Santa Cruz water rationing takes effect; Monterey Peninsula considers its own supply.

The Los Padres Dam is weeping. No, seriously: that’s a technical term for the wet wash seeping over the spillway. It’s so thin, it couldn’t even carry a fish.

With the spillway already dry, water managers don’t expect to be able to release enough water from the reservoir to usher Carmel River steelhead safely out to sea.

Last November, the Monterey Peninsula was looking even drier than during the notorious droughts of 1976-77 and 1988-91. The reservoir was so low, managers only had about 140 acre-feet left to safely release into the river.

“We were very close to the end of the line,” says Kevan Urquhart, senior fisheries biologist for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District.

But a big storm filled the reservoir up in early March, producing water to release in the dry season and pushing the Carmel River flow downstream.

Even if the river were bone-dry, Peninsula water users would still only face voluntary cutbacks. Rationing is triggered when the Carmel and Seaside aquifers (which account for about three-fourths and one-fourth, respectively, of the Peninsula’s water supply) are depleted to 65 percent of capacity. As of late February, according to a district report, they were at 85 percent.

That’s not the story in Santa Cruz, where the City Council enacted mandatory rationing May 1. Single-family homes are allowed 249 gallons of water per day, which generally means no more outdoor watering. Households exceeding the limit will be fined.

Unlike the Monterey Peninsula, Santa Cruz mostly uses surface water and has relatively little storage capacity.

“[The rationing] is driven by this hydrologic reality,” Santa Cruz City Water Director Rosemary Menard says. “We’re seeing stream and flow conditions that look like a typical August, and it’s only May.”

On the Monterey Peninsula, Stage 1 conservation has been in effect since 1999. Residential water users are charged according to steeply tiered rates, which means disproportionately huge bills for water hogs. Households are also required to limit outdoor irrigation to two days a week – a schedule recently streamlined to Wednesdays and Saturdays, district-wide.

“We need to make sure all our customers are aware of that requirement, and that they comply,” California American Water General Manager Eric Sabolsice says. “The fact that we’re not in rationing doesn’t mean we don’t need to step up our efforts to conserve.”

The Monterey County Supervisors recently echoed Governor Jerry Brown’s call for all Californians to voluntarily cut back water use by 20 percent. For now, however, the Peninsula remains in the first of seven rationing stages.

“We always make sure there’s enough water in storage to get us at least through the next 17 months,” says District General Manager Dave Stoldt.

But if another drought year follows this one and the rains don’t fill the Los Padres, all that’ll be left flowing into the Carmel River will be the side creeks.

“That might not create enough water to fill the big hole underneath the valley,” Urquhart says. “It’s definitely going to be a problem for fish, and it could be a problem for people also.”

Conserving this summer, he adds, will help bank water in case of continued dry weather – and potential mandatory rationing – in 2015.