Mayor among the participants, sharing storage tanks with neighbors
The city of Healdsburg has over 450 residents signed up for its residential recycled water delivery program and, as of June 30, 160 have already received their first recycled water delivery.
Healdsburg Mayor Evelyn Mitchell is one of the program participants and with some resourcefulness from her husband, many of her neighbors are also able to participate in the program by sharing large canisters called totes for recycled water storage.
“My husband Tom, who works for an oil company who uses totes for deliveries of oil and whatnot, started sourcing them with people he knows in the vineyards, because they use them to get deliveries of the fertilizer to the vineyards and then they just sit out in the vineyards,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said he started calling people he knew had totes and has been able to source a number of them and now, most of her cul-de-sac is participating in the recycled water program.
One tote can hold approximately 275 gallons.
“Once he started accessing several totes … we got our neighbors all interested in the totes and then shared them,”Mitchell said.
In order to meet customer interest, the city has added a second water truck and is actively working to contract with another water hauler.
The city has also brought in additional staff and reassigned staff from other departments to help support the program, according to a statement posted to the city’s Facebook page.
“The program is a massive success as far as the interest in it,” Mitchell said. “We’re going to track how many gallons that we do in deliveries, but last I heard it was 20,000 as of last week, and of course all of that helps the savings that the city is going to be able to achieve with our regular drinking potable water. For me, it just seems like a very exciting way that the city can help our residents and at the same time, get through this drought. It’s kind of like we’re all in this together.”
The caveat with recycled water is because it is treated, you need to apply the water within 48-hours or so, otherwise algae will start to grow.
For this reason, the city is doing weekly recycled water deliveries to participating residents.
“It is great that the city is doing this and that everybody is stepping up to make lemonade out of lemons,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said they were in the process of getting rid of their lawn for the city’s lawn rebate program — $1 per square foot — and were going to start planting drought-tolerant and native plants, however the city’s prohibition on new plantings put a halt to the project.
“We can’t plant anything, but we are going to do that eventually once we are able to. Meanwhile, we’re going to just dig up the lawn and get rid of the automatic sprinklers. Right now what we’re keeping alive (with the recycled water) is our peripheral plants, bushes, trees, that kind of thing,”
Mitchell said.
According to Mitchell, the city is working on printing “Recycled water user” signs for program participants in order to denote who’s using recycled water.
Developments and commercial businesses are also using recycled water for irrigation. Per the stage 3 city water regulations, automated irrigation — sprinklers or drip — is prohibited for all residential, commercial and industrial customers. In addition, dust control, compaction, and other construction must use recycled water; potable water is prohibited.
This past week, Healdsburg has achieved a 44% reduction in water use, according to a statement posted on July 2 on the city’s Facebook page.
“Compared to 2020, we saved 7 million gallons over the last seven days. Our community has really stepped up to meet the challenge. This accomplishment helps extend Healdsburg’s limited water supply into the fall and potentially prevent further water restrictions later this summer,” the post says.
“I’m always encouraged by the ways people come together,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said even if we get lots of much needed rain this fall, it may be good to continue with smart water saving habits.
“I think the habits that we are developing right now should continue no matter what happens. Conservation is something that, especially in this state of California, that we just have to do. And now we’re getting really creative about it. I can see keeping these tanks and using them for rainwater collection when it starts raining,” she said.
