After a night’s rain, the morning sun warms the air in a landscaped yard in the Sunnyland neighborhood of Bellingham. Kurt Waldenberg said that with spring mornings like this, he almost forgets about an impending drought the state says will cause the driest conditions in 30 years.
The Washington State Department of Ecology declared a statewide drought emergency in March. Stream flows were at record lows following one of the state’s driest winters. Bellingham has some water-conservation methods in place and has started to make a transition to water meters from the current flat rate.
Waldenberg responded last year to a program the city implemented to encourage the community to conserve water by using rain-catching barrels. He said he was one of the first people in Bellingham to install a rain barrel at his house.
"As soon as we got our barrel, people in the neighborhood began putting them in as well," said Waldenberg as he sheathed a pair of pruning shears. "We don’t need it right now, but in the summer it helps out with the plants."
Tom Rosenberg, the assistant Bellingham Public Works director, said the program, which includes a $35 class that instructs people in how to make their own rain barrel, has been a success.
"We’ve fixed up the leaks in our (water) system, and now we’re branching out these types of conservation tactics to the community," Rosenberg said.
Lake Whatcom, the city’s water source, is at full capacity after this year’s spring rains. Rosenberg said this doesn’t mean the area is drought-free, however.
"Water conservation is especially important during the summer and early fall months in Bellingham when usage is high and there is very little opportunity to recharge the reservoir," Rosenberg said.
Richard Palmer, a water resource engineering professor at the University of Washington, said this year the state is at 5 percent of its average snowpack. Even average snowfall next year would not alleviate these dry conditions, he said.
Curt Hart, the drought spokesman for Ecology, said this trend is apparent throughout the state. Water levels and reservoirs are at or below 75 percent of average levels. He said it wasn’t difficult for his department to declare a statewide emergency in March to start planning and reallocating early.
"This was one of the driest and warmest winters we’ve had," Hart said. "Precipitation coming down as rain instead of snow can have dire consequences on the east side, and this has become the trend over the last seven to eight years."
Hart said increasing temperatures are the most intimidating factor. Only small amounts of rain have been freezing, which could eventually wipe out the snowpack altogether, he said.
Palmer said he expects streams to be at less than 60 percent of their normal flow unless rain continues through the dry season. Many stream flows are protected under state and federal laws. Water managers inhibit initial spring flows to maintain constant rates throughout the dry season. Without monitoring, streams would surge in late spring and dry out by the end of summer, he said.
This year the city agreed to limit diverting water from the Nooksack River to ensure tribal water rights. The preserved flows of the river during the dry months will encourage a more productive fish ecosystem and help sustain plant life along the shoreline, Rosenberg said.
"We haven’t been able to rely on the snowpack lately, nor are we able to rely on heavy diversions from the Nooksack," Rosenberg said. "We’re using 4.2 billion gallons a year amid a booming population, which is why we’ve begun the transition into a metered water service."
Water meters
Rosenberg said meters haven’t made sense in Bellingham until now, and this is why houses built before 2005 have flat water rates. The city has implemented a voluntary water-meter system to avoid being the last metered community in the state. Homeowners who choose to switch to a metered system must pay $150 for the setup.
The flat-rate system has started to change because of increasing populations and warming weather trends. Now, new or renovated buildings must have water meters installed, Rosenberg said.
"Water is going to become much more a precious commodity as time goes on," he said. "We need to start treating water more seriously, which is why the changeover cost is worth it."
Changing Bellingham to a completely metered system would cost about $5 million, Rosenberg said. The rate plan he outlined would actually benefit most single- or multifamily homes in the area. The city’s Web site has a calculator that can estimate what a new monthly bill would be using a metered system.
Someone like Waldenberg would save approximately $5 a month using a metered system, paying for itself in two and a half years. Rosenberg said this is the case for most households. The city is willing to cut revenue it receives from monthly billing if it encourages conservation, he said. Rosenberg said he expects a citywide change to meters in the next five years. Waldenberg, like most, hadn’t heard of the voluntary system. In fact, the city has only installed a handful of meters on houses built before 2005.
"The City Council is listening to what we have to say," Rosenberg said. "The state is going to come down on us eventually anyhow, which they have almost done in past drought years."
Palmer said that now is the time for water conservation in Washington, on both the east side of the Cascades and the west, and that it’s time for Bellingham and Everett, the only two cities with flat-rate systems in the state, to become metered.
"Clearly any resource is more intelligently used when consumers are paying a reasonable price for what they consume. Flat rates do not discourage waste," Palmer said.
He compared Bellingham’s flat rate for water with the competing forces for irrigation rights on the agriculture-dependent east side. Eastern Washington faces additional water demands for fighting forest fires, operating hydropower plants and maintaining fish- bearing streams, he said.
Palmer cited programs of agricultural conservation that feed water directly into these streams. Palmer also said urban con- servation has a high mitigating effect and the Nooksack Basin’s relationship to urban water use is an example of this.
"Water demands for the Seattle area are down to the 1974 levels although there has been a population growth of over 400,000 people," he said.
Public Works is trying to encourage a similar conservation change in Bellingham. Rosenberg said the city will be offering rebates to multifamily residences that replace 55-gallon washing machines with 15-gallon ones.
"Practicing water conservation is a cultural habit that we need to adopt as a way of life to ensure that there is adequate water supply for everyone’s needs," Rosenberg said.
Public Works also has free conservation kits, which include a low-flow shower head, a toilet displacement bag and faucet aerators for anyone in the community. Residents have picked up more than 3,000 kits since 2001.
At a home with a garden as lush as Waldenberg’s, drought doesn’t seem threatening, but Waldenberg conserves anyway. The future status of water resources statewide is unknown, and responsible water use now will only benefit Bellingham residents later.