Sonoma County business, government leaders team up to save water

Government and business often go together like oil and water.

But when it comes to combating drought in the North Bay, the two sides have declared they are in the same boat.

A coalition of the region’s business and agricultural leaders has teamed up with representatives of government water agencies to broaden awareness of the need to save water.

“A collaborative effort is the only way we’re going to get anything done,” said Brian Ling, executive director of the Sonoma County Alliance, the region’s largest business coalition.

The new partnership, dubbed the North Bay Water Sustainability Coalition, was announced Thursday at a news conference held outside Friedman’s Home Improvement on Santa Rosa Avenue. Besides the Alliance, members of the group include the North Bay Leadership Council, Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce and the Sonoma County Winegrowers Commission.

The coalition will be working with the Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership to boost awareness of water conservation messages and drought programs.

The partnership is a group of 10 water utilities in Sonoma and Marin counties servicing about 600,000 North Bay residents.

“We’ve never come together like this before,” Santa Rosa Mayor John Sawyer said.

David Guhin, director of the city’s water department, said the collaborative effort will allow water managers to reach customers “in a whole new way.”

The coalition is promoting five steps people can take to reduce their water usage: replacing lawns with drought resistant plants and drip irrigation; replacing old toilets with more efficient models; identifying and fixing leaks; reducing shower time and capturing water for other uses.

City of Santa Rosa employees handed out green buckets to customers at Friedman’s on Thursday filled with information about water-saving techniques and devices such as low-flow shower heads.

Ann Gardner of Petaluma, who stopped by the store to retrieve one of the buckets, said her awareness of the need to conserve water was raised after she discovered she had a leaky toilet and drip irrigation system that she ended up fixing.

“I thought I was eco-conscious, and yet I was wasting water terribly,” she said.

Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat, is a media partner of the coalition, and has committed itself as a company to writing news stories related to the drought, CEO Steve Falk said during the news conference.

Falk called the company’s role in the partnership “unusual.”

“We would prefer to report the news, not be the news,” he said.

But Falk said the drought necessitated Sonoma Media “stepping up to the plate to educate the public.”

You can reach Staff ?Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore?pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @deadline?derek.