LeakBird

(May 11, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
We all realize it’s a tough economy and restaurants are dealing the best they can. Yet sometimes they go too far, at least that’s what one reader thinks.
Here’s his e-mail to me (edited for space):

When I go to a restaurant I expect a fork, a plate, a napkin [...]

(April 24, 2009, The Mercury News)

A $10 billion plan to build a canal around the Delta would not deliver significantly more water to cities and farms if it were in place this year, new data shows.
Water agencies and politicians from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on down have repeatedly stressed that water shortages this year from the [...]

(April 21, 2009, Aguanomics)
Southern Californians use about 350 gallons of water per day per household (of 3). That’s about 110 gallons/capita/day (gcd).
People in San Francisco use about 63 gcd, and people in the Bay Area use about 97 gcd.
(Original Post Here)

(April 19, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
“We’re out there telling people to use less water, and yet a lot of the revenue we have is based on what people use,” said Gary Breaux, finance director for the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.3 million people in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. [...]

(April 16, 2009, Aguanomics)
SFPUC’s announcement of rate hikes to begin in July 2009 are so modest as to make me think that no amoung of profligate use will go punished. Please consider the following, submitted as Comment to the Chronicle’s March 5 article, “On Coping With the Drought”:
“For every conscientous consumer, operating on personal principles [...]

(April 3, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)

Get ready for singed lawns, dusty cars and pricier produce.
California water officials reported Thursday that the end-of-winter snowpack remained at low levels for the third year in a row, and water agencies in the Bay Area and around the state are asking residents to conserve at levels [...]

(March 23, 2009, The Mercury News)

Citing three dry years in a row, Silicon Valley’s biggest water supplier will vote this morning on whether to call for a 15 percent mandatory summer cutback, the first water rationing in Santa Clara County in 18 years. Yet, just over the county line, Fremont residents will face no restrictions.
On [...]

(March 21, 2009, Kelly Zito, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Earthquakes and severe storms could destroy hundreds of miles of mostly earthen levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in coming decades, according to a state report that provides the most detail yet on the vulnerabilities of the hub of California’s water system.
Among the findings in the [...]

(March 8, 2009, David Curran, The San Francisco Chronicle)
I experienced the Bay Area droughts of the 1970s. I vaguely recall taking navy showers and reciting, “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” And I remember the dry times of the late 1980s when I was always in short sleeves and [...]

With all of the rain California has been receiving over the last few weeks, water levels are back to 80% in Sierra snowpack terms and there is “drought improvement“.  The 167-mile stretch of the Hetch-Hetchy system, which provides 85% of the Bay Area’s water, can continue to flow at four fifths capacity.  But water restrictions [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Sacramento Bee)
Californians have grown accustomed to digesting odd ideas that routinely flow out of Sacramento, many of them not so palatable.
But are they ready for this one?
Last week, amid a third year of a statewide drought, the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District adopted a strategy to sell treated sewage as drinking [...]

(Feb. 20, 2009, Contra Costa Times)

The Contra Costa Water District’s 500,000 customers likely will face mandatory water rationing in the coming months and some of the biggest farms in the state may get no water at all, water managers said Friday.
The cuts to water supplies across the state are in response to what is shaping [...]

(Jan. 19, 2009, Inside Bay Area)

Construction of a new pipeline designed to improve Peninsula drinking water access will produce considerable noise, traffic and other impacts to homeowners over the next two years, according to officials.
Residents can voice concerns about the proposed 21-mile Bay Division Pipeline project at meetings this week. Some cities have begun expressing [...]

(Jan. 18, 2009, WaterWired)

This brief, 6-page paper by some folks form Oakland’s East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) has some advice for water utilities about preparing for climate change.
Download OPF0109
Enjoy!

(Dec. 6, 2008, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Watershed problems and solutions run downstream. “The fun part about water is that it is so interrelated,” Dolman said. “As soon as you make a decision to do right by storm water – slowing it, spreading it, sinking it – you solve multiple problems. You reduce flooding in the [...]