Resolution to go before Council on Tuesday; calls supply ‘very uncertain’

A resolution subject to City Council vote asks all Benicia water customers to cut consumption voluntarily by 20 percent.

The resolution says it’s “urgent” that Benicians conserve, because the city’s water supply “remains very uncertain.”

The Council will vote on the resolution Tuesday during a special meeting.

When California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide emergency because of the drought, he also called for a 20-percent voluntary reduction in water use “in every way possible.”

The Council approved a communitywide voluntary water conservation program at its Feb. 18 meeting, with a similar 20-percent reduction goal.

“Now a resolution is being brought to Council for consideration, in an effort to make the request of the community more formal,” City Manager Brad Kilger wrote in a report to Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and the rest of the panel.

In addition to deciding the resolution, the Council will hear a public outreach consultant, IN Communications, describe its informative program, including the unveiling of Benicia’s water conservation campaign slogan and logo.

In his report, Kilger wrote that the city used 799 acre-feet of State Water Project water in January.

That source accounts for 85 percent of Benicia’s water supply, or an average of 8,437 acre-feet. Benicia gets 15 percent of its water, about 2,641 acre-feet of water, from the Solano Project’s Lake Berryessa, and uses Lake Herman as an emergency backup supply, Kilger wrote.

However, Department of Water Resources announced that month that clients including Benicia would receive none of the water for which they had contracted. This month the department decided contractors would get 5 percent of contracted amounts, but not until September.

In February, the city used 313 acre-feet of State Water Project (SWP) water, 229 acre-feet from the Solano Project and 79 acre-feet from Lake Herman, for a combined 621 acre-feet used.

March totals showed no SWP water consumed. Instead, the city took 454 acre-feet from the Solano Project and 294 acre-feet from Lake Herman, for 748 acre-feet of water that month.

So far in April, the city has used 773 acre-feet of SWP water and 200 acre-feet from the Solano Project, for 973 acre-feet used.

Benicia received 1,646 acre-feet of SWP water of its 5,108 acre-feet the city didn’t use in 2013. Another 219 acre-feet of SWP came from a 2003 agreement, Kilger wrote.

From the Solano Project Water, 229 acre-feet was delivered through the 2009 Solano Irrigation District Agreement, and 654 acre-feet came from a 1962 agreement with Vallejo.

The Council has authorized spending up to $900,000 for up to 6,000 acre-feet of water to get the city through the year, and has told staff to cut city consumption by 20 percent.

An internal water conservation task force reviews water use, and has taken steps to cut water use by 20 percent in city parks, the wastewater treatment plant and through the water main flushing program.

Meanwhile, city officials have been speaking with employees of Valero Benicia Refinery, the city’s largest water customer, Kilger wrote. The refinery uses mostly untreated water, an essential component to the refinery’s operation.

“Valero monitors water use closely to minimize water consumption, and has a record of using significantly less water than it is contractually obligated,” he wrote.

It also has a long history of employing water conservation projects, Kilger wrote. Its recent steam condensate recovery project saves more than 23 million gallons of water annually.

“They have also made changes in other operations at the refinery to save water,” he wrote, and are exploring other projects that would save millions of gallons.

In the meantime, Kilger wrote, Valero also has promised to save water through reduction of landscape watering, the installation of low-flow toilets and putting off washing its vehicles unless needed.

Kilger described the city’s outreach approach as multi-level, ranging from unveiling the slogan and graphic to adding new text and graphics to the city website, distributing yard signs, sending out direct-mail postcards, hanging conservation promotion banners at City Park and at the city’s ball fields and putting magnet signs on city vehicles.

Kilger said the city would advertise the conservation campaign through Facebook, for which the city pays only if a viewer clicks on the ad that sends them to the city website.

In addition, specific targets, including businesses, schools and residential areas would be targeted to receive additional information about the drought and limited water supply.

Tip cards and window clings would be distributed to those targeted groups, Kilger wrote.

Solano County Water Agency, SolanoSavesWater.org, already offers water conservation promotions, such as $75 rebates to those who buy high-efficiency washing machines, $100 to those who buy high-efficiency toilets, and $1 for each square foot of lawn that gets replaced, up to $1,000 maximum.

BeniciaSavesWater.org is the city’s website for similar offers.

The county also offers several levels of smart-irrigation controller rebates for half the cost of the controller, residential, business and commercial water surveys, and a commercial water savings incentive of 50 percent, up to $2,500, for water conservation projects.

Meanwhile, Benicia has been posting daily water-saving tips on its website, and links to saveourh2o.org, part of the state’s conservation program.

The city established a conservation hotline, 707-746-4380, and email address, water@ci.benicia.ca.us, for those with questions or concerns about saving water, Kilger wrote. It also has added messages on customers’ water bills, he wrote.

A water conservation display at City Hall, Benicia Public Library and the weekly Certified Farmers Market; notes in Kilger’s monthly City Manager’s Report; and public service announcements on channel 27 are other methods city employees are using to encourage water savings, he wrote.

“The average Benicia household uses 300 gallons of water per day,” he wrote. “Reducing water by 20 percent translates into 60 gallons per day.”

He wrote that the reduction could be achieved through several small behavior changes. Among them is adjusting sprinklers to avoid overspray and runoff, which would cut more than 40 gallons every time a yard is irrigated and reduce the amount of fertilizers and pesticides that are washed into Bay waters.

Those who continue watering their lawns can water early in the morning or late at night to reduce evaporation from sun and wind, saving 25 gallons each irrigation period.

Cutting showering time in half, to five minutes instead of 10, would save 12.5 gallons each shower, and repairing a leaky toilet would save 30 to 50 gallons a day, he wrote.

The Council’s special meeting will start at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St.