Alliance wants to save water and money

Alicia Robinson

Orange County water agencies import about 50% of the water used by

area households and businesses, even as another possible source --

urban runoff -- trickles away into storm drains and ultimately the

ocean.

A new grass-roots group plans to attack the runoff problem and

encourage water conservation in Orange County. The Santa Ana River

Watershed Alliance, which includes residents and city hall

representatives from six Orange County cities, began meeting earlier

this year.

The new group was started by the Earth Resource Foundation, a

Costa Mesa-based environmental organization that plans to hire

someone to get people involved in the alliance and coordinate its

activities.

“We don’t have a water shortage when we have water running down

all of our streets and we have an urban runoff problem,” said

Stephanie Barger, the Earth Resource Foundation’s executive director.

“It means people are totally wasting water and wasting money.”

Barger has ambitious goals for the watershed alliance that include

turning the Santa Ana River back to a natural river rather than the

flood channel it is now. She also wants the group to create a

long-term plan for the watershed.

Once a watershed coordinator is hired, that person will help the

group gather information on water projects, encourage conservation

and educate people about water issues. A three-year, $350,000 grant

from the state Department of Conservation will pay the coordinator’s

salary.

“The purpose of this grant is to decrease Southern California’s

reliance, and specifically the Santa Ana River watershed’s reliance,

on [Northern California] water,” Barger said.

The watershed alliance will work with existing environmental

groups and with water agencies such as the Orange County Water

District, which is creating a system that will purify treated

wastewater and use it to replenish the area’s groundwater basin.

That groundwater replenishment system is the kind of project

Barger wants to encourage with the state grant money.

When the system is ready in 2007, it will provide water for more

than 140,000 households a year and save millions of gallons of water

from being released into the ocean, said Jan DeBay, a member of the

water district’s board of directors and former Newport Beach mayor.

“We were getting so much wastewater that we were coming to the

point of where we would have had to build another outfall [pipe] to

the ocean,” she said. “It saves us from discarding that water,

because it’s a real resource.”

Because water protection and conservation is such a big job,

having grass-roots groups such as the new watershed alliance work on

water quality issues can be a win for everyone, said Jerry Thibeault,

executive officer of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control

Board.

“One of the things that we fully realize is that there’s way more

to do than we can handle,” he said. “Anyone else who can help with

watershed management and organizing activities, that’s hugely

important to us.”

The Santa Ana River Watershed Alliance meets from 10 a.m. to noon

the first Thursday of every month at the Lawn Bowling Center, 2615

Valencia Ave., Santa Ana.