Local water districts are offering money-saving incentives to help residents comply with voluntary water restrictions in response to the statewide drought in California.
According to Scotts Valley Water District General Manager Piret Harmon, water waste restrictions have been in place since 2012 and a new set of restrictions went into effect on April 10.
“The main thing that we want people to know, is that watering is restricted to two days per week,” said SLVWD Water-Use Efficiency Coordinator, LeAnne Ravinale. “If you have an even ending number on your street address, you water Saturday and Tuesday, if you have an odd ending street number you water Sunday and Wednesday.”
Irrigation on these days must take place before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m. Those who fail to comply with the regulation could be charged up to $500 per day for multiple violations.
“When the sun is high your yard is dry, and when sun is set your yard is wet,” Ravinale said.
The restriction applies to everyone that uses potable water for ornamental irrigation in Scotts Valley and the San Lorenzo Valley, Harmon said, adding that edible gardens and irrigation using recycled water are exempt.
“No washing down sidewalks or driveways, you can’t hose off your driveway anymore, you need to sweep it,” Ravinale said. “You can’t create excess run-off, if you wash something down like a vehicle, you have to use a shut off valve. If you have any kind of water feature or fountain, it has to be lined and recirculating, and you cannot water during or two days after rainfall.”
According to Ravinale, under the restriction restaurants can only serve water upon request and hotels will only change and wash linens upon request. She added that SVWD is distributing cards to local businesses, which will notify customers of these changes.
On April 1, Governor Jerry Brown issued his executive order calling for a 25 percent mandatory water reduction throughout the state.
“Through voluntary cutbacks we almost got 20 percent in 2014, so essentially what we will be asking people to do is maintain their level of reductions that they achieved last year,” Harmon said.
That’s 75 gallons of water per person per day both indoors and outdoors, Ravinale said.
“Most likely we will be relying on the community coming together and voluntarily achieving that instead of putting rationing numbers on each household,” Harmon said.
There are rebates available through SVWD and SLVWD for those looking to switch to more water efficient appliances and other retrofits.
“We have a number of rebate programs, gray water irrigation rebate, toilet retrofit, hot water recirculation pumps, drip irrigation systems — if your replacing spray irrigation with drip — and we do have a number of those and they are available and funded,” said Brain Lee, general manager of the SLVWD.
Both water districts have collaborated to share the same irrigation restriction days.
Ravinale said there are other retrofits and rebates available as well, and that SVWD will make house calls to help people be more water efficient. Visit svwd.org and slvwd.com for more information about rebates and water efficiency in Scotts Valley and the San Lorenzo Valley.
Scotts Valley local Logan Randolph — and partner Sam Aarons — have collaborated with the Scotts Valley Water District to create a website called whenindrought.co, which makes it easy to install a low flow appliance and collect the rebate.
