Visalia officials hope rate hike will increase water
BY GERALD CARROLL • gcarroll@visalia.gannett.com • February 2, 2010
Visalia city officials hope a whopping 60 percent increase in water rates over the next three years — plus intensive water-conservation efforts — will slow a decades-long drain on the city’s groundwater supply.
But there’s no guarantee that California Water Service Co., which provides all of Visalia’s drinking water, will be able to raise rates that high, Visalia City Council members were told at a Monday work session.
“It all depends on what the state will allow us to charge,” said Mike Markarian, Visalia superintendent for Cal Water.
In the past, he said, the California Public Utilities Commission has allowed only a fraction of Cal Water rate-increase requests. Cal Water should learn later this year what it will be allowed to charge Visalia water customers.
As for conservation, most measures adopted by the city — including an extensive water-conservation ordinance adopted in 1989 — have simply failed, experts say. Thousands of unmetered Visalia water customers are charged a flat rate, with meter installation not due to be completed until 2012 at the earliest.
The use of water for landscaping is the main culprit for Visalia’s overdraftproblems, said Kim Loeb, Visalia’s natural resource conservation manager. Conversion of thirsty fescue lawns to rocky landscapes would help, Loeb said, and indoor water use could be curbed as well.
Toilets, which can use as much as 6 gallons per flush, use up 33 percent of Visalia’s water supply, Loeb said.
But replacing toilets in older homes with more efficient units has been a slow process, he said.
“This is a critical issue, but a sleeper,” Visalia City Councilman Mike Lane said. “This is a desert climate, with only 10 inches of rain per year. [It's] arid.”
Mayor Bob Link said schools’ water use has gone largely unmoni-tored. Federal stimulus funding will be directed at water conservation in the Visalia Unified School District, which will announce the amount involved at joint session of the council and district board at 6 p.m. today.
Loeb said Visalia officials might think of adopting policies that have worked in other dry areas. These include:
Weather-based irrigation. Much of the watering at Visalia parks is closely monitored by computer-based systems.
Incentives for use of rotating sprinkler nozzles, which can be used indoors or outdoors.
Landscape-irrigation audits.
“Cash for grass” incentives to replace natural turf with artificial surfaces.
Pool-cover incentives.
“Building green needs to include water conservation,” Loeb said.
