Water Conservation

WATER CONSERVATION: the Marin County, California, Experience

BY JOSEPH E. BROWN It was the worst drought in California history. In the High Sierra, hydroelectric plants fueled by once-tumbling rivers reported their output down by twenty-five percent. Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, breadbasket for half the nation, fearfully projected a two billion dollar crop loss by year-end. Without exaggeration, citizens throughout the Golden State wondered aloud if another Dust Bowl lay just around the corner.

Marin County, just north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, was particularly hard hit by the record drought of 1977-1978. Unlike many thirsty California regions, which could count on water imported from somewhere else, scenic, affluent, chic, touristy Marin had only its own: runoff from the brooding Coast Range Mountains which separate Marin's urban enclaves from the remote, spectacular seashore wilderness of the Pacific Coast to the west.

Marin County obviously did not go dry. No one died of thirst, and crops survived. Eventually, the rains came again and tumbled down the slopes of Mount Tamalpais, filling reservoirs, and the water crisis became history. "We really had to scramble to make it through," recalls Jack Yelverton of Belvedere.

As a native Arizonan well aware of water's importance, Yelverton is probably typical of the thousands of MarinCountians who endured the 1977-78 water scare. His comfortable hillside home has the usual California lawn and flower garden; inside is the equally typical water-guzzling kitchen and bathroom, and docked not far away was Yelverton's pride and joy-a trim, thirty-eight-foot cruising sailboat whose owner insisted on spotless care.The owner of an electronics investment firm, Yelverton was also busy developing a side venture at the time, a small grape vineyard, whose demand for water made Yelverton wince as the Marin dry-up worsened week by week.

As for the house and vineyard, Yelverton tightened his belt, as did his fellow Marin Countians, applied a little ingenuity, and re-learned a lot of the water-saving lessons he'd grown up with in Arizona. That took some adjusting. Whenever the Yelvertons dined out, for instance, they were served no water. They had little choice; early on, it became illegal to serve water with meals, a fact which grumped a few visitors who weren't aware of the water problem.

In Marin, depending upon family size and water consumed the previous year, daily allocation was limited by law to an average of forty-six gallons. "If we used more than our allotted share," Yelverton recalls, "there were economic penalties-bills up to fifteen times the regular amount. If over-use persisted, water was cut off." Water for nonessential purposes-hosing down sidewalks, refilling swimming pools, washing cars-became a civic no-no.

Grumbling over the inconveniences at first, Marin Countians soon came to view the shortage as a challenge of sorts. "After awhile," recalls Don Greame Kelley, a San Anselmo writerand printer, "it got to be a game: how much water can we not use today?"That meant fewer showers, longer periods between dishwashings, regimenting the two bathrooms in the Kelley household for maximum conservation. "Everytime it rained-which was seldom-we literally covered the yard with buckets and cans, and when they were full, we dumped the water into the 'reservoir bathroom.'"

Worried about his grapes, Jack Yelverton went a step further. He picked up four fifty-gallon oil drums, which had been scoured of their original cargo, mounted these on the bed of his pickup truck, and drove to the nearest river. There, he hooked up a twelve-volt pump run off the truck's batteries, and filled the drums to overflowing. "That water," he says "lasted a long, long time."

Not fully blessed by civic authorities, a major source of water savings in Marin County was the judicious use of graywater. The name derives from its source, not its color. Water left over from dishwashing or bathing is graywater, sewage is not. Although its use is controversial in ecology-conscious America (it's illegal in much of Arizona) graywater has been tapped successfully in countries where water crises are facts of life.

In Belvedere, Yelverton found that by dumping used shower and dishwashing water on his lawn and garden, he collected a dividend. "Certain phosphates in detergents," he says, "acted like a fertilizer."

In many Marin homes, paper plates replaced washable ones, and special emphasis was placed on the use of toilets. All told, Marin County cut its water use during the two-year shortage by more than half. And when the faucet was finally turned on again, they'd learned to do it with rare good humor. Witness the small printed placard one Sausalito restaurant placed on every table, one of which is still framed as a souvenir. "By law we cannot serve guests water," it reads. "However, our California wines are superb."

Rio Salado text continued from page 21

The committee recommended that Rio Salado plans be subject to review by the public and that some impartial agency conduct a study of the project's economic, social, and psychological impact. They also would like to see the district's boundaries include only the river bottom. To ensure citizen input, Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard appointed a fifteen-member citizen committee to evaluate Rio Salado's impact on the community. After three months of intensive study, this committee has expressed support for the project, but has also made specific recommendations to deal with the major citizen concerns. These suggestions propose actions to protect citizens from rapidly rising property taxes, provide a clear and equitable procedure for any housing relocation, ensure job opportunities for area residents, solve existing landfill problems, and provide continuing citizen participation.

Bray points out that the public has been investing in the river bottom for years with no return. "We've built freeways through it, an airport next to it, roads, bridges, water lines, sewer lines-when they don't break-and yet we've gotten nothing in return. We just keep pouring money into it. Now with one additional investmentbuilding the dams to solve the flooding in the river-we can turn that whole investment opportunity around and begin to reap a profit for the public. The public ought to be entitled to a return on that investment. The way to get it is to build those dams, make that land productive. The return you get is 74,000 jobs, the housing units, the billions of dollars we can put into this community. That's setting aside the esthetic quality, what it will do for the Valley's image-that's immeasurable."

Rio Salado supporters hope that local assistance in funding will speed construction of upstream dams. Given approval of such funding in 1985, the dams could be completed by 1995, and Rio Salado could become a reality before the turn of the century.

In spite of these difficulties, a survey by Arizona State University researchers Bruce D. Merrill and Bruce J. Walker shows Arizonans who are informed of the project tend to support it. Merrill and Walker found that most Phoenix citizens are "progrowth," that they are optimistic about the project's potential to improve the quality of life in the metropolitan area, and that two-thirds of them approve of the use of tax money to support Rio Salado. Meanwhile, bits and pieces of the project are already taking shape. The City of Phoenix recently completed the Rio Salado Industrial Recreation Park on twenty acres at Twelfth Street and Elwood. Tennis courts, soccer fields, and handball and basketball courts are in place, and the park will eventually include a golf course. Arizona State University is moving ahead on its golf course, a facility which will form a part of the Rio Salado boundary and which will be open to the public. Cavalier Homes is building 270 units near the river at Scottsdale and Curry roads. "We have something here that may be unique in the world," says Bray. "It's a chance to do something spectacular for a major metropolitan area. The opportunities are unlimited to provide something for everybody, whether you're a developer, an environmentalist, or the guy on the street."

Vicky Hay is a Phoenix journalist and biographer. The Life of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester is her latest book.

(TOP) Artist's conception of the project's Central Avenue Exposition site. Here visitors will attend concerts, tour a cultural center and a museum devoted to water conservation, dine at fine restaurants, and shop at quality boutiques. Illustration courtesy Rio Salado Development District. (ABOVE) In 1966, this group-ten students in the Arizona State University College of Architecture-first envisioned the Rio Salado Project. They are from left: Gerald E. Maskulka, landscape architect; Steve W. Freeman, architect;James W. Scalise, architect and ASU faculty member; James W. Elmore, FAIA, professor emeritus, former and founding dean of the College of Architecture, ASU; Leland Peters, architect; Robert McConnell, design critic, professor, andformer dean of architecture at ASU; Edward B. Sawyer, Jr., architect; Jerry Atwood, architect; Bill Close, Jr., architect; and Marco Manachio, architect. Kent Knudson photo