Santa Rosa ends water emergency

<p>Santa Rosa’s City Council called an end to its declared water shortage Tuesday but urged residents to continue their water-conserving efforts.</p><p>Senior water resources planner Jennifer Burke said the city could no longer justify asking residents to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15 percent because low water levels in Lake Mendocino — which triggered the emergency — are no longer a threat.</p><p>In February, Santa Rosa’s council declared the emergency in anticipation of water cutbacks. State water regulators would later direct the Sonoma County Water Agency to reduce its draw of water from the Russian River by 25 percent. The agency supplies water to 600,000 residents in Sonoma and Marin counties and Santa Rosa is its largest customer.</p><p>The state order, which ends Friday, was an attempt to ensure there is enough water in Lake Mendocino to sustain the fall upstream spawning runs of endangered salmon.</p><p>Burke said the plan worked. There is more water in the lake now than there has been the past two summers, she said.</p><p>Since Santa Rosa declared the water shortage emergency, residents reduced their water use by almost 30 percent compared to the same six-month time frame in 2004, the base year used by state regulators to measure conservation efforts.</p><p>“We asked them (citizens) to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15 percent and they came through with flying colors,” Mayor Susan Gorin said.</p><p>There has been some concern raised, particularly by county water agency officials, that Santa Rosa’s decision to end the water shortage emergency is premature in light of another year of dry weather.</p><p>Brenda Adelman, spokeswoman for the Russian River Watershed Protection Committee, praised Santa Rosa’s conservation efforts but agreed that ending the declared shortage “sends the wrong message.”</p><p>“What if we have another dry winter? We could be in serious trouble next year,” she said.</p><p>But with the state board’s order expiring Friday, Burke said the city no longer has a justification for a water shortage.</p><p>However, she said, the city will continue to push forth with more than a dozen water conservation programs — including toilet and shower head retrofits, paid removal of water-guzzling lawns and financing rainwater harvesting programs — to encourage continued community-wide conservation.</p><p>The water shortage emergency resolution itself had little teeth.</p><p>The resolution encouraged residents to reduce water use by 15 percent and asked restaurants to serve water only when asked by customers. But it rarely banned the use of water, except in cases of hosing down sidewalks.</p>