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The East Bay Municipal Utility District’s latest list of water wasters contains a couple of clusters of homes in upscale East Bay neighborhoods. One is Happy Valley Road in Lafayette where a handful of homes made the list of excessive water users.
Paul Kuroda/Special to The Chronicle
The famously green hills of Lafayette — as advertised in the “green hills, great schools” banners dotted throughout downtown — apparently require a lot of water. Too much, in some cases, according to East Bay water officials.
Along leafy Happy Valley Road north of Highway 24, nine houses were declared excessive water users last week by the East Bay Municipal Utility District, one of the Bay Area’s largest public water suppliers, which issued themfines and admonishments.
大约300违规者发布by the district Tuesday for surpassing a limit set by the district of an average of 1,646 gallons of water per day over the course of a billing period. After that amount, customers face a $2 penalty for each additional 748 gallons used and — perhaps worse — have their names and water use released publicly in a process that’s become known as “drought shaming.”
While the list includes customers all over the district’s territory in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, there are noticeable clusters of offenders, noticeably in the hotter, drier areas east of the Berkeley-Oakland hills — in places like Alamo, Danville, Orinda and Lafayette.
Of the 52 violators in Lafayette, nine of them live on Happy Valley Road on a roughly 4-mile stretch starting behind the Lafayette BART Station and extending into the rolling hills, according to EBMUD records.
Happy Valley Road is a two-lane road winding through a heavily wooded neighborhood with pines, maples and other deciduous trees that provide ample shade. Most of the houses along the street — valued at anywhere from $3.2 million to $8 million, according to Zillow estimates — are sprawling, but don’t appear to be opulent or ostentatious from the street.
Few Happy Valley Road residents on EBMUD’s list were willing to talk to The Chronicle. But some of those who did said they had unusual situations that explained their excessive water use — extended families in their large homes, orchards or vineyards that require extensive irrigation, particularly during a drought, or multiple homes on the same lot sharing a single water meter.
Jenny Larsen, one of the violators, said she was not surprised to learn that the family lot was identified as a site of heavy water consumption. She said most of the homes on her street sit on sprawling lots with expansive gardens or agricultural tracts, which require significant irrigation. Larsen’s property spans three and a half acres, some of it checkered with orchards that bear apple, pear and persimmon trees.
“We’ve had droughts, and we’ve had to assist these trees over the years,” she said, adding that the orchards were part of the property when they bought it about 10 years ago.
Her family maintained them through protracted dry spells, picking and eating the fruit, she said.
Her husband, Niels Larsen, said seven people live in his family’s home, including two disabled kids who require multiple caregivers — collectively using more water, electricity and other resources than the average household. The home spans two parcels, and Niels Larsen suggested that if you divide the amount of water used — 3,486 gallons a day — among the two, “I’m assuming it would be about normal usage.”
One man, who spoke to The Chronicle and gave a reporter a tour of his green and shady yard, but would not agree to be named, said he and his wife may use a lot of water to maintain her award-winning garden and their yard full of mature plants, but that they do what they can to cut their water use.
Waving his arms over a large expanse of dirt in the backyard, he said they have ripped out a patch of lawn that required watering twice a week to keep it green, and are replacing it with a different type of grass that will need to be sprinkled just once a month. A swimming pool is also covered when not in use, he said.
安德里亚·普克EBMUD发言人说,前女友cessive water fines are issued as part of a drought policy the agency adopted in April. The fines don’t take into account the number of people living on the site, the extent and nature of landscaping or the weather.
“There’s a set amount for all residential customers,” she said. “We base it on the total number of units (of water) you use during a billing period.”
The district, she said, is willing to work with those exceeding the limits to analyze their water use and recommend ways to cut back.
“There are a lot of very unique situations. It’s not a black-and-white thing,” she said, explaining that some people in smaller houses in cooler climes like Oakland, have been found to have big leaks that led to their overuse of water.
The most common causes for excessive water use, Pook said, are undetected or ignored leaks and issues with landscaping irrigation — watering too much, inefficiently or at the wrong times of day.
Whether the water restrictions — or publicly identifying those who exceed those limits — work remains to be seen. EBMUD knows that water use has fallen 14% since the restrictions were im posed — including 21% on the east side of the hills — but isn’t sure why.
“That’s a hard question to answer,” Pook said. “I think it’s almost a question better answered by our customers. What motivates them?”
Michael Cabanatuan (he/is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
