No mandatory water restrictions yet, says Santa Clara Valley Water District

Largest water provider in Silicon Valley asks 2 million residents to step up conservation

In the latest sign that California is entering a new drought, Silicon Valley’s largest water provider on Tuesday asked the public to step up water conservation efforts.

“We have no idea how long it will last or how bad it might get,” said Tony Estremera, chairman of the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “Clearly we can’t just sit back and wait for more rain.”

The district, a government agency based in San Jose that serves 2 million people, stopped short of announcing immediate mandatory water restrictions, like asking cities and private water companies who buy its water to implement odd-even lawn watering days for their customers, or to impose rates that set a penalty for residential water use above a certain level. Both practices were among the tools used in Santa Clara County and across the Bay Area and California during the last drought, a historic emergency that stretched from 2012 to 2016.

Instead, the district took the approach Tuesday that many other large water agencies around the Bay Area have embraced so far after two dry winters in a row: asking the public for more conservation, but not yet cracking down to get it. A decision on whether to move toward tougher measures will likely be made by May, Santa Clara Valley officials said.

“We’re hoping you will continue to conserve,” said

Aaron Baker, the chief of the district’s water utility. “If as we move forward, we see we need to call for additional restrictions or mandatory conservation, we will be making those decisions shortly. But at this time please continue your voluntary conservation.”

Baker said the decision will be made based on how much people conserve and how much extra water the district is able to buy from other parts of the state to boost its supplies.

Some critics said the agency should do more.

“They don’t want to make people conserve as much because they want to sell water,” said Katja Irvin, co-chair of the conservation committee of the Sierra Club’s Loma Prieta chapter, based in Palo Alto.

Irvin said the district should step up ads on radio, billboards and other media emphasizing the new drought. Katja said the district should boost funding for its conservation efforts, which include paying people to replace lawns with drought-tolerant plants, and offering rebates for water-efficient appliances.

The district’s 10 reservoirs on Tuesday were 16% full. The Sierra Nevada snowpack was 61% of normal. And rainfall this winter in most Bay Area cities is only at about 40% of the historic average.

“The reservoirs are low,” Irvin said. “If there’s another one or two years of drought we are in big trouble. We won’t be able to get water from somewhere else because everybody else will also want it.”

In 2015, during the peak of the last drought, the district asked its retail providers in Santa Clara County for a 30% reduction in water use compared with 2013 — and got 27%. Former Gov. Jerry Brown also set mandatory conservation targets for cities. Both moves led to higher water rates, “water cops” knocking on doors of people overwatering landscaping, restaurants ordered not to serve glasses of water and other restrictions.

After the drought ended in 2017, with massive atmospheric river storms drenching California, the spillway at Oroville Dam in Butte County failing, and major flooding in downtown San Jose causing $100 million in damage, the water district asked the public to continue conserving water voluntarily, at levels 20% below 2013. The public met that target through 2019, and last year reduced consumption slightly less, by 16%.

Other Bay Area water agencies say they are not yet considering specific targets for mandatory or voluntary water reductions. The Contra Costa Water District, which serves 500,000 people, says it has ample supply, with its largest reservoir, Los Vaqueros, 80% full.

“We think we’re in a good spot,” said Jennifer Allen, a spokeswoman for the district. “Obviously it could change. We’re being very mindful of what’s happening. We feel we have enough to meet our customers’ demand, but as always there’s no room for wasting water.”

The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.4 million people in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, will decide in late April whether to set targets, based on how much more rainfall comes, said district spokeswoman Andrea Pook.