Water conservation has become an important factor in people’s lives ever since a statewide drought had been announced.

PV acquires its water through the California Water Service Company (Cal Water) for its domestic needs. PV also owns a separate well near the football fields for irrigation purposes.

Since the agricultural water is not metered or paid through Cal Water, PV may not be aware how much water they use for sprinklers.

“Pleasant Valley High School’s sprinklers are

sprinkling water on the street-- a lot,” said Cal Water District Manager Michael Pembroke.

Cal Water is an investor-owned company that supplies water to 26 districts in California with a customer base of about 2 million people. The first district was in Chico and they still own 70 wells in Chico, making them the only water supplier in the city. Cal Water also supplies water to districts in New Mexico, Washington and Hawaii, making them the largest privately owned water company west of the Mississippi River.

The average person in Chico uses nearly 170 gallons of water per day.

“Our average daily production is about 27 million gallons…that will double in the summer when everyone’s irrigating. In the winter, it’ll drop down to about 15 million…but yes, that’s a lot of water,” said Pembroke.

The company has about 27,000 service connections in Chico, 16,000 of which are metered, meaning people pay per unit of water. Eleven thousand pay a flat rate for water per month and therefore use as much water as they want.

“The problem is if you’re on a flat rate, we tend to see people don’t pay a lot of attention to their irrigation practices- broken sprinkler heads, drippy faucets, leaks. If they’re on a meter, all of a sudden they start to pay attention to these things…the state has mandated that we confer all of those flat rates, so we have a time frame. Our plan is to do about 1,100 to 1,200 [people] a year, which would take about 10 years to get them all converted.” said Pembroke.

California is currently in a statewide drought, and the government came out with its declaration June 4.

The past two years have been dry, according to Amy Norris, Department of Water Resources Information Officer. If another dry year occurs going into 2009, the state of California could be in critical water shortage.

“Into the coming year, we will need a good supply of rain…the latest prediction is saying that there is potential for it to be a much wetter year [next year],” said Norris.

There are many reasons for the current drought to have taken place.

“Factors that make the problem worse include increasing population, climate change, and shrinking snow pacts. This impacts the water we supply to farmers and families,” said Norris.

Companies like Cal Water are taking action to help this situation.

“On June 5, our corporate headquarters came out [with a statement] asking our customers to voluntarily cut back 10%,” said Pembroke.

During a drought, people tend to change their habits and are more careful but, when conditions get back to normal, habits change back as well. Cal Water encourages people to install plumbing hardware that saves water.

“Low flow toilets, water efficient washing machines, low flow showerheads, water nozzles on the end of hoses, water efficient irrigation systems controlled by weather, we’re encouraging people to switch to these things,” said Pembroke.

Cal Water has also been actively promoting water conservation in bill inserts and out in public. They have an active website, www.calwater.com, with a conservation page.

“It’s about the big picture; it’s about water sustainability for future generations. We do have to look out for [our investors] well being but without that resource we’re out of business anyways. It’s a real balance,” said Pembroke.

There are many ways people can conserve water every day. Replacing a leaky faucet could save more than 260 gallons a year. Turning off the faucet when brushing teeth could save over 70 gallons a month. Shortening shower time by a minute could save up to 75 gallons a month.

“The students at PV could put together a water conservation team to do an audit…to see how much water we are pumping out of the well and compare it to water conservation practices. They can take it to the administrators to say why we should do a better job [conserving water],” said Pembroke.

If water conservation is not taken seriously the city of Chico could resort to mandatory water conservation which has never been done in Chico.

“People take our water resources for granted. If people don’t shift to the paradigm of conserving water, we might be in trouble in the future.” said Pembroke.