Recommendation to receive a presentation from the Water Department to the City Council regarding the Statewide Drought and how Long Beach can prepare for potential effects.
Thank you. Members Item 19 Clarke Read. Item 19 is a report from the Office of Council Member James Johnson and Council member Susanne Lowenthal with the recommendation to receive a presentation from the Water Department to the City Council regarding the statewide drought and how Long Beach can prepare for its potential effects. JOHNSON Well, thank you, Mayor, and I think Councilmember Sugimoto for co-sponsoring this with me. She's certainly very knowledgeable on water issues that are represented for the MWD. As everyone knows, the governor has declared a drought, and while there's no immediate crisis here in Southern California, I thought would be a good idea to revisit our conservation efforts. As David Freeman said many years ago. We do basic get out of the concept of drought. We have a long term challenge where supplies are threatened and demand continues to increase, or at least the demand is not sufficiently addressed by supply. So I think that's what we need to look at. But certainly I want to respect the governor's call and revisit what we can do. I did talk to the chair of the water board, Harry Saul Shaver, who mentioned that they would be discussing this at a future board meeting. And certainly we don't want to preempt anything they're discussing since it is the water board who is in control. But I do invite the water department to come out and address the subject and thank them for their advocacy on this issue. So, Mr. Warriner, thank you for coming. Well, thank you for bringing. This bringing this matter forward. And as you said, Governor Brown did declare a statewide. Water supply emergency on December seven, January 17th, excuse me. And the primary issue that that proclamation raises for local water utilities like us is is to ask us to enhance our water conservation efforts. He's seeking a 20% reduction across the state in water. Use, which would be a tremendous. Accomplishment. So we're here tonight. Matt Lines is our manager of conservation and planning. And. He manages all of our water conservation programs. So for the benefit of. The council and the citizens, that's going to go over all of our different water conservation programs and summarize how our how our citizens can help meet this challenge that's been laid before us by the governor. So here's Matt. Thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you about water conservation here in the city of Long Beach. Our supply reliability in Long Beach really relies on a number of different things, and one of the most important is water conservation. So I'm appreciate this opportunity. There's really two aspects to water conservation. One is sort of behavior. It's sort of choosing not to hose down the driveway. Choosing not to let the faucet run while you're brushing your teeth or shaving. Choosing not to take a 20 or 30 minute shower. All of this these choices really matter. In the end, they add up the lot. What I'm going to talk to you tonight about, though, are the programs that we have available for the people in the businesses of Long Beach, specifically our rebate programs. So we have a lot of programs for our business customers. We call it CEA, commercial, industrial and institutional. And then, of course, are important residential customers. And we manage these programs through a partnership with the Regional Wholesale Water Agency, the Metropolitan Water District. And I have the websites up there. They're both very good sites that provide a tremendous amount of information in all these programs. I'm going to talk about this, just the legal caveat. They're all subject to change and there's limits of time and funding and that sort of thing. But first, with our commercial, industrial and institutional customers for landscape irrigation, we provide $4 for very efficient water irrigation nozzles for public agencies like the city of Long Beach. It's a special $6 per nozzle. We have $13 rebates for large nozzles, $30 per station for the smart irrigation controllers that just themselves automatically. And for public agencies like the school district in the city, it's a $45 per station, which is a tremendous amount of money and something called an INS Tim Flow regulator to minimize excess irrigation for restrooms for our commercial industrial institutional customers, for control valves to limit the amount of water per minute that's coming through the faucet, but keeps the high pressure, $220 per urinal. And for fitness centers, it's an incredible 510, which is almost the cost of the device itself and for toilets, 110 for fitness centers, 310, again, a special program, really encouraging fitness centers to make these conversions are coin operated laundries. We have a lot of them here in Long Beach. We have, again, another really incredible deal, $500 for the high efficiency clothes washers. It covers about a third of the cost of the device cooling towers. It's basically like the air conditioning on large buildings an office building can use. Half of its water can be used just for the cooling towers. There's 200 or $2,050 in rebates for one kind of device, $725 for another kind of device to help bring efficiency to these devices that consume tremendous amounts of water. Commercial kitchens, thousand $50 for air cooled ice making machines, $585 for connection US food steamers, turf replacement $3 a square foot of irrigated with potable water, $2 if you're engaged with recycled water. And then finally, if that's not enough, we understand that to conserve and the commercial industrial sector can be very difficult. They're all very, very different from one another. So we've even created sort of a catch all program if there's any way that they can figure out to conserve water, whether it's to change a process, to buy new equipment, whatever it might be, we'll bring some money to the table to help them do that. This is, again, a very innovative program, and we're the first one of the first cities in Southern California to actually have this kind of a program, and now it's region wide. So we're very proud of the fact that we're pioneers in one more water conservation program. Now for the residential customers, of course, we have a lot of programs for them as well. $175 rebate for a high efficiency clothes washer. $50 rebate for the high efficiency toilets. $4. These are these incredibly water efficient sprinkler nozzles, rain barrel rebates. $80 for these smart controllers, self-adjusting irrigation controllers in our line to garden program. Our line to garden program. We provide $3 a square foot maximum of 1000 square feet for a single family home to replace grass in the front yard and parkway with a beautiful landscape that thrives naturally in our semi-arid region. These landscapes require about only 20% of the water of a grass lawn. And there's the website. This is a very user friendly program you can apply online. We have free classes about how to convert your landscape. We have photographs of over a thousand Long Beach homes that have done the conversion. So you can see pre and post photographs of other homes in your neighborhood. Virtual tours, the beautiful landscapes. We have online plant databases to databases. They each have about 1500 different kinds of species of plants. We have free landscape designs. We have a deal with a 15% discount at certain nurseries in Long Beach area for people who go through the program to buy you plan material and much, much more. And this is an award winning program, and we're pleased to announce that we received our most recent award less than a week ago from a statewide water organization . And these are the kind of landscapes that we're talking about. We're not talking about putting gravel down and getting rid of the grass and creating an unsightly landscape. It's really we're talking about lawn to garden. So these are all very drought tolerant plants that you see, and this is in the spring. They're blooming like crazy. It's very gorgeous landscape, but we have a lot of other programs to promote sustainable landscapes. And one of the reasons for this is that about half of the water used at the typical single family home is used outdoors. So this is really important to us. That's why we have this emphasis on landscape. We have free landscape classes and they've been going on for years and tremendous interest in our community. For these customers, it's going to apply online. We have our free watering update will soon give us you give us your email address and will notify you when it's time to change your irrigation. Turn it up, turn it down. Depending on the weather, that sort of thing. We have a tour of spring tours. It's free to our customers. And last year we had 1900 reservations, people in Long Beach to go on this tour to tour. They tour over 30 beautiful homes in Long Beach. And I want to make a shameless plug right now. It's time to sign up to register for. This will be our third garden tour. We'll have again about 30 homes in Long Beach, beautiful landscapes. You go there, see the landscape, get a plan. Let's talk to the homeowners. They answer whatever questions you have and they're all very excited about their landscapes. And actually their excitement is really contagious. We encourage people to register and by registering, then you get the updates, you get the maps, you get all that stuff sent to you automatically, to your smartphone, to your email, wherever you want it sent. And it's really easy to register. You can just do it online. And that's my presentation. Be happy to answer whatever questions you have about our conservation program and our rebates. Councilmember Lowenthal I don't have any questions, but I wanted to thank you for your presentation. I think it's timely. Also like to thank Councilmember Johnson for this item. As you mentioned, that the drought declaration certainly brought a great deal of statewide attention to this subject and the challenges facing Californians in the San Joaquin Valley and Delta area . You know, I do want to caution us, and I think both Kevin and Matt have alluded to this. Every city and every region is different. While this is a statewide problem and there are no geographic boundaries or political boundaries to our groundwater and really just water in general, we have done a tremendous job here and we need to continue to do so. And I think if residents stay the course, then we could see our way through this. But I certainly don't want to send a negative message that somehow our residents here have not for at least the last decade done just as we had hoped and hope that we continue to do so. You know, we do want to also reach and force the notion that while a lot of us have embraced conservation, there is always more that can be done, even small ways, household appliances, things that are something that we things that we take for granted. So those big and small ways do tend to add up. And single family owners, homeowners, primarily when you do your lawn to garden program, you can see how the old notion of converting your lawn to something that is water conserving doesn't have to be barren or desert like. And so you've been able to demonstrate that. And I and I think it's a better approach to approach homeowners in a way that they can still meet their esthetic needs and curb appeal. We're always taught about curb appeal when when we become homeowners or even renting a home. And so I appreciate that you've taken that approach. I want to compliment the water department for hanging in there with the tiered billing system. It is long in the making. We are. I want to say I brought that item forward five years ago. Do you recall I think it was initially five or six years ago, we researched it. Finally are at a stage where you can implement this tiered billing system and that too will help with conservation. And so really I just want to compliment the staff at the water department as well as our residents and ask that we keep it up. Thank you. Thank you. That's a membership fee. Mr. Mayor, I want to thank both Matt and Kevin for the work that you do. And as you know, I've been sending you some emails because my constituents are extremely engaged. I'm wondering if the department can help, maybe put something out. These are wonderful. But there are some confusion among consumers as to, you know, the announcement by the governor about the drought. And then, as you know, they've indicated, well, we see the city having the sprinklers on in the medians. And, you know, we see the the sprinklers on in the parks, etc.. What is the city doing specifically about the drought? So I'm wondering if we could get something that can get out to the consumers that were acknowledging the drought. And as Councilwoman Lowenthal indicated, that the city has done an incredible job, not only the city, but the residents have an incredible job and conservation. But that needs to continue because as I'm out there, I see a lot of people still watering a lot, watering cars, having a lot of runoff into the street. And so I think there's some consumer confusion out there. Maybe you all could help and get something out to the consumers. Appreciate it. Thank you for the good job you're doing. This is really excellent. Thank you. Any other questions? Johnson, you were close. Motion are receiving, Pfizer, etc.. Can I just say one other? There's been some confusion over the years about whether. These rebates are available to city employees. And I wanted to. Just clarify that we have worked with the city attorney recently, and other than a few of us in the water department who are in the decision making mode, these rebates are available to all city employees. So I want to make sure. That everybody. From the city who's here knows that that you're not prohibited. From from participating in these programs. Other than Matt and I and a few other water. Department. Employees. Great. Thank you. We have a motion in a second to receive and file. Any public comment, please come forward. Very good, because the address you just heard from the manager of the water department. Highly qualified, talented. It's confirmed the governor has declared a state of emergency and a drought. Even though at this point we're not that much affected. I would remind you again what is coming forward on the Ides of March or around that period of time? It makes absolutely no sense. Or you should see have detailed outline of how much water you have available to grow the marijuana. The governor has made it very clear we have to make a choice and think twice of whether or not we flush the toilet. All right. It's bad enough the conditions are in the view of some in some cities where it's going down the toilet and we won't have enough to flush that toilet. And I'm very serious about that. It goes back to the issue. Of stepping back and waiting. To see that we don't waste our resources in the instance in this matter here. Waste water. Keep that in mind on March 15th. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. My name is Gary, Cheltenham at 240 Chestnut and another council member is welcome and thank you for the opportunity to approach the dais. Terrific report. Exciting information opportunities for people in all all walks of life to save water and conserve water. I'm anxious to have a little bit of a counterpoint moment, if I can, and that's just to let you folks know. And you do get around the city. You do hear people all the time. But I've been to public meetings and talking in small groups and at other associations that I'm a member of. And we talk about this issue from time to time. And one point that I wanted to thank, the council member from District Number two, Dr. Lowenthal, for her comments, which were pretty much aligned with what I was thinking in terms of looking at an even a larger picture of what can be done and not short feeding the folks who have been doing conserve conservation all the time. The point being that we've all got the brick or two in the toilet tank. We've all maybe not all of us, but many, many, many of us have the low flow nozzles that we've received from the port as a gift. I know I have one. And it was sort of odd. I have such a nasty plumbing situation in my shower that when I put in the low flow nozzle it was like a torrent of rain coming down. It was really terrific. I got even more water, but it still is low flow. What I wanted to say is that coming on line in the next few years, if we approach our housing needs assessment of 7500 new units of housing, and if we see what's in the pipeline come to fruition in the downtown area alone, which some are the Molina project with 600 and some odd business people down there using water every day, a couple of hundred housing units at Alamitos and Ocean using water every day, a couple more hundred at Pine and Pacific and Broadway, using water every day. Even with all the low flow which is expected and the tremendous rebates which are coming from the water department. Where will the water come from? That's the question that people are beginning to ask. Where will this water come from? Everybody's conserving. We're going to continue to conserve. Conservation will improve, but where will the water come from? And we just don't know. It makes some people think that maybe instead of a rebate, there should be a surcharge for adding water usage to the cities. Pool of need. I just wanted to think about that. Thank you. Thank you. Any further public comment? Know we have a motion and second members cast your votes and receive a motion. Carries nine votes here. Thank you. We'll go to item six. Quick read.