City leaders call for residents to conserve water amid storms
RIPON (CBS13) - Heavy rainstorms are helping California's drought, but some towns are still cracking down on water use, asking residents to conserve their water supply.
A town like Davis runs on both groundwater from rain and surface water from nearby rivers, but other towns aren't as lucky, relying solely on groundwater, which means even with weeks of wet weather some towns are still forced to conserve.
"We have floods and droughts at the same time," says Professor Jay Lund, UC Davis Professor of Civil and environmental engineering.
Towns in Northern California typically run on groundwater from wells and surface water from rivers, but some only have one option like the town of Ripon which gets 99% of its water from the ground.
"For areas depending on groundwater, the drought has a very long tale," says Lund, who explains the lack of water sources forces Ripon to conserve water despite the wet weather.
"The city of Ripon which doesn't have access to surface water is going to still continue to reduce its groundwater use while the other cities that have access to both surface and groundwater can be a bit more flexible," says Lund.
Davis used to rely solely on groundwater, and for neighbors, it meant expensive bills for neighbors like John Natsoulas who owns a gallery near the UC Davis Campus and still tries to conserve water when he can.
"I just put in rocks because of the fact I got rid of the lawn I have these large containers -- mostly trash cans to conserve as much as we can," says John Natsoulas.
Now, a joint project between the city of Woodland and UC Davis permits the area to pull water from parts of the Sacramento River.
We asked the City of Ripon if they'll implement similar changes that would allow for use of surface water and more storage like retention ponds to catch rain runoff and increase their supply of water.
"Between the city of Ripon and SSID we are implanting projects to be able to do that but those projects take time and take money," says Daniel De Graaf, a member of the Ripon City Council and civil engineer.
Until then residents are being asked to conserve.
Ripon is asking their neighbors to be careful when it comes to watering lawns, showering for too long, and leaving hoses leaking. Despite this rain, they're warning neighbors to watch their water use.