Santa Cruz ramps up water conservation efforts

Tuesday Santa Cruz city leaders will decide whether to return to a Stage 3 Water Shortage emergency declaration.

That approval would mean water customers would also be under mandatory rationing restrictions like they were last year.

“Some of the conservation things we did were simple and yet it felt like they made a big difference,” said Andy Zenczak who lives in Santa Cruz.

Zenczak says he did things like getting diffusers for his faucets and taking shorter and less frequent showers, “It’s nice to refresh yourself everyday a couple times a day but if you don’t need to, those little things can add up.”

The Santa Cruz Water Department agrees and says there is actually 15% more water in the Loch Lomond Reservoir this year than there was last year at this time.

“But the drought we’re in right now is unprecedented. We haven’t seen this severity for this many years in a row and frankly we don’t know what’s in store for the future so we have to be very conservative with our supply,” said the water department’s Eileen Cross.

This month the Governor mandated the state reduce water use by 25% and Santa Cruz already consistently saves 20-25%. ?

“Allotments will stay the same as last summer so basically we are trying to discourage landscape irrigation,” said Cross.

That isn’t a problem for Julie Howard, “We don’t have lawn, we have artificial lawn. We use our outdoor tub and we save our water and water any outdoor plants with the gray water.”

Howard says aside from teaching her kids how to make lemonade, she’s also taught them the importance of saving water. For this family and others here it’s a lesson to live by as this drought continues.