Drought restrictions ending across Bay Area

First came a dozen soaking atmospheric river storms. Then a huge Sierra Nevada snowpack, which on Monday was 248% of normal. Now comes drought relief.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District and other water agencies across the Bay Area are moving to roll back mandatory drought rules and surcharges as reservoirs have filled this winter and drought conditions have washed away.

For the average customer, the trend means that rules limiting the number of days a week that landscaping can be watered will be lifted in the coming weeks — if they haven’t been already — and financial penalties for using more than a limited amount of water will be removed.

On Tuesday, the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a public agency in San Jose that provides water to 2 million people, will vote on a plan to end the drought emergency it declared in June 2021, to drop rules limiting lawn watering to 2 days a week, and to end its mandatory call for 15% water savings compared with 2019 levels.

Aaron Baker, a chief operating officer of the district, said that the agency wants to make sure that it retains credibility with the public during the next drought by only declaring an emergency when one exists.

“Our water supplies this year are looking good,” he said. “We need to make sure we have the right drought tools, and save those short-term action tools for the next drought.”

The district plans to leave in place long-term conservation programs. Those include paying homeowners $2 a square foot to voluntarily remove grass, offering rebates to people who buy water-efficient appliances, and continuing year-round public relations campaigns encouraging prudent water use. The district also will keep in place bans on water wasting, including hosing down driveways and sidewalks, and watering so much that water flows into the street.

Many water experts say that after this record-setting winter, which has included dangerous flooding, water agencies can’t tell the public the Bay Area is still in a drought.

“They don’t want to be ridiculed,” said Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis.

“You have to be ready for all kinds of emergencies,” he added. “If a terrible spill happens near the drinking water intake, or earthquake happens and your main storage tank blows out you need to tell everybody to quit using water, and the customers have to have enough respect for you to know you aren’t crying wolf.”

Tuesday’s vote is the latest in a trend since Gov. Gavin Newsom on March 24 dropped most statewide drought rules, prompting the action now from local agencies across the state.

Last week, the Contra Costa Water District, which serves 500,000 people, ended its drought surcharge, and lift most drought-related water use restrictions that were in place this time last year as the state entered a third year of punishingly dry conditions.

“We are in a much different situation compared to April 2022,” said Ernesto Avila, the district’s president.

In February, another East Bay water agency, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, dropped the 8% drought surcharge it had used buy water from other agencies during the drought, saying that its own reservoirs w nearly full, and the fee was no longer necessary.

“We had an extraordinary year in terms of rainfall and snowpack,” said Andrea Pook, an East Bay MUD spokeswoman. “It’s appropriate for us to always be smart about how we use water. But we aren’t in emergency mode.”

Two weeks ago the district, which serves 1.4 million people in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, dropped its drought level from stage 2 to stage 1, which ended penalties for excess water use. East Bay MUD also ended the practice of making public the names of homeowners who use the most water, and dropped a rule limiting lawn watering to no more than 3 days a week.

“It’s not a case of more is better,” Pook said. “More is often worse. If you overwater your lawn or drought tolerant plants, it’s not necessary, and it costs you more money.”

If the Santa Clara Valley Water District votes, as expected, to follow suit, the dozen cities and private water companies in the South Bay that purchase water from the district will then begin to wind down their rules.

The largest, the San Jose Water Company, which serves 1 million people, plans to drop its drought surcharges Tuesday, and lift rules that limit watering to 2 days a week, said Liann Walborsky, a company spokeswoman.

The company will continue to push conservation rebates, messaging and other incentives.

“We ask people to be water conscious regardless of the drought being declared over,” she said. “We don’t know what next winter will bring.”

Money is an issue for all water providers. When conservation rules are in place, they sell less water, losing millions of dollars, but  costs like employee salaries, electricity, and gasoline for trucks do not decline in price.

East Bay MUD saw a $27 million revenue decline over the past year due to selling less water. The Santa Clara Valley Water District lost $140 million since June 2021, and spent $46 million over the past two years to buy emergency supplies from other water agencies because its main reservoir, Anderson, near Morgan Hill, has been drained for federally-ordered earthquake upgrades.

But now, groundwater in Santa Clara County is up 25 feet since last year, back to pre-drought levels. And state and federal agencies are promising cities and farmers all the water they want.

Currently, 75% of California is no longer in a drought, including all of the Bay Area, up from just 3% three months ago, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Newsom noted that some areas near the Oregon border, and places in Southern California which are highly dependent on Colorado River water still face shortages.

“Are we out of the drought?” Newsom said of the whole state. “Mostly. But not completely.”