Implementing a water conservation plan is a necessity

Residents should be conserving now

June 14, 2006

If the pie isn't big enough to go around, you have two choices. You can either make a bigger pie or cut the pieces smaller. When it comes to water, Petaluma and other south county communities must do both.

We must all begin to immediately take less from a finite source that city officials say will begin to dry up as soon as 2008. Considering that is less than two years away, the city's urgency in implementing a water conservation plan is understandable.

Under the city plan, more treated wastewater would be used for parks and playing fields, water conservation in homes would become mandatory and well water would be stored for emergencies.

The plan would also limit the size of lawns and turf areas in new subdivisions and require the use of high-efficiency toilets, weather-sensitive sprinklers and other appliances. Landscap-ing for new development would have to be approved by the city, and no more than 30 percent of the landscaped area could be lawn or high-water demanding plants.

The plan doesn't come cheaply. City staff estimates it will cost $55 million to keep Petaluma residents supplied with water. The money will be raised by adding $10,000 to the current $3,000 water-connection fee for single-family homes. The $13,000 hook-up fee would be among the highest in the North Bay, making Petaluma hookups more expensive than Santa Rosa or Healdsburg, but lower than hook-up fees in the East Bay.

Petaluma residents shouldn't have to be mandated or even sold on the idea of conserving water. It is not a matter of providing for additional growth, it is a matter of protecting our community's future. If we are to have a community with enough water to drink, shower, flush and water our trees and vegetation, we need to be conserving now.

Low-flow toilets, drip irrigation systems, alternative landscaping and common-sense water usage are steps that all residents should be taking right now. We shouldn't need the city to tell us to do what is right.

The other part of the equation is providing the bigger pie. For Petaluma and south county, that means a better supply system to deliver the Russian River water they receive from the Sonoma County Water Agency.

The current aqueduct that delivers the area's water is 45 years old, deteriorating and nearing capacity. A project to add an additional pipeline has been in the planning stage for more than a decade, but has been consistently blocked by environmental reviews and lawsuits.

Environmental activists and slow- and no-growth advocates who have opposed the Water Agency's expansion and upgrade plans need to realize that the future is here. We need the water now. It isn't a matter of runaway growth, but of serving the current residents and allowing for well-planned and limited new development over the next 20 years. The permitting process for the pipeline should be streamlined and the project should move forward as quickly as possible.

The city plan is expensive and in some ways extreme, but by building the new pipeline to deliver more water, planning carefully and implementing more aggressive water conservation strategies, we can have a Petaluma that remains green and beautiful now and for our children.