The Estacada City Council discussed the possibility of restricting water use when the city gets close to it’s capacity to provide water in the summer and asked city staff to continue to explore the issue.
Last summer the city recorded record water usage, which is connected primarily to summertime watering lawns and landscaping and swimming pools.
“We’re not in dire straits right now. But we maybe want to start working on this,” said City Manager Melanie Wagner.
After discussing several possible water conservation strategies at the April 22 city council meeting, Mayor Sean Drinkwine said “this almost seems ridiculous.”
Drinkwine said “we’re not slowing down growth, but yet we’re saying we can’t use water.”
Elaina Turpin, assistant city manager said that eventually Estacada will get to a point that water restrictions would mean a moratorium on new development and growth in Estacada.
And City Attorney Peter Watts said a moratorium on growth can’t be put in place unless a city can demonstrate it has implemented water conservation measures.
“The state’s position is that they don’t want a moratorium, so we would need to have a strong record demonstrating all the things that we did,” Watts said.
One plan under discussion is to implement a staged alert and restriction system to let city residents know when water usage is reaching high levels.
Wagner said last summer there were three days that would have put Estacada residents into a “stage one” alert.
Stage one would prevent the city from watering lawns in parks and other public property, residents could not water during daylight hours and the public would be asked water lawns no more than twice a week. Stage one would also ask residents to voluntarily stop washing cars and restrict hours for the planned splash pad.
The stage one alert would have lasted only three days if it had been in place last year, Wagner said.
The alert system would have several stages.
“We’re hearing from other cities that this works well,” Wagner told the city council.
Another approach the council discussed would be to raise rates for customers using more water than “a reasonable base monthly quantity.” This is a technique used by some cities to discourage “water hogs.”
Water restrictions present a knotty problem, as some Homeowners Associations fine residents if their lawns are not kept green throughout the summer.
Watts, the city attorney, told the city councilors “we can’t prohibit an HOA from fining their members,” but said the city “could fine an HOA that fines its members during a stage one water event.”
“Out hope is that the HOAs would understand,” said Watts.
The city is also working on ways to curtail leaks and water theft.
Watts and city staff also talked about the need for education about water conservation such as not watering early in the morning so residents don’t lose water to evaporation. Water-friendly landscaping was also discussed.
The planned new high level water reservoir will not affect the need for a conservation plan and for possible restrictions, city staff said.
City managers are planning to have a final “Water Management & Conservation Plan” for a council vote in May and a “Water Master Plan” the next month.
If the city keeps to this schedule, a water conservation measures could go into effect in June.
More information is available on the city’s web page and the April 22 city council meeting discussing the potential water conservation plan can be viewed on the city’s YouTube page.
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