Finance, Administration & Police Subcommittee Meeting Monday, August 2nd

The Finance, Admin and Police Subcommittee will hold their regular meeting on Monday, August 2nd at 1:30 p.m., at the Cloverdale Fire District.

The subcommittee will be discussing many topics including:

1. Establishing a Proactive Code Enforcement Program; 
2. American Rescue Plan Funding;
3. Council Teambuilding; 
4. Update on Measure P and more.

Current Water Supply Update

• The State Water Resources Control Board has issued an emergency regulations to implement curtailment orders in the Russian River Watershed.

• Due to declining reservoir levels, the State Board is expected to require diverters including the City of Cloverdale to reduce water usage to Health and Safety Standards (55 gallons per person per household).

• Sonoma Water is carefully managing existing water supplies in both Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma, while managing flows in the Russian River.
  
  
• To date, Sonoma Water has reduced diversions from the Russian River by 24 percent compared to last year; that meets the mandated order by the State Water Resources Control Board.
  
  
• Sonoma Water is managing flows in the Russian River to meet in-stream flow requirements as well; that means 25 cubic feet per second in the upper Russian River and 35 cubic feet per second in the lower Russian River.  These lower flows allow them to save water in Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino.

• Lake Mendocino is currently at 31.9% of water supply capacity with just a little over 26,000 acre-feet of water.  
• Sonoma Water's goal is to keep 20,000 acre-feet in Lake Mendocino by October. Lake Mendocino’s water supply continues to drop due to a variety of factors, including upper Russian River water use, evaporation, vegetation. Sonoma Water developed a projection of water supplies through the fall which is represented as a target storage curve.  Unfortunately, recent storage levels are below the target storage threshold to meet the 20,000 acre-foot goal which gives us great concern about storage levels available for water supply needs in the upper Russian River in the fall.  
• In response, pursuant to its emergency regulations authorized in earlier this summer the State Water Resources Control Board is preparing to issue curtailment notices to water rights holders in the upper Russian River in early August. 
• For more information about the curtailment order, please visit the following link: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drought/russian_river/docs/rr_reg_approval_oal.pdf

Save Water With Us
Water Conservation Tips

This week’s water conservation quick tips are about washing items by hand versus by machine.

Tip #1 is to use your dishwasher (if you have one) to wash dishes rather than wash them by hand. Contrary to popular belief, washing dishes in a reasonably full dishwasher is more water and energy-efficient than doing the same dishes by hand in almost all cases. Believe it or not, researchers at the University of Michigan have studied this topic:

“Laboratory results indicate that … in most cases, machine dishwashers use less water, energy, soap, and require less time doing physical work than manual dishwashing. Although the sample size is small, these use-phase results are in agreement with previous studies.” (Environmental Research Communications, February 12, 2020; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab716b)

Similarly, hand washing your vehicle wastes water and sends the soapy water down the storm drain and into local creeks.

Tip #2 is to use a waterless car wash product or go to a commercial car wash. Most commercial car washes recycle their water and the soapy water goes into the wastewater system to be treated before release.