Voluntary conservation

With water conservation figures edging ever closer to the savings mandated by the state, the Sonoma County Water Agency's primary customers said Monday that they want to stick to voluntary efforts.

"It is not our belief that this is a crisis," said Rohnert Park Councilman Jake Mackenzie, who is chairman of a committee of cities and districts supplied by the Water Agency.

"The contractors believe this is generally manageable. We are close to the goal, and we also know our goal has to be met over a four-month period."

The Water Agency is under state order to reduce diversions from the Russian River by 15 percent through Oct. 28, compared to the same period in 2004.

As the contractors group began discussions Monday about how to allocate the available supply, the Water Agency said the cumulative savings since the order took effect July 1 is now 14.2 percent.

That's a significant increase from the first four days of July when an 8.5 percent conservation rate was attributed to a hot spell.

The contractors asked the Water Agency to let them work collectively to meet the target without having individual allocations set.

"It should work without any formal allocations. We have all been pitching in, and we will continue to do the same thing," said Krishna Kumar, the Valley of the Moon Water District's general manager.

Kumar said, however, that if they should start to fall short of the target, "we will have to regroup."

The 14.2 percent savings for the first three weeks of July are an indication that people are taking the conservation message seriously, said Pam Jeane, the Water Agency's deputy director of operations.

"If we are that close to 14 percent cumulative now, that means that people are saving more than 15 percent, because we were not there at the beginning of the month," said Jeane. "The trick is to keep people thinking about it. It is easy to slip back into old patterns and forget what is going on."

The Water Agency wanted to set allocations for its major contractors, which include the cities of Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Windsor and Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon, North Marin and Marin Municipal water districts.

"Providing an individual target may make it easier for them implementing their ordinances and doing what they need to do," Jeane said.

The allocations formula put forth by the Water Agency would take into account water conservation programs already in place and are not 15 percent across-the-board decreases.

The Water Agency can impose its allocation plan, but Jeane said that it won't as long as the target is met, at the request of contractors.

The contractors' Technical Advisory Committee will meet Aug. 6 to come up with a proposal for the Water Agency, Kumar said.

"Their intent is to not actually assign individual numbers, but to continue to do what they are doing right now, work cooperatively, meeting frequently to monitor what is going on," Jeane said. "And if it looks like it is not working, we may have to allocate at that point."

The Water Agency won't know how each individual contractor did in July until Aug. 1, after it has read all of the meters, said Jay Jasperse, the Water Agency's deputy chief engineer.

Preliminary readings by some contractors indicate that Petaluma and the North Marin Water District have cut back about 19 percent, Jasperse said.

You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@pressdemocrat.

com