use is:

Take a shower instead of a bath
Reduce outdoor irrigation by half
"If it's yellow let it mellow" when it comes to toilet flushing
Don't leave the water running when brushing teeth
Answer: 2 85% of respondents were correct
Recent studies suggest California has had severe droughts in the past. A study of tree rings found that past droughts have lasted up to how many years long?
5
25
50
200
Answer: 4 Only 28% got this one right, most said 5 years! Read the study if interested here.

Tell us what you're doing to conserve water:

-Saving water while hot water finally gets to shower. No out door watering except potted plants. Not flushing toilet after each use. "Yellow is mellow if brown send it down".

-In the 70s we lived for 8 years without running water, so have from that time been very conscious of how we used water. We installed drip irrigation in our orchard and landscape plantings. Vegetable garden has been on drip for 30+ years. Will monitor garden water use closely.

-Fewer toilet flushes, watering plants with water used to heat up shower water, hand sanitizer instead of washing hands in most cases.

-I use less water and will reduce landscape irrigation

-Installing a greywater system to capture water that can be recycled to keep my garden alive.

-Irrigation once/week or less. Automatic timers off. Mellow yellow. No car wash. Dish water to plants.

-Wearing clothes multiple times (less laundry); showering short and only 2-3X/week; watering outside plants with dishpan water; mellow yellow; catching shower "warm-up" water for dishes or cleaning or outside watering. BUT some of us do this all the time.

-I shower only on alternate days.

-Shorter showers, washing clothes and dishes as full loads only, not washing my car.

-Limiting flushing, no watering outside, limiting showers, not washing cars.

-Not watering my lawn

-Changed my lawn irrigation. Once every 3 days and running at night instead of during the day. Run dishwasher less... more full loads Shorter showers

-Turning shower off when soaping up, putting water in jugs in the kitchen as I wait for it to get hot. Using dishwasher on low energy setting. Have "let it mellow" since the last drought.

-Just brought super-efficient washing machine. Will be setting up a rain capture system in a few weeks, for watering plants.

-Saving 'warm-up' water from shower in a bucket to fill toilet tank manually after flushing. Turning water off when washing dishes, installed shut-off valves on showers for shaving, planning on cutting landscape irrigation drastically this summer (already have it all on a programmable drip system), and thinking about ripping out the stupid expensive swimming pool that never gets used. Also collecting some rainwater from recent storms in various buckets and containers for landscape use, but that won't last long once it gets warm.

-Installed 4-55 gal. barrels + 2-30 gal. barrels to catch rainwater for garden, etc.

-1)quick showers, 2) let it mellow, 3) soap first, then wash hands, 4) don't ever let the water run 5) basin in kitchen sink to soak dishes instead of rinsing with running water b/f putting in dishwasher and only turn on when full - 1 x every 6 days. Don't water the grass - the rain has turned it green but it can yellow as needed (small grass area) and have changed out to low water plants (we only have a small patch of grass now).

-No irrigation, replacing plants with drought resistant plants, 5 minute sand hourglass timer in the shower for all showers. Low flow toilets and shower heads. Buying bottles of Dasani water from a Los Angeles bottling plant (just kidding on that last one:)

-everything

Do you have any suggestions on how your water provider can help you conserve water?

-Require the water contractors to abide by the same percent of water saving as the public. Also agriculture and viticulture. No water use for frost protection.

-Increase price of water consumption, put that money towards new levys and dams.

-I don't. We are on a well and have lost 80% of our capacity since 1979. Ground water belongs to us all and use needs to be controlled. I know that's impossible to achieve now, but it needs to be a goal.

-Give actual gallon use info in the bill instead of increments of 1000 units.

-Reward reduce consumption and do not jack the rates up to compensate the reduction of income

-Require my homeowners association to replace lawns in the common areas of my planned unit development with drought-tolerant plants.

-Am on a well so not as relevant.

-Nothing other than for the provider to keep reminding us to be frugal with our use.

-Provide inexpensive mechanisms to capture outdoor water, capture grey water, and provide financial incentives to convert water sucking residential landscapes into water saving landscapes.

-Provide $ to replace toilets and lawns.

-Ability to see water usage weekly or as needed. This allow to see if changes are working.

-Pay people to rip out swimming pools that don't get used. I want to but...man it's expensive to remove a pool. Help people/ provide funding and knowledge for installation of rainwater catchment systems for summertime irrigation. Provide knowledge for grey water diversion systems for landscape use - i.e. what would be required to rig my shower drains to a large catchment tank for landscape use?

-Provide rain barrels for water capture for irrigation at low or no cost to homeowners. Incentives for installing graywater systems.

-Send us specifics on YTD usage. We bought our house in July of 2013.

-Mail out hourglass timers in packaging that is intriguing to kids. Educate kids about conservation with mailing out coloring books & stickers. Kids can change their parents stubborn attitudes toward water use.

-Start mandatory conservation

Do you have any suggestions on how Russian Riverkeeper can better educate the public on water conservation?

-Town hall meetings

-The only way is to enforce by price increase, price goes up, use goes down.

-People learn from many different sources and most people act only after they've heard notes of caution in several different contexts, so your warning coupled with others is likely the best we can do. Would it be possible to take a dog and pony show to schools?

-Control the vineyard consumption, they are based on over watering root stocks that could be deep rooted vs shallow rooted. Many vineyards are currently testing their overhead water frost protection systems which draw from our creeks and many illegal retention ponds which are not runoff fed.

-Include water conservation tip notices in City of Healdsburg water bills.

-Publish results of this survey. Share creative conservation ideas.

-We all love the river. Make messages with folks happy on the river and remind everyone that we are saving endangered species when we save water.

-Provide public workshops and forums.

-Doing a good job already.

-Promotion of reusable water bottles (CAMELBAK); Emails

-Keep doing what you do. It would be great to find a way to do more graywater systems and rain water capture at the lowest cost to homeowners. Maybe you could suggest that cities make large purchases of rain barrels, lowering the cost to homeowners? And/or financial incentives to homeowners for installing both rain barrels and graywater systems?

-Keep doing great social media!

-1) Have presenters go to our local schools - all levels and educate our kids...they will tell their parents what they learned 2) Have representatives including educating volunteers & HS students (community service) to have booths at fairs, markets, venues on the square, local forums, etc.!

-Have volunteers man a booth/ hand out kid friendly educational items at community events.
As you can see, our community has some great ideas so thanks again everyone who responded!!!

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