Silicon Valley's Roots Return As "Urban Agriculture"

With the passage of AB 551, the State of California has blessed the concept and is encouraging local land use agencies to designate Urban Agricultural Incentive Zones. In this drought year especially, this is a signal that cities throughout California should be re-thinking their land use policies to foster more local food production, while reducing their dependance on industrial agriculture. In San Jose, we can leverage this new legislation to both increase our local food security and protect our local groundwater.

One of my greatest pleasures is growing my own vegetables and fruit both at home and in a nearby community garden, which holds the honor of being the first in this state permitted to use recycled water from our wasted-water treatment plant. This drought proof water source adds to a diverse water supply portfolio, which includes local surface and groundwater and three aqueducts that have dubious reliability and higher energy demands than our local supply options.


 Silicon Valley, also still known as Santa Clara Valley,  evolved from a major food production and processing economy to economies that function, in part, from the use of silicon-based microchips.



The mild Mediterranean climate and fertile soil of the valley remains above and below the engineered hardscape of nearly 400 square miles of urban development.

In addition, San Jose possesses another piece of natural capital that was essential to this valley  becoming both of these successive great economic centers: two adjacent groundwater basins capable of supplying up to 250 million gallons of water per day. The geology of the area blessed us with sand and gravel sediments that carry surface water into depths below a 200-foot cap of  fine silts, deposited in flooded wetlands over thousands of years of rising sea levels.

This geologic process  of layering sediment creates a special concern for how we use the land in the Coyote Valley. This upper region acts as a kind of a forebay for the groundwater basin in the northern part of the county, which serves the 13 cities that now comprise much of Silicon Valley.  As sediment eroded from the eastern mountain range into the valleys below, the gravels and larger materials settle out mostly at the top of the alluvial fans. These gravel deposits are often mined for aggregate for concrete and asphalt.

The high porosity of this gravel-filled narrow valley makes it extremely vulnerable to contamination from any pollutants that are discharged onto the land or into Coyote and Fisher Creeks that traverse the 10 mile length of the Coyote Valley.

Pollutants, once reaching the usually high groundwater table of the Coyote Valley, move quickly down-gradient toward the thousands of private and municipal wells serving nearly 2 million residents and workers in the urban areas to the north.





The Coyote Valley has been designated in the City of San Jose's General Plan as an urban reserve with a third of the land at the southern end designated for permanent green belt. Triggers are also described for under what conditions a transit-oriented Specific Plan would be allowed.

Under this new legislation, the City of San Jose could propose to designate this 7,000-acre Coyote Valley ALL as an Urban Agricultural Incentive Zone. Because of the potential for groundwater contamination, the area should also be restricted to organic agriculture only.

Here, it's good to mention a little wisdom from former New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman,  who also served as Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency under George W. Bush: "Some watershed land simply must not be developed. Its natural value in buffering, storing, filtering and recharging far exceeds whatever commercial value it may hold." (Cover letter from "Protecting the Source" Trust For Public Land, copyright 1998)

This could be a plank in a mayoral candidate's platform for a creating a sustainable San Jose, addressing both food security and water quality protection. It could also be an excellent joint powers project of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority and the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD). 


 There are other reasons that the Coyote Valley should be preserved as permanent open space:

•     Laguna Seca should be preserved and re-established as a vernal wetland, creating habitat and reducing potential flooding in downtown San Jose

•     A wildlife corridor across Coyote Valley should be established between the Diablo and Santa Cruz ranges

•     Buffer setbacks from Coyote and Fisher Creeks should be preserved to protect the ecosystem of the riparian corridor

A Joint Powers Authority with Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority could be formed as a financing option for the Coyote Valley acquisition. The rationale for this is based on SCVWD’s water supply goal to aggressively protect groundwater from the threat of contamination. SCVWD also has a water resources stewardship goal to promote the protection of creeks, bays and other aquatic ecosystems from threats of pollution and degradation.

This partnership would give access to existing and future State and local water bonds as a significant funding source. The current Open Space Credit, applied to subsidized commercial agricultural pumping rates of $6.5 million per year, is enough to service the debt on $65 million in revenue bonds, providing funds for acquisition of conservation easements on 6500 acres @$10,000/acre.

This may well be the biggest pollution prevention project ever funded by the District, but one that will benefit future generations with a clean, safe and reliable groundwater supply in perpetuity.

I am also campaigning to extend that previously mentioned farm water subsidy to urban community agriculture, including larger commercial ventures like Veggielution in San Jose and Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale. I’ve asked Senator Jim Beall to consider a bill to remove the “commercial” restrictions for receiving the subsidy so all community gardens in the county could receive irrigation water at the lower rate. 

 
 After all, the Valley of Heart’s Delight still exists; it’s just hidden beneath our feet.

Butterflies Are NOT Free, Especially When They're Butterfly Valves Connected to Delta Pumps

 

Control valve for one of the six pumps at the Central Valley Project's Jones Pumping Plant at the southern end of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Last Friday, I spent 10 hours with my old friends at the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Forty members of various District advisory committees were given a one-day tour of our newest water importation system, the San Felipe Division of the Federal Central Valley Project. For a more complete history of this project click here.

The purpose of the tour was to educate the committee members and let them engage with the District staff and two Board members (Nai Hsueh and Linda LeZotte) about the water pumping, storage and conveyance infrastructure in place to obtain this imported water. More importantly it also showed us what's needed to maintain the continuance of supply tapped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. I was invited as a retired Director, although lately I've been advertising Being Unretired. During self-introductions, I said I was with the tour to also discuss how the SCVWD can rely LESS on the Delta imports and more on locally produced recycled water. I also said that we need to protect the quality of our valuable local groundwater basin by creating a Coyote Valley Organic Farming Preserve.

My seat mate on the tour bus was Mark Turner, President of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce, who was brand new to the job and eager to learn more about our valley's water resources management. Sitting next to Professor Ferraro and right behind the staff and Board members, he was in a great place to do just that.

Our first stop was at the US Bureau of Reclamation's visitors center on Highway 152,  overlooking the Los Banos Grande Dam and 2 million ac-ft capacity reservoir. Today, the reservoir sits at 15% of its capacity and has been the poster child for agriculture's wrath for the fish-protection restrictions on the Delta pumping. This reservoir receives water pumped by both the Federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. President Kennedy joined Governor Pat Brown in 1961 for the groundbreaking ceremony.

Both aqueducts deliver water into the O'Neil Forebay, from which a battery of pumps lifts the Delta water into this enormous off-stream  reservoir. These same pumps spin backwards to generate electricity as water is later released to farmers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. This year, through ecosystem collapse mitigation measures, pumping from the South Delta was curtailed and a million ac-ft of water was instead released through the Delta to avoid further harm to endangered fish species.

The San Felipe Aqueduct draws water from Los Banos Grande Reservoir by a 300 ft lift station at the west end of the reservoir. Twelve- 2,000 HP pumps push the water up to a terminal tank, which feeds the tunnels,. The tunnels were drilled by a Federal contractor through the Gabilan Mountains, between 1978 and 1987. Pipelines take the water south to San Benito County Water District and north to Santa Clara Valley Water District, terminating at a 12,000 HP pump station at the base of Andersen Dam in Morgan Hill.

The primary reason for this tour became clearer as our second stop was on the banks of the Sacramento River near the town of Hood, about 10 miles south of California's Capitol City of Sacramento. Visiting this site gives me the same feeling I had after walking through a Civil War battlefield. It was here that the Peripheral Canal would have diverted water from the Sacramento River, if a 1982 referendum had not stopped its construction. In many ways this was a Civil War in the Bear Republic of California. While the pumping from the Delta had been ongoing for decades, Delta and Northern California interests were calling the Peripheral Canal a water grab by Southern California. The referendum campaign demonized San Joaquin farmers and other water contractors south of the Delta as extravagant water wasters, undeserving of this precious water supply they had grown used to over the past decades.

Thirty-some years later, Governor Jerry Brown's Administration 2.0 is again trying to fix the Delta ecosystems and make water deliveries south of the Delta more reliable. This time, knowing both the opposition and the future impacts of sea level rise, the proposed water bypass is a pair of twin tunnels to deliver cleaner water to the pumps in the South Delta. The co-equal goal with water delivery reliability is ecosystem restoration. Returning 140,000 acres of farmland to aquatic habitat will enable fisheries to re-establish healthy and sustainable communities in the greatly human-modified environment of today's Delta.

The tour stopped for lunch at an East Bay Regional Park named Big Break Visitor Center at the Delta in Oakley and adjacent to a now-flooded island, which was ironically already called "Big Break." The most fascinating feature in the park was a walkable 2500 sq ft. relief map of the Delta and surrounding area, from Mt. Diablo to Sacramento.

After lunch, we watched some incredible animation of a simulation of multiple levee failures, which are likely to happen during a severe earthquake. The presenter, former DWR employee and Metropolitan Water District consultant Curt Schmutte, outlined the key threats to the Delta levees as well as the stressors to the aquatic ecosystem.

Similar discussions are going on in every water-related venue and gathering. Ellen Hanak of PPIC created this slide:

These realities are difficult to overcome but the same conversation is again taking place as the State and its many Delta water users propose to address the problems. The Delta farmers lead the pack of oppositional sectors. They simply want to maintain the status quo, and continue to have the state fix their levees so the water quality will be protected and the Delta remain an artificially-maintained fresh water pool.

The Delta farmers align themselves with fishing groups, recreational boating interests, and some, but not all, environmental groups. While some NGO's have been deeply involved in developing today's proposed solutions, others won't risk their reputation (and their donor base) to try to educate the public on this very complex problem and the range of solutions being suggested to fix California's biggest water management headache.

Our final stop on the Delta tour was what all this discussion was leading to- keeping the pumps already built in the South Delta running. We toured the Jones Pumping Plant, built by the US Bureau of Reclamation around 1950,  to pump Delta water into a canal which flows upstream in the San Joaquin Valley to the Mendota Pool. This makes 3 million acres of desert bloom with billions of dollars worth of crops.

During our tour, only three of the six pumps were operating, delivering only 5,000 ac-ft of water per day into the Delta-Mendota Canal. Here's a short video of what one pump sounds like:

 

•       C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant lies at the terminus of the Delta Cross Channel and moves water into the Delta-Mendota Canal.

•       The plant has six separate pumps, built from 1947 to 1951.

•       Each pump, powered by a 22,250 hp motor, lifts up to 767 cfs of water 197 ft into three 15 ft-diameter pipes that lead to the Delta-Mendota Canal, for a combined capacity of 4,602 cfs (9,200 ac-ft/day)

•       The Delta-Mendota Canal carries water 117 miles upstream through the San Joaquin Valley, terminating at the Mendota Pool, a reservoir on the San Joaquin River.

Nearby, a second set of pumps built for the State Water Project was built in 1960 to deliver water to Kern County farmers, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and, through the South Bay Aqueduct, the South Bay water agencies (Zone 7, Alameda County Water District and Santa Clara Valley Water District.)

SCVWD's costs for being the only water agency contracting with both the SWP and CVP is currently about $40 million per year. The estimated cost for the the BDCP facilities is estimated to be $580/ac-ft on top of our existing costs. Our contractual entitlements total 250,000 ac-ft of of the 6 million ac-ft of total export contracts, or about 4% of the total. The District currently estimates wholesale water rates in the North County to rise from $680/ac-ft to $1344/ac-ft in ten years.

As the title of this post suggests, the additional cost to keep the Delta pumps and their butterfly valves operating will be a very long way from free.

A Meandering Demo(n)-stration on Coyote Creek

On Monday, June 1, the Santa Clara Valley Water District held a "Open House" in the Olinder School Cafeteria to discuss their flood control options with the surrounding neighborhoods. About 100 people showed up over a four-hour period to be given docent-guided explanations of the dozens of wall maps, charts and graphs depicting the 10 or so options that had so far been considered by the engineering staff of the Water District.


Many folks showed up to voice their protest about any plans that included removing homes from the creek banks or putting levees around the park to enhance its function as a flood detention basin. In a separate post, I describe why William Street Park and much of the Coyote Creek park chain was developed for the dual purposes of flood detention and recreation.


Purely by coincidence, the next day, the Water District conducted what may have appeared as a demonstration of what it would look like to remove a house along the creek. The pics and video below was taken by me on Tuesday. What you see is the pile of sticks which used to be the Jaffe home on the 300 block of South 17th Street in downtown San Jose on the west bank of Coyote Creek.











The story of why this home was demolished began a few weeks after the January 25, 1997 flood on the Coyote Creek. After the flood stage had passed, the Water District began releasing water from Andersen Reservoir, located 20 miles upstream, for the next six weeks or so. Once they reached the elevation of their "rule curve" someone ordered the valve closed at the dam and the water level in the creek downtown dropped 2-3 feet almost instantaneously. Without the water column as a buttress, the saturated banks did what gravity demands and began flowing out into the river and everything above it collapsed.

Another home next to and south of the Jaffe's completely tipped dangerously toward the river, and was soon red tagged and eventually demolished also. There was also some bank failure in the back yard of the home north of the Jaffe home as well. The slippage of the bank unfortunately occurred in the middle of the Jaffe home, so part of the house remained habitable for the time being.

Law suits were, of course, filed against both the District and the City. The District used the immediate defense that the sewer in front of these homes was damaged and leaking and was therefore the cause of the bank failure, not the operation of the reservoir. After I was deposed by the attorney for the home owners, the water District's attorney was not too happy that I supported the theory that the bank slipped due to "draw down failure." In response, they shopped around for someone to write them a report refuting this theory and found a Stanford professor that would back them up, for a considerable fee, of course.

The District won the case but never felt too good about it, apparently, for in about 2006, the District offered to buy the Jaffe's home and remove it, as they have now done. This bring the total to five lots on the west bank of Coyote Creek now restored by the Water District to undeveloped parcels between the William Street bridge and the San Antonio Street bridge. The term used by the District (and others) for homes that back up to the creeks is called "encroachment."

Prior to 1950, before the construction of Andersen Dam, large setbacks from the creek banks were the rule, and streets such as Arroyo Way and Brookwood Drive did not exist, in respect for the need for such setbacks. The City General Plan today includes a 100 ft. setback for new subdivisions, but is seldom enforced, especially if the developer claims they will lose many buildable lots that the City should buy in order to "create" the setback.

The District, for years, has been encouraging Cities and the County to not create subdivisions that allowed homes to back up against the creek banks. Streets were encouraged or at least tolerated, even when floodable, as the District could use these paved surfaces for maintenance, while building homes that backed up to the creeks blocked access and created a continuous source of complaints and often litigation.

In 2000, the voters approved a parcel tax by over a two-thirds margin to fund the "Clean,Safe Creeks and Natural Flood Protection Program." This would generate funds for a period of 15 years to begin several flood control projects throughout the County. One of these projects is the Mid-Coyote Creek planning study, which began near the end of 2007 and has progressed to the state which was on display at the Olinder Cafeteria on Monday.

Yesterday, our District 3 Council member, Sam Liccardo, notified the neighborhoods that a task force would be appointed from all the neighborhoods surrounding the mid-Coyote Creek, between East Hedding St. upstream to Hwy. 280. Over the course of the next year, alternatives will be evaluated and recommended for consideration by the District. Congress member Zoe Lofgren also sent a letter to the neighbors that stated that no project would move forward without her endorsement and that of the neighborhood.

Tomorrow, the Water District will conduct a bus tour for those that signed up on the Monday or Wednesday "open house." The tour will start at Andersen Dam and move downstream, following the virtual flood wave through the reservoir and the creek channel below, heading eventually to South San Francisco Bay. This will hopefully help some of the neighbors visualize the daunting task upon the Water District staff to route a flood wave up to 17,000 cubic feet per second through this highly developed metropolis. It will also be a great opportunity to compare the benefits of flood detention to the less popular and more expensive alternatives of channelization.

But even if most of the flooding can be prevented using the existing reservoirs and other detention facilities like Laguna Seca in Coyote Valley and Lake Cunningham next to Eastridge, the meandering of the river bed through downtown neighborhoods will continue to claim homes built adjacent to Coyote Creek and, in time, we will see a repeat of yesterday's demolition and the demonstration of the forces of the earth, constantly at work in this naturally meandering stream bed.

Leave Only Hand Prints

Hikers into wilderness areas know well the golden rule "Leave only footprints" as they pack in and out all sorts of packaged food and camping gear which they have deemed necessities for their sojourn. But here in the city, we hardly think twice, or even once, about the trail of human-made excretia that we leave behind us as we conduct our daily lives in crowded urban conditions.

But as this city gets more crowded, a wonderful thing also happens. Our deep earth-born spirit needs to reconnect with the natural and many folks are finding their way back to nature right here in Silicon Valley, without having to leave on a remote hiking trip into the Sierra Nevada mountains or beyond. While we have paved over nearly 400 square miles of this fertile valley's top soil, we fortunately have not paved over all the local creeks and rivers flowing to South San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay.



It is in these natural creeks that we can observe the cycles of carbon and water in full operation. We see aquatic organisms, from the microscopic to the avian and terrestial critters that live among us in these verdant strips teeming with life. And we also see the hand of humans, sometime in complete conflict or disregard for those living systems, which did not evolve with these human interferences in their habitat.

We build bridges over rivers, of course. Concrete abutments displace creek bank areas which then preclude tree growth and the reduces water shading of a continuous canopy. We build diversion structures to remove flow from the rivers for flood control or water supply. The most drastic thing that we do to creeks, however, is connect storm drain from streets, highways, and parking lots, allowing unfiltered and rapidly drained rain runoff to be discharged directly into our local creeks, rivers and bays.

Urban storm water runoff is a stew,laced with droppings from our cars and our homes, our commerce and even our farming operations. Fuels, hydraulic fluids, fertilizers and pesticides, fine copper dust from our brake pads, and mercury from mine tailings left in upper Almaden Valley 150 years ago are all sources of pollution that finds its way into our local creeks. Most of this takes a water chemist to identify, and, with local monitoring programs being funded, we are more aware of how serious this kind of pollution is impacting the sustainability of the ecosystems of our local waterways.

But the pollution of the local creeks that is most evident to Joe and Jane Citizen is TRASH. As local residents flock more and more to creekside trails and parks, they become quickly disgusted when they see trash on otherwise beautiful creek banks and water surfaces. Neighborhood organizations, hiking and bicycle clubs and schools are adopting a much more proactive stand in fighting back against the endless flow of trash that is reaching our creeks.

Last week, my Naglee Park neighbors started to mobilize to remove a trash raft in the vicinity of the East San Antonio Street bridge, and began to warm up with picking up trash in Williams Street Park over the weekend. I volunteered to pick up trash on the east bank of Coyote Creek, up and down stream of the William Street.

With rain in the forecast and Water District trucks already dispatched to pick up our haul on Monday, I got a jump on the trash picking on Friday. I started at my home and began scouting below the eucalyptus grove opposite the Water District's Outdoor Classroom, located off Williams Street, just down stream of the William St. bridge.

About 100 feet upstream of my lot line, I found a private garbage dump for the tenants of the duplexes south of my home on Brookwood Drive. My son and I loaded about a half ton of trash into my pickup truck and bagged another half ton and piled it back on the other side of the fence, which so conveniently block these tenants view of their trash pile.

I then contacted the owner by phone and suggested that the solid wooden picket fence be replaced with chain link so that the trash won't seem to just "go away" when someone throws it over the fence. I also called the property manager and asked for some help in hauling this mess to the scheduled pick up location at the William St. bridge abutment, but no one ever showed up, but we proceeded anyway.

This morning, in a light drizzle, I drove my pickup truck to the bridge and unloaded my first load near the north side of the east bridge abutment. My neighbor, Sergio and I also carried five heavy bags across the bridge that were collected along the west bank by Sarabelle Hitchner and Sharon Knopf on Saturday morning. Then the Water District crew showed up and we went into high gear, loading first the remaining mess which, on Friday, Nick & I had pulled through the fence behind the two duplexes just south of my home, and then returned to load all the pile stacked near the William Street bridge. I would guess this entire load weighed one to one and a half tons, and will add to the incredible statistic of the tons of trash removed each year by the Water District crews and volunteer trash warriors.

I was happy to see a sign a sign on the truck designating it as assigned to the Coyote Watershed, the largest watershed in the county, at 320 square miles, with over 100 sq.mi. of paved urbanscape below the Andersen Dam near Morgan Hill.







Paul and Dennis are two Water District employees
who don't have trouble sleeping at night, as they spend their days doing real work, loading their Sterling Compactor with tons of trash removed day after day from creeks throughout Santa Clara County.





The pictures in this blog post were taken by my wife, Cari, and the one at the end is a hand print left by one of the Brookwood kids that have grown up in this wonderful neighborhood. I thank her for helping to document some of my most satisfying water-related action in which I have participated during the last four decades of living near Coyote Creek in downtown San Jose. I am also very encouraged by the neighborhoods response to the call for more attention and mitigation of the creek trash problem.

Blessings & thank you Creek Trash Warriors. The ducks and their colleagues living in the creek appreciate your efforts.

Fear of FEMA, Revisited

FEMA certainly became a four-letter word during the response to the flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Since Dubya and his cronies were so focused on war profiteering and oil security, the greatly neglected and negated domestic federal programs became too obvious when FEMA flubbed and frustrated all humanitarian efforts to rescue and resuscitate the poor people of the sunken city of New Orleans.

But FEMA was a four-letter word in Silicon Valley as far back as 1983. And the cussing was coming mostly from the City of San Jose officials who suddenly found themselves as defendants in a law suit following the flooding of the Town of Alviso after it was filled with ten feet of water when the Coyote overflowed its banks behind Agnew State Hospital.

The flooding victims in Alviso filed claims and eventually a law suit asking for $300 million in damages for "inverse condemnation" (the taking of private property without due process/compensation.) As the City's insurance did not cover this cause of action, a great amount of effort went into the City's defense against these claims. However, once FEMA realized that the Alviso plaintiffs had an excellent case against the City for causation of the 1983 flood, FEMA decided to subrogate all its claims and emergency costs expended due to the flood and joined in the lawsuit against the City.

The causation was tied to a letter sent to the Water District in 1971 by San Jose's Public Works Director, Tony Turturicci, refusing to create an adequate set back from the banks of the Coyote Creek while constructing the 12-foot levees of the sludge drying beds and lagoons for the Water Pollution Control Plant. By constructing the levees directly adjacent to the low flow channel of Coyote Creek and opposite the old Milpitas sewage treatment plant, the outflow capacity of the creek to the Bay was reduced to about 1500 cubic feet per second (CFS). The 1% flood was calculated at the time at about 15,000 CFS. Any flows greater than 1500 CFS would back up in the river, raising the flood tide and dumping the excess overland to flow directly into Alviso.

On April 1, 1983 a late season storm fell over the Coyote Watershed and caused the Andersen Reservoir to spill about 5500 CFS, dumping into the lower Coyote Creek. Within 24 hours, 8,000 acre-feet of water was sitting in the town of Alviso, flowing in from the west bank of the river behind Agnew State Hospital at a rate of about 4000 CFS. This volume of water was almost half of the storage capacity of Lexington Reservoir and exceeded the capacity of most of the Water District's upstream water conservation facilities. These numbers probably gave the plaintiff's attorneys the idea to file an inverse condemnation suit, as the Town of Alviso was now serving as a large reservoir of "fresh" water, separated from the Bay only by the salt pond levees adjacent to Alviso.

The lawsuit was finally settled for $13 million, with FEMA taking $3 million from the pot to refund their expended emergency costs and the flood insurance claims it had paid to any victims that actually had flood insurance.

The notion of FEMA subrogating its costs against a City, whose residents had purchased flood insurance, seemed like bad faith on the part of this federalized insurance company. I contacted Don Edwards, our Congressional representative, and asked him to investigate if this was allowable under the Flood Insurance Act passed by Congress. His investigation revealed that Congress had, in fact, directed FEMA to operate this federal flood insurance program in the same manner as private insurance, by minimizing costs and recovery of claims through subrogation when appropriate.

Today, FEMA holds flood insurance policies on thousands of properties throughout Santa Clara/Silicon Valley, where homes and businesses have been constructed in flood plains and bypass channels of our local streams and rivers. Some of those properties are homes adjacent to Coyote Creek in downtown San Jose. The flows through the reach of Mid-Coyote, as the Water District classifies it, have already been augmented by up to 2,000 CFS by a 1974 diversion of seven square miles of the Upper Silver Creek watershed into the Coyote Creek, eight miles upstream of its natural confluence, which is opposite Watson Park near Empire Street.

A few year ago, the Santa Clara Valley Water District designed a flood "protection" project for the Mid-Coyote that would block flood waters from exiting into its natural bypass channels in order to protect homes that have been built there with the blessings of the City of San Jose, FEMA, and the deadly silence of the Water District. One of the benefits listed by the project team is the alleviation of the homeowners located in the bypass channels from having to continue to pay flood insurance premiums, once the bypass channels have been blocked by levees.

While protecting these homes from flooding, the flood water that is prevented from flowing into its natural bypass channels will add another 2000 CFS of water to the main channel of the creek, greatly increasing the velocity and bank erosion of the roaring river at flood stage. Many large eucalyptus trees and other large riparian trees can be expected to fall and form dams at the bridges, and possibly take homes right off the bank, such as those built on the banks downstream of William Street.It seems that a 35-year old flood diversion channel, built then to protect a new cash register for the City of San Jose called Eastridge, coupled with a flood channelization project that forces even more water into the main channel of the river, in order to protect other homes somewhat remote from the river, is a pretty good case for inverse condemnation of the adjacent creek-side homeowners. Surely these properties will be damaged to a much greater degree when the extra 4000 CFS flows though the main channel of the river, instead of down their natural courses of the Silver Creek to its confluence with Coyote Creek.

The question I raise at this point is this: Should the City of San Jose again fear FEMA and their subrogation lawyers when the next flood occurs in San Jose, and claims are paid by FEMA on homes damaged by the flood that will someday pass through the mid-Coyote?

Grey Water For Green Spaces

A few months ago, I received an email from a woman representing the Grey Water Guerrillas trying to organize people to campaign for local ordinances friendly to the concept of grey water reuse at businesses and residences.

My response to her was not too optimistic about getting local or State Health Departments to ever get less cautious about grey water reuse. Remember, a bureaucrat's first job is always CYA, so don't think that a professional health guardian will ever do less to prevent you from spreading disease, even during a serious drought.

Another proponent is taking hope in an actual greywater system that was permitted by the City & People's Republic of Berkeley. His comments can be Downloaded if your curiosity and quest for knowledge care to read Download2 even more.

When a recent call went out by a regional waste(d)water group to speak at a seminar on greywater, no one from the public sector or the many consultant engineers wanted to be a speaker. The only written flyer the organizers could supply was from Australia:

Manual Bucketing & Temporary
Diversion of Greywater

Greywater is wastewater generated from bathrooms (showers, baths, spas,
and hand basins), laundries (washing machines, troughs) and kitchens (sinks
and dishwashers). However, kitchen water can contain food particles, grease,
oils and fats and its use is not recommended (particularly without treatment).

Greywater Characteristics
The quality of greywater can be highly
variable due to factors such as number of
household occupants, their age, lifestyle,
health, water source and products used
(such as soaps, shampoos, detergents).
Greywater may contain:
• Disease causing organisms (bacteria,
viruses, protozoa) from nappies and
other soiled clothing.
• Chemicals from soaps, shampoos,
dyes, mouthwash, toothpaste,
detergents, bleaches, disinfectants and
other products (such as boron,
phosphorus, sodium, ammonia and
other nitrogen based compounds).
• Dirt, lint, food, hair, body cells and fats,
and traces of faeces, urine, and blood.
Risks presented by these contaminants
can be reduced by good management
practices and by sensible use.
Manual Bucketing & Temporary
Diversion
Manual bucketing onto lawn and garden
areas using water from the bathroom or
laundry, or temporary use of a hose
manually fitted to the washing machine
outlet hose, is permitted subject to the
following advice:
• Don’t use greywater from washing
clothes soiled by faeces or vomit, for
example, nappies.
• Don’t store untreated greywater for
more than 24 hours, as bacteria and
organic contaminants in greywater will
cause it to turn septic and produce
strong and offensive odours.
• Don’t use greywater if others in the
household have diarrhoea or an
infectious disease, as this could
increase the risk of other people
becoming ill.
• Don’t use greywater to irrigate fruit,
vegetables, or areas where fruit can fall
to the ground and be eaten.
• Avoid splashing of greywater and wash
your hands before eating or drinking or
smoking.
• Keep children away from areas watered
with greywater until it has soaked into
the ground.
Chemical contaminants: detergents,
cleaners and other chemicals
• Environmentally friendly shampoos,
detergents and cleaning products
should be used to protect soil and
plants watered with grey water.
Products containing low levels of boron,
phosphorus and salt should be used.
Boron can be toxic to plants, some
native plants are sensitive to
phosphorous while sodium and other
salts can damage soil structure.
• Washing machine rinse water has lower
concentrations of detergents compared
to wash water. If wash water is used it
should be diluted with rinse water.
• Bleaches and disinfectants can kill
beneficial soil organisms and damage
plants. Avoid using greywater
containing harsh chemicals or bleaches,
or after washing out hair dye or paint
products.
• A useful website that contains
information on laundry products is
http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au.
Sensible use
• The irrigation setback distances from
swimming pools, bores, dams,
watercourses (inc. River Murray),
buildings and boundaries must be met.
See Section 5 of the Standard for the
Construction, Installation and Operation
of Septic Tank Systems in South
Australia (Supplement B)

• Greywater tends to be slightly alkaline
and this can be harmful to acid loving
plants such as azaleas and camellias.
• Rotate greywater irrigation using mains
(drinking) or rain water, especially in
areas of low rainfall. This will help to
flush salts from the soil.
• Water several locations. This will
prevent salts and other contaminants
accumulating in the soil.
• Prevent pooling and runoff of greywater
onto other properties, into watercourses
and the stormwater system. Pooled
greywater can turn septic and produce
offensive odours.
• Don’t over-water your plants –
greywater shouldn’t be used to irrigate
more than you would with other sources
of water. Plants are susceptible to
waterlogged soil.
• Monitor areas and plants irrigated with
greywater. If there is visual evidence of
damage you may need to modify
watering practices, try a different or
bigger irrigation area, or reduce the
amount of water used.
Soils in many parts of Adelaide have a
high clay content. Clay soils tend to be
more susceptible to build up of salts and
have low permeability. Extra care should
be taken when using greywater in areas of
clay soils to avoid long term damage.
Permanent Greywater Systems
Permanent greywater systems such as
diversion devices or treatment systems, or
any device attached to plumbing, can
increase the use of greywater. However
due to potential risks associated with grey
water, permanent devices require
installation approval from your Council or
the Department of Health.
Information on permanent greywater
systems can be obtained from our
Alternative Onsite Wastewater Systems

Contact
Wastewater Management Section
Public Health
SA Health

1st floor
Citi Centre Building
11 Hindmarsh Square
Adelaide SA 5000

PO Box 6, Rundle Mall
Adelaide SA 5000

Tel 08 8226 7100
Fax 08 8226 7102

ABN 97 643 356 590

Email: public.health@health.sa.gov.au
Web: www.health.sa.gov.au/pehs/environ-
health-index.htm

© Department of Health, Government of South
Australia.
All rights reserved.

Last revised August 2008

But the real folks leading the local charge on grey water are those that actually do it and tell others about their experience. My neighbors Angelica & Sergio recently put the following in our weekly CSA e-mail:

Heard about California's water crisis? For so long we have been letting go of precious (grey) water down our home drains. Our own MANO member Pat Ferraro, former water district board director for Santa Clara Valley taught us the simple thing of saving our bath water to flush the toilet, rather than using 5-6 gallons of clean water every time we flush. Read more about water concerns at Pat's great blog http://neverthirstpatferraro.blogspot.com . As of last weekend we became true guerrillas, as we disconnected our sewer pipes in the bathroom and kitchen sinks to hold on to that water, and the washing machine too. It has made a great difference in the garden and compost piles. Read on about greywater.

What is grey water?

Greywater is water that flows down sink, shower, and washing machine drains--but not the toilet. Greywater may contain traces of dirt, food, grease, hair, and household cleaning products. While greywater may look “dirty,” it is a safe and even beneficial source of irrigation water. If released into rivers, lakes, or estuaries, the nutrients in greywater (mainly phosphate from detergent) become pollutants, but to garden plants, they are valuable fertilizer. Aside from the obvious benefits of saving water (and money on your water bill), reusing your greywater keeps it out of the sewer or septic system, thereby reducing the chance that it will pollute local water bodies Reusing greywater for irrigation reconnects urban residents and our backyard gardens to the natural water cycle.

You probably won't hear much from any public agency like San Jose or the Water District encouraging grey water reuse, because of their concern over crossing the health officials they deal with on many other issues. This is unfortunate for the people running water efficiency programs at either agency, for grey water use reduces both water demand and wastewater flow to the South Bay.

San Jose has a State-mandated flow cap on their waste(d)water discharge into the South Bay during summer months. This restriction is in place to keep salt marsh habitat from changing to fresh water marsh due to the large volume of low salinity water coming from the water pollution control plant. And when that habitat is home to two endangered species, San Jose is required to do whatever it takes to comply with the State's order.

Until this State mandate, all the engineering and economic studies that had been funded to examine the feasibility of water recycling were never able to get a positive political response from local decision makers at either San Jose or the Water District. It took a federal law, the Endangered Species Act, to move past the culture of built-in bias against water recycling at the Water District. And as long as San Jose could continue to get all the water it needed for continued growth, the City had no concern of their own about the ever increasing flow of waste(d)water to the Bay, except to make the plant capacity bigger and meet the standard discharge requirements.

All that changed when the State of California issued the order to cap the summer discharge from the San Jose-Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant at 120 million gallons per day (mgd). Today, San Jose has built 108 miles of purple pipe and pump stations which today delivers 10-15 million gallons per day of non-potable reclaimed water through a program called South Bay Water Recycling, managed by my friend and neighbor, Eric Rosenblum.

Much of this water is used for irrigating green spaces, parks, athletic fields, school grounds, common areas and parkway landscaping on major thoroughfares. All this irrigation is also highly regulated by the State Health department, with a continuously cautious eye from the local health department and potablewater purveyors. The latest use of this water will be to irrigate the new community gardens at Guadalupe Parks and Gardens near the corner of Coleman Aveue and Taylor Street. Click here for flyer information.

I wanted to be among the first users of recycled water in California at one of San Jose's community gardens, so I signed up for a plot. Last week I was notified that I would have to attend two trainings as a requirement of the State Health Department for participation as a gardener using recycled water.

The first two-hour session included an introduction to recycled water and the benefits and safeguards involved with using the recycled water to grow food and flowers in our plots. After being told that a specially designed $80 "key" made of brass pipe and a standard hose bib faucet (which had to remain onsite) would be our personal responsibility, a lengthy discussion ensued concerning the security of the garden facility at night, with strong warnings especially from other gardeners who had prior experience with failed security at other community gardens centers.

This was much better than hearing concern for the safety of the water for growing food. During introductions, I mentioned that I had used water from Coyote Creek to irrigate my home gardens for 20 years. I expressed my own concern for some of the constituents of the creek water that I used may have contained chemicals that I would probably not want in my drinking water, but that the plants responded very well to a water supply that contained some plant nutrients and did not have any chlorine, which tends to inhibit growth of living things in the soil and the plants themselves.

Next week we will get assigned our plots and soon we should all be tending our 16x20 plots and growing beautiful plants for both food and flowers. Hopefully this pilot will lead to more green spaces in our urban core, as we evolve our culture to appreciate the wisdom of reusing water, whether it's greywater in our home or recycled water in the community derived from our highly treated municipal waste(d)water supply which also came from our homes and businesses.

Click here to view an award winning PBS-style video on water recycling in California called
Water in an Endless Loop