MOUNTAIN VIEW — As California continues to deal with a worsening drought after three long years of dry conditions, Mountain View has become the latest city to approve new water restrictions for residents.
At its Tuesday meeting, the Mountain View city council declared a water shortage emergency to restrict the wasting of water by residents and assigned specific irrigation days based on street address.
Mountain View’s latest measures to curb water wasters come a month after Santa Clara County announced residents could face fines of up to $500 — and in extreme cases, $10,000 — for wasting water under new drought rules which are among the toughest of any urban area in California.
Citing the worsening drought, dwindling local water supplies and residents’ failure to hit conservation targets, the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency based in San Jose that serves as the wholesale water provider to 2 million residents, voted unanimously to set up an enforcement program to warn, and then fine, property owners who are violating outdoor watering rules.
Under a water shortage emergency, Mountain View residents will now also face local oversight on their water use and are only allowed to water their lawns during a two-day irrigation schedule. Even-numbered addresses will be allowed to water lawns and irrigate on Tuesdays and Fridays, and odd addresses Mondays and Thursdays. No outdoor watering is allowed at all on Wednesday, except with a garden hose with a shut-off valve.
Mountain View is also prohibiting washing paved or hard surfaces, except by bucket or for health and safety, at-home vehicle washing or filling decorative water features. Hotels also must now offer guests the option to reuse sheets and towels and the time allowed to repair leaks is five days.
Mountain View’s restrictions are among the toughest in the Bay Area. San Francisco also declared a level 2 water shortage on May 24, and Valley Water adopted a two-day irrigation limit on April 12th.
According to a city report, Mountain View receives about 84% of its total water supply from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, 10% from Valley water, 4% from the Regional Water Quality Control Plant in Palo Alto and 2% from local groundwater wells.
But those water sources are drying up. This year’s April snowpack finished off at just 38% of normal, and system storage is below normal for the city’s main water distributors.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — which is the main water provider for 2.7 million residents and businesses in the Bay Area — moved on May 24 to further reduce systemwide water use to align with calls from Governor Gavin Newsom and the State Quality Control board. The commission is calling for an 11% systemwide use reduction, according to a press release.
“It’s critical that all of our customers reduce outdoor water use this summer,” SFPUC General Manager Dennis Herrera said. “Even though our customers are among the lowest water users in the state, we are in year three of a drought, and no one knows how long it will last. We must all take action to continue to ensure that we have sufficient water supplies.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com