New Approach to Curb Heavy Local Water Use

BY BILL KOENEKER

The revelation recently that much of Malibu’s potable water is actually consumed for outdoor usage came as a surprise to some city officials.
However, that was not new information for Waterworks District 29 and other water agency officials, who have been attempting to deal with the fact that a number of large residential landscapes Malibu use up disproportionately more water for irrigation than all of the rest of the city’s households for drinking water and other indoor uses.
The water district had tried a tier approach to make customers pay more when they reach a threshold, which, so far, has not worked. The wealthy landowners simply are paying the extra thousands of dollars to keep irrigating their gardens and lawns
Another approach is about to be tried by the West Basin Municipal Water District, which is a purveyor of potable water to Malibu’s water district. Prop 50 funds of $1.2 million were awarded to the water district for a large landscape water conservation, runoff reduction and educational program. “This project will be implemented throughout the West Basin’s service area, with a heavy emphasis in the City of Malibu, where there are a significant number of large landscapes and an Area of Biological Significance,” states a press release.
The project has been designed to address runoff problems and reduce outdoor water use by 20 to 50 percent by providing weather-based irrigation controllers and management solutions. The water savings are expected to have an impact on the district by delaying the need for new water supplies at a cost far below that of those supplies.
The targeted landscape sites will include large landscapes, schools, parks, homeowner associations, facility landscapes and residential sites over 1500 square feet. The total project cost is $2.8 million.
The money was awarded at a much-ballyhooed ceremony last month in Los Angeles where Lester Snow, director of the State Department of Water Resources handed over a mock check to Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke and a handful of other agency officials.
Buried among the 14 projects was WBMWD’s proposal, chosen out of about 2000 projects identified by a plan called the Greater Los Angeles County Integrated Regional Water Management Plan. There are several other important local projects that may impact Malibu by utilizing Prop 50 and Prop 84 money. None of the funding is going directly to the City of Malibu.
Another $426,000 was awarded to what is called the Malibu Creek Watershed Conservation Project. The project proponent is the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and the City of Westlake Village.
Plans call for the reduction of urban runoff to the ocean in the watersheds creeks.
It is a two-fold program that combines and integrates a project first started by Westlake Village to reduce urban runoff and conserve water on city-owned lands with another project developed by the LVMWD to reduce urban runoff and conserve water on residential parcels in the Malibu Creek watershed.
Water officials contend the program could serve as a model for other cities in the watershed and help reduce runoff caused by homeowner’s inattentiveness to irrigation scheduling.
Another $78,366 was turned over to the Mountains Restoration Trust for removal of exotic plants and weeds in Solstice Canyon.
The National Park Service owns much of the canyon land that is being restored for introduction of the federally endangered steelhead trout. The plans call for the eradication of several species invasive weeds and plants. The focus of the project is riparian understory restoration and enhancement. Non-native ornamental trees will also be removed.
The larger project includes restoring work areas damaged during barrier removal, removal of non-native invasive plant species from side channels and adjacent slopes and removing debris from adjacent slopes that could enter the stream course.
During the past few years, NPS had removed most of the barriers and then the fire burned through the canyon, closing the park and resulting in the delay of further restoration.