Dry weather and the recent shut-down of water from the San
Francisco Bay delta have prompted water officials to call for a 10
percent cut in water usage.
Gilroy – Dry weather and the recent shut-down of water from the San Francisco Bay delta have prompted water officials to call for a 10 percent cut in water usage.
The county’s 1.7 million residents were asked to conserve water through the end of 2007 in a formal recommendation issued Tuesday by the governing board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
“After a long, dry winter, coupled with the fact that the pumps in the delta were shut off and turned back on at a reduced level, we just aren’t sure what our deliveries will be from the delta in the future,” said district spokeswoman Susan Siravo. “It’s voluntary and we just want to be cautious.”
Residents are encouraged to water their laws at night, take shorter showers, and buy water-efficient laundry machines to help scale back their water usage.
Half of the county’s water is drawn from local groundwater aquifers and reservoirs. The other half comes from melted snows from the Sierra Nevada, which is delivered through the delta. The imported water is brought into the county through the State Water Project, the federal Central Valley Project and San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy system.
State officials turned off the spigots of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta earlier this month, cutting off a fifth of Santa Clara County’s water supply to save an endangered fish.
The delta smelt – a 2-inch long fish listed as an endangered species – is at an all-time low and officials worried the species could be wiped out unless pumps were paused.
South County does not directly receive delta water, but the shortage indirectly drained South County as other areas depleted the San Luis Reservoir and San Pedro groundwater recharge ponds.
The last time the water district called for a water usage cutback was in 1994.
The delta provides about 50 percent of Santa Clara County’s water.
The district is not yet considering mandatory water rationing, Siravo said.
