Sonoma learns to turn off the faucet

SONOMA

The view on Pear Tree Court is dominated by an expanse of golden brown lawns, left to go dry amid California’s relentless drought.

Residents from four ranch-style houses lining the small cul-de-sac said they heeded the governor’s order last spring to reduce water use - turning off sprinklers, shortening showers and using a variety of other measures to avoid waste.

Judging by the numbers over the past 12 months, however, the city of Sonoma as a whole has embraced conservation later and to a lesser degree than other Sonoma County communities, though it has recently turned a corner.

Sonoma has consistently used more water, per person, than any of the eight Sonoma County communities required to file monthly reports on residential water consumption with the state.

In June, the last month for which numbers are available, Sonoma residents used an average of 113 gallons of water per person each day. By comparison, the people of Rohnert Park, who have some of the lowest consumption rates, used an average of 65.3 gallons.

In interviews, many Sonoma residents said they embarked on serious conservation efforts only this year, when it was clear a fourth year of drought was upon us, even though Gov. Jerry Brown had declared a state of emergency because of the drought in January 2014.

And around town, there is evidence not all are cutting back equally - or at least, they aren’t doing so with their landscaping, which accounts for up to half of the water used by the typical Californian, sometimes more, state officials say.

“There’s a lot of people here with lawns greener than green,” said Rich Agrimonti, 69, who lives on Pear Tree Court, where his lawn has faded and grown brown from lack of watering.

Some people, he said, “just don’t care.”

Delayed response

City officials and others say Sonoma’s large lot sizes, relative affluence and high rate of absentee ownership have proved challenging in the effort to bring down water use, at least until recently.

But in the past two months, the city has cut its residential use by about a third - exceeding its state-mandated target.

Its delayed response to calls for conservation in earlier drought years made it something of an outlier in Sonoma County, however, and is reflected in its state-mandated conservation goal of 28 percent - the highest in the county.

Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin, whose district includes Sonoma, said public leaders and water officials have so far “not pointed a finger at anybody” in their effort to unify county residents behind water conservation measures.

But she acknowledged Sonoma officials were “feeling a little defensive about where they are, and that’s natural.”

The whole subject turns out to be somewhat sensitive for water managers and residents alike. Many Sonoma residents resisted giving their names during interviews around town, citing professional and personal reasons for hoping to stay clear of controversy.

Yoga teacher, musician and massage therapist Sue Albano, 49, was one exception.

She said her mantra these days is “dirty cars and dead lawns,” and, judging from the one in front of her rental home on East Napa Street, she’s walking the talk. Albano said anyone who doesn’t is just “ignorant” and “irresponsible.”

“It’s really irritating to me, like when I look over there and see that bright green grass. I think it’s kind of an entitlement issue. It’s arrogant,” she said, gesturing toward a nearby home with a verdant green lawn many in the neighborhood deem an example of water waste.

Albano recalled one client telling her that she had spent too much on her lawn to let it go brown. So, though the city now limits outdoor irrigation to two nights a week - Monday and Thursday - her client sometimes waters twice on those nights, Albano said.

“I don’t think some people get it,” she said. “I really don’t.”

Many others, however, point to a rising number of brown, unwatered lawns in town and a rapidly growing movement to replace grass with stones or other materials, drought-tolerant plants and mulch.

One woman said the shifting appearance of front yards around the city ends up making the lawns that are green more conspicuous but nonetheless speaks of a swelling commitment to using less water.

“The good news is the city is doing better on the conservation side,” Mayor David Cook said.

State mandate

In April, California water regulators set up a system of tiered water reduction targets and assigned them to communities, based on how well they had performed in previous months.

Communities were required to cut water use by 4 to 36 percent over 2013 levels to meet the governor’s order for statewide savings of 25 percent. Communities that had done the poorest job of conserving water were given the largest cuts.

Sonoma was ordered to meet or exceed a 28 percent savings level. Healdsburg’s standard is 24 percent, and Valley of the Moon’s is 20 percent. Windsor, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa and Sweetwater Springs all were assigned 16 percent savings goals.

Sonoma’s last two reports to the state boasted substantial reductions in water use, exceeding the state targets. In May, residents cut water use by 35 percent, compared to May 2013, the baseline year, followed by a 32 percent cut in June.

“I’m around town all the time in my distribution business,” said City Councilman Gary Edwards, who markets fine cheeses. “People are working really hard at it in Sonoma.”

To meet the targets, Sonoma residents are increasingly taking advantage of rebates that offer $1 a square-foot to remove their lawns, as well as free water use audits designed to point out waste, Public Works Director Dan Takasugi said.

But community water practices remain, as one resident described it, “all over the map” - from those who turn the shower off while they lather up and irrigate plants with laundry water, to those who openly flout the city’s twice-a-week lawn watering rules with impunity.

“I know one neighbor, who will remain nameless, who took the water off the front, but, in the back, put in new sod,” said Steve Kapner, 77, whose own lawn is brown.

“There’s clearly not enough sort of ‘We’re all in this together, and we all sink or swim together,’” said Caitlin Cornwall, a biologist and research program manager with the Sonoma Ecology Center who lives and works in town.

Shifting demographics

Many say the uneven approach to water conservation reflects socioeconomics and shifting demographics. Newcomers paying high home prices and affluent residents with estates and large yards are less willing to give up their green than others are, many of those interviewed said. And steeply tiered water rates adopted last winter that charge heavier water users more than others have no affect on those for whom money is not an issue, residents say.

“There are some very fine, expensive homes here, and they probably don’t want to have a yellow lawn in front,” said artist Jacqueline Lee, a resident of Pear Tree Court who purchased extra socks and underthings so she only has to do laundry every three weeks. “What can anybody do? We can only do the best we can individually and hope it adds up to the whole and hope that is enough.”

State reporting reveals substantial variations in water consumption around California - from communities in the Central Valley and Southern California, where June residential water use exceeded an average 230 gallons a day per person, to the many other cities where individual use was well below 100 gallons a day.

San Francisco, Santa Cruz and East Palo Alto were among the thriftiest, with per capita averages in the 40 to 50 gallons-a-day range. The city of Martinez had a remarkable daily average of 37.5 gallons per person in June.

The figures show Sonoma is not among the state’s blatant water hogs. In fact, over the winter - when the urge to irrigate lawns and landscaping was dampened by what rain there was - the city’s per capita water use came down substantially, to 70 gallons a day or less for four consecutive months. In January, Sonoma’s average daily use of 56.4 gallons per person was comparable to most Sonoma County communities.

But water consumption in Sonoma inched upward after that, widening the gap with other local communities. In June, Healdsburg came closest to Sonoma’s 113 gallons per capita per day, with 100. The statewide average was 97.7.

Windsor reported 87; Santa Rosa, 80; Petaluma, 77; and Sweetwater Springs Water District on the lower Russian River, 71.4.

Residents in the Valley of the Moon Water District adjoining the town of Sonoma used a far lower 74 gallons per person per day, on average. The district serves El Verano, Boyes Hot Springs, Agua Caliente and other communities northwest of Sonoma along Highway 12 and to the south.

Mitigating factors

Sonoma Public Works Director Takasugi and other public officials say the way the per capita figures are calculated contributes to the disparity in water use and makes them an imperfect measure of water conservation efforts.

Cities such as Rohnert Park, which have access to recycled wastewater for irrigation of parks and schools, for instance, can subtract whatever amount they use from the base number to calculate per capita use even if none of the recycled water goes to residential properties, Takasugi said.

The irregular number of days between reading of supplier water meters also skews the city-by-city numbers in some cases, officials said.

But Takasugi said the primary factor in Sonoma’s water use picture is the number of affluent homeowners with large lawns to water in one of the county’s hottest, driest climates.

Sonoma also has an abundance of second homes that are occupied only part-time, leaving irrigation in the hands of automated systems or landscapers who are incentivized to maintain healthy, green yards, even if that means letting the water run, said Takasugi and Cornwall, with the Sonoma Ecology Center.

Meanwhile, those visiting their weekend or vacation homes may use water liberally yet not be counted in the city’s population, so their consumption gets credited to those who live in Sonoma year-round, Takasugi said.

Sonoma additionally has more single-family homes than some communities, making for more outdoor watering than those in some other towns, Takasugi said.

In Rohnert Park, where multiunit dwellings like apartments and duplexes account for 37 percent of the housing, 62 percent of the housing units are single-family units, according to U.S. Census data. In Santa Rosa, single-family units account for 72 percent, while in Sonoma the figure is 77 percent - though even that is below the county average of 81 percent.

One Sonoma resident said he believed the high number of retirees in town meant enough homes were occupied by just one or two people that it had an impact on per capita rates.

Cornwall said the contrast between Valley of the Moon and Sonoma water use “is very striking,” reflecting significant socioeconomic differences. Sonoma’s neighbors are generally less affluent, living in smaller homes on smaller lots, and are more likely to reside in multifamily housing.

Like several residents, Jennifer Grais, 49, said Sonoma’s Wine Country cache and tourism economy may contribute to a community tendency to avoid gritty realities like water shortages.

People turn on the faucet. Water comes out. End of story.

“It’s such a bubble,” Grais said. “I think even though there’s a lot of progressive people here, it’s still fairyland. That is really apparent here.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@?pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.