PWD hosting water conservation workshop

PALMDALE — Palmdale Water District customers interested in learning how to navigate the new water restrictions are invited to attend the District’s “Let’s Talk H2O” event, on Thursday.

The class begins at 5 p.m. at the administrative offices, 2029 East Ave. Q.

The event is free, but registration is required. Go to https://bit.ly/Lets TalkMay26 to sign up.

Participants will learn about the District’s new mandatory water conservation guidelines, with detailed information about how the new rules will be enforced.

“We have been asking customers for the past year to voluntarily conserve water to help during the drought,” PWD Research and Analytics Director Peter Thompson Jr. said. “As we experienced more dry weather this year, it is critical that everyone becomes aware of the seriousness of our current drought and make an extra effort at using water wisely. The best way is to use a lot less water for outdoor watering.”

In answer to the historic drought conditions in California, the District, last month, enacted the Mandatory Stage 2 of its Water Shortage Contingency Plan. This includes limiting outdoor watering to three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and only from 6 p.m. to 10 a.m., to limit losses to evaporation.

As of June 1, the plan also applies a 20% drought factor, reducing the amount of water allowed for outdoor use in Tier 2 of the water billing by 20%. In addition, a 40-cent drought surcharge will be added to the non-essential usage Tiers 3 to 5.

The District relies on State Water Project water delivered from Northern California through the California Aqueduct for a significant portion of its supplies. Those deliveries were reduced to 20% of the authorized allocation, in 2020; 5%, last year; and are expected to be at 5%, this year.

The District projects it has a gap of 5,000 acre-feet of water supply, for this year. The 20% reduction in water use, compared to 2020, will make up about 3,000 acre-feet. The

remainder will be sought through supplemental supplies.

An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or approximately the amount of water a typical Antelope Valley household used in one year before recent droughts reduced usage.

The District’s restrictions follow Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order, on March 28, to the State Water Resources Control Board to consider adopting water restrictions on lawn irrigation and to require that local water providers enact their own water restrictions. On Monday, Newsom threatened to impose mandatory water restrictions if residents don’t use less on their own.