■ Benicia awaits agency allocation review results, but conservation will be urged regardless, Public Works director says

The California Department of Water Resources may decide before the end of the month whether any State Water Project water will be released to contractors.

After announcing last November that contractors would receive only 5 percent of their allocations, the state wiped out even that small amount in January with an announcement that contractors such as Benicia, who pay for their shares in advance, would receive not one drop.

This has impacted Benicia in particular because the city counts on SWP allocations for about 85 percent of its water, and has an annual contract for 17,200 acre-feet of Sacramento Delta water, though it usually gets 50 to 80 percent of its full allocation.

Normally, Benicia as a whole uses about 10,586 acre-feet of water. Each acre-foot is equal to 326,000 gallons, interim Public Works Director Steve Salomon said Thursday.

While Benicia has reserves elsewhere that could be used to make up the difference, access to some of that water is tied to SWP allocation percentages. The SWP allocation must rise to 20 percent before the city can tap into some of those reserves.

Even if the Department of Water Resources (DWR) begins releasing some SWP water after the March and April rain and snows, Benicians shouldn’t relax their conservation efforts, Salomon said.

In fact, he has heard nothing definite from the state about any planned release of water or reversal of previously announced water restrictions.

“I’d put this in the ‘may’ category,” Salomon stressed. “It’s hard to know how significant this will be.”

One prospective idea is for the state to allow additional pumping where the city gets its SWP water, he said.

That could help Benicia have greater access to its carryover water, supplies to which the city is entitled but has not used through the years.

Benicia has 5,100 acre-feet reserved in carryover water, but state officials have said they may turn off the pumps in May or June, Salomon said.

That might give the city access to only 1,000 acre-feet, according to documents he said he read recently.

If DWR decides later this month to be more generous than previously announced, Salomon said Benicia still might see only 1,500 of its 5,100 acre-feet reserves.

Some officials are speculating that DWR may choose to revert back to releasing 5 percent of contracted SWR allocations. If that happens, Salomon said, Benicia could get 860 acre-feet of its contracted water from
the state.

It may not seem like much, but “whatever they might do would help,” he said.

Another benefit of the release of some of SWR water is that other agencies may be willing to sell some to such clients as Benicia.

The City Council has authorized spending up to $900,000 for up to 6,000 acre-feet of additional water for use this year, and is negotiating with agencies that have reserves in Lake Berryessa, Salomon said.

“If there is more water out there, it’ll help,” he said, because Benicia won’t be the only city looking for drought solutions — in other words, it will have to compete with other thirsty cities.

While some Solano County cities that are less dependent on the SWP are in better shape than Benicia for dealing with the drought, he said, “American Canyon and Napa are in a more difficult situation.”

However, Salomon was clear that even if the SWP moves away from its “zero allocation” stance, Benicians still will be urged to conserve.

“We’re on the verge of starting a campaign,” he said. That campaign is informational, an outreach to explain to residents what they can do to save water during the state’s declared drought, particularly since no one knows when it will end.

At the Council’s April 22 meeting, he said, he will provide updated information about the city’s water situation and “roll out” some of the plans designed to cope with the drought.

Currently, city employees expect to give residents and business owners strong encouragement to conserve 20 percent on a voluntary basis, particularly through reducing how much they water their landscaping.

Outdoor watering counts for much of the water use in the community, Salomon said. Residents and businesses may be asked to water only on certain days, and limit watering to night hours to reduce water loss through evaporation.

If voluntary conservation fails to achieve needed water savings, the city may impose mandatory water restrictions, he said. But then it would have to deal with enforcement, he added.

Enforcement of outdoor watering restrictions is more practical, he said. It’s more complicated to examine how people use water inside their homes.

“I’m not sure you want the Public Works director monitoring that,” he said.

For the time being, the Council and staff will work on encouraging residents to cut back voluntarily, Salomon said.

“There are a lot of very specific things we’ll ask people to do,” he said. “If we can get people to cut back, we can save a huge amount of water.”