{"id":61670,"date":"2018-10-30T16:51:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T22:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-to-adopt-water-conservation-plan-in-november\/"},"modified":"2018-10-30T22:51:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T22:51:16","slug":"cortez-to-adopt-water-conservation-plan-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-to-adopt-water-conservation-plan-in-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez to adopt water conservation plan in November"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The desert landscape surrounds an irrigated field as seen Saturday from Canyons of the Ancients National Monument near Cortez. The city of Cortez seeks a reduction in water use.<\/span>Sean Dolan\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Water consumption in Cortez has decreased 38.5 percent since 1990, but for Public Works Director Phil Johnson, that\u2019s still too high.<\/p>\n

A consumer uses about 200 gallons of water each day, down from 325 gallons in 1990, but an update to the city\u2019s water conservation plan, last revised in 2010, aims to cut per capita water use to 180 gallons a day. The Cortez City Council will conduct a public hearing and take a final vote to adopt the water conservation plan at its regular meeting on Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Johnson said he would like to reach that 180-gallon goal in a couple of years \u2014 and then continue the downward trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that we need to get much lower than 180, especially given our current situation with our changing environment, the reduced snowpack levels, etc.,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

He said he is concerned with the long-term impacts 50 to 100 years from now. As Cortez, like much of the arid Southwest, is married to snowpack, there won\u2019t be many opportunities to suddenly add water to the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I want to save water is so people can adjust and adapt their lifestyle to using less water \u2026 because when our water supply is not what it is now \u2014 it\u2019s less \u2014 our quality of life will not be impacted as greatly because we\u2019re able to live within our means,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Reducing water use isn\u2019t easy. Johnson said Cortez will have to provide help and education to get there.<\/p>\n

The draft plan details conservation goals and water-saving measures. In addition to a reduction in per person per day water use, the plan calls for full metering of all users in the Cortez system, a reduction in water loss and completion of a drought contingency plan.<\/p>\n

Water-saving measures include a rebate program for water-efficient appliances like low-flow toilets and front-loading washing machines as well as encouragement of landscape efficiency, industrial efficiency and water reuse systems.<\/p>\n

Johnson said reducing outdoor water use would provide the most benefits. He said the Public Works Department is training its employees to offer residents a water auditing service.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people just overwater,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThey think the grass needs a lot more water than it really does, and so we want to provide an audit where we can go out there and measure and talk to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the experience of Vic Vanik, owner of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, persuading people to reduce outdoor water consumption is much easier during a drought than it is during a good water year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a shame, but people don\u2019t really think there\u2019s a problem with drought until the drought is here,\u201d Vanik said.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s seen an uptick over the past few months in customers looking for drought-tolerant plants. But those plants need a year to become established, so planting drought-tolerant plants during a drought is too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we continue the drought next year, there will be a lot interest, no doubt about it,\u201d Vanik said. \u201cIf we have a wet winter, people forget all about the fact that we\u2019re in a drought area.\u201d<\/p>\n

To discourage wasteful outdoor water use, Johnson said Cortez since 2004 has imposed a restriction on watering during the heat of the day, between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., from May 15 to Sept. 15. But the city\u2019s water rate structure does not necessarily encourage conservation, he said.<\/p>\n

Cortez operates on a uniform water rate structure. The city charges a base rate for the first 1,000 gallons of monthly usage and a flat marginal rate for each additional 1,000 gallons used. The draft plan states Cortez will consider moving to a \u201cconservation-oriented rate structure\u201d that would encourage conservation among high water users.<\/p>\n

Johnson said that could entail hiring a consultant to conduct a rate study in the coming year. He said a conservation-oriented rate structure would start with an affordable core service, maybe around 4,000 or 5,000 gallons per month, and then increase from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen if they want to use more than that for irrigation, that\u2019s a choice,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cObviously it would be something, I think, we\u2019re probably going to be looking at an increasing block rate so the more you use the more you pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Cortez City Council adopts the plan in November, Johnson said the public works department will make it a living, breathing document that will set the pace for local conservation practices.<\/p>\n

Like Johnson, Vanik said education is the critical component in reducing water use. He said there are definitely people in Cortez who understand that they live in a desert, but people who come to the area often need a history lesson. Sometimes they don\u2019t understand the immutable relationship between snowpack and water supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens if we don\u2019t have a wet winter? What are we going to do with McPhee (Reservoir) next year?\u201d Vanik said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really bad if we don\u2019t have a good winter this winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

sdolan@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

for reduction in per capita water use<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-61670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61670"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=61670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}