The Healdsburg City Council had a unanimous vote last week in approval of changing the city’s three-stage water shortage contingency plan of the Healdsburg Municipal Code to a six-stage plan, aligning with the California Department of Water Resources recommendations on water contingency plans.
In the six-stage plan, water savings requirements go up by 10% for each stage and the most stringent stages of the plan require new developments — except for affordable housing projects — to achieve an equal amount of water conservation prior to receiving their occupancy rights.
The new amendment also allows the city council to change or modify water restrictions as
needed depending on water supply conditions.
The concept of switching to a six-stage plan was first introduced when the city embarked on creating the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP). During 2021, several public meetings were held to discuss and finalize the 2020 UMWP.
One of the recommendations in the finalized plan was to move to a six-stage water shortage contingency plan.
The city is currently in Stage 2 of the old, three-stage contingency plan. Stage 2 requires a 20% reduction in water usage and restricts certain types of water usage such as the washing of sidewalks, the use of potable water for construction and new swimming pools.
According to the agenda packet, the new six-stage plan includes the following:
– Stage 1 – 10% reduction: “Customer education and outreach, common sense conservation measures such as not washing sidewalks, reducing irrigation, using automatic shut-off nozzles.”
– Stage 2 – 20% reduction: “Irrigation 3x/week, restaurants only serve water upon request, halt permits for new pools, repair leaks within seven-days, construction using recycled water, hotels and restaurants educating guests on water conservation.”
– Stage 3 – 30% reduction: “Irrigation 2x/week, prohibit new plantings except for drought-resistant landscapes, no power washing unless necessary for public health, residential water budget of 4-HCF (99 gallons per person per day), commercial and industrial reduction of 30% or greater.”
– Stage 4 – 40% reduction: “Irrigation 1x/week but prohibit irrigation of ornamental lawns, residential water budget of 3-HCF (74 gallons per person per day), commercial and industrial reduction of 40% or greater.”
– Stage 5 – 50% reduction: “No outdoor irrigation, residential water budgets of2-HCF (50 gallons per person per day), commercial and industrial reduction of 50% or greater, new development must achieve an equal amount of water conservation prior to receiving occupancy (exemption for affordable housing).”
– Stage 6 – Greater than 50% reduction: “No outdoor irrigation, water budgets of less than 40 gallons per person per day, commercial and industrial reduction of 60% or greater, new development must achieve two-times the water conservation prior to receiving occupancy (exemption for affordable housing).”
The developer requirement means if a developer wants to move forward with connecting to the city’s water system and receive occupancy so people can move into the building, they would have to go into the community and find an equal amount of water conservation and put that in place prior to occupancy, according to Healdsburg Utility Director Terry Crowley.
In order to obtain an equal amount of water conservation developers can find water savings projects to complete such as appliance replacements or low-flow toilet installation throughout the community.
Alternatively, the developer could wait to get city water hookups and occupancy until the city is out of Stage 6 or 5.
Plan considerations
During the public comment portion of the item discussion, a couple of residents said they appreciated city staff’s work on the plan, but believe drought should be treated not just as a one-time emergency, but as something that we’ll have to learn to live with amid climate change.
“I was reading with great interest the details of the six different stages and my first reaction was some of these issues seem like they shouldn’t be about an emergency plan, they should be about life as we have to accept now. I don’t think drought is a one-off, I think drought is part of our reality, not only in the bigger climate crisis but certainly here in Northern California,” said one resident who identified herself as Quincy. “I would encourage the language of the policies to take a step back and to make some assumptions of where we are and how we need to live our life. Why don’t we take a stand as a community that says, ‘let’s be thoughtful of all of our resources all of the time, not just when we feel we are in an emergency,’ because frankly our world is in an emergency.”
Vice Mayor Ariel Kelley asked whether businesses would even be able to meet the drastic water savings requirements in Stages 5 and 6 of the water shortage plan.
“We certainly learned a lot last summer about what the businesses are capable of doing, what they’re prepared to do to quickly react to conservation needs and each business is different,” Crowley said.
He said as a group, commercial customers did hit the requested 40% reduction in water usage last summer.
Crowley admitted that Stage 5 and 6 could be challenging for both businesses and residents, but under those two stages the city would be looking at dire drought conditions worse than what was seen last summer. He said it could be possible that under Stages 5 and 6, a business may have to close for a few days in order to meet water reduction requirements.
“Long-term, we need drought resiliency and we need to build those in times right now where we have water, but we need to plan for the future because we know that this cycle between wet years and dry years is going to become more frequent. Building the ability to conserve water or use the least amount of water possible is something we are going to have to do on a yearly, daily, monthly basis going forward,” Crowley said.
Kelley said she does want to get more serious policy-wise around water resiliency.
“We need to up our resiliency. We are going to be living in a changing climate,” Kelley said.
She said the city may need to have that conversation on how the city can continue to support the upgrading of old appliances to water conscious appliances. For instance, she’s heard of city policies that require home sellers to update their appliances to low-flow appliances and fixtures before they can put their home on the market.
“I think we could do the same thing for landscaping if we really wanted to get out in front of that,” Kelley said.
To view all of the details of the new water shortage contingency plan, click here and scroll down to the water shortage contingency plan in the agenda packet.
