Rationing proposal may pit super savers vs. wasters

2:00 a.m. February 7, 2009

In drafting their newest proposal to cope with drought, San Diego's leaders said they favor empowerment over enforcement.

The emerging plan minimizes efforts to police people's behavior, such as restricting days for lawn watering, and instead allocates water to customers based on their usage in 2006 and 2007.

Residents and businesses would use their monthly “budget” as they see fit. If they go over the cap, they would get hit with fees up to five times the regular cost of water.

But critics said the approach masks a fundamental problem: Neighbors could have radically different allotments, and people who already conserve would be forced to save the same percentage of water as those who haven't bothered to cut back.

The public will be able to review the proposal at three community forums next week. The likely debate reflects how difficult it can be for agencies statewide to craft equitable plans for addressing the worst water shortage since the early 1990s.

“People are going to yell and scream. Everybody who has been responsible is going to get hurt, and everyone who has been inattentive will proportionally benefit,” Lou Kaplan, a retiree in Carmel Valley, said after hearing the plan yesterday.

Kaplan said he and his wife have lowered their water use in recent months by reducing irrigation and watching every drop they use indoors.

“A big discussion we had is, 'Should we increase (water use) so that when they have to cut you back, your allocation would be more than livable?' ” he asked. “We said, 'No, that is not who we are.' ”

Kaplan wants allocations to be based on norms for per-capita water use so that he and other super savers get credits for their cuts.

City officials including Mayor Jerry Sanders said that they can't please everyone and that each strategy for mandatory conservation has drawbacks.

The current blueprint is less heavy-handed than banning an array of activities, which is hard to enforce and requires a great deal of staff time to address complaints, said Alex Ruiz, a deputy director for San Diego's water department. The city does plan to keep year-round prohibitions on highly wasteful practices, such as washing sidewalks with an ordinary hose.

“We believe that going down the allocation route . . . best preserves our water supply and is fairest with regards to individual customers,” Ruiz said.

Ruiz is seeking ways to improve the concept. “There might be a fatal flaw,” he said. “We are looking for answers just like everyone else.”

In 2008, residents and nonfarm businesses voluntarily trimmed water consumption by about 5 percent countywide.

Now, San Diego and other water agencies in the region fear that wholesale suppliers will soon cut water deliveries by 20 percent. A recent report by the Metropolitan Water District, which sells water across Southern California, pegs the chance of mandatory cuts at 75 percent. The district's decision is expected in April, with implementation set for July 1.

To step up conservation, some agencies are adopting steeply inclining water rates while others have developed wide-ranging restrictions on water use.

“There are many different ways (to) approach this huge problem that we have here in California,” said Marsha Prillwitz, a water consultant in Sacramento.

When choosing strategies, water officials consider variables such as the number of customers they serve, the amount of agricultural or industrial water use and how well specific conservation measures have worked in the past. The key to making a program succeed is convincing the public that it's even-handed, Prillwitz said.

“If people feel it's for the general good and those reservoirs really are empty this year, they are more willing be good citizens and make the changes that are necessary,” she said.

For water districts proposing property-by-property allocations, the tricky part is doing it fairly.

San Diego can estimate people's indoor and outdoor water consumption by analyzing their sewage records. City officials plan to base water allotments on two components: a modest reduction in indoor use – to not jeopardize health and safety – and a larger reduction outdoors, where water use is mostly discretionary and waste is common.

Hypothetically, the city could settle on lowering water use by 10 percent indoors and 50 percent outdoors. Specific numbers won't be announced until March, when the Mayor's Office starts seeking City Council approval for water rationing.

It's not clear whether single-family homes, multifamily complexes and businesses would face identical conservation goals. But within each customer category, the same reduction percentages would apply to both low-and high-volume users.

For instance, residents who barely irrigate their drought-resistant gardens would have to lower their usage by the same percentage as those who use a lot of water to irrigate tropical landscapes.

When expressed in terms of volume, owners of the tropical yards would face greater reductions in the amount of water they could tap but still end up with a bigger allotment than the residents with rocks and cactuses.

San Diego's proposal doesn't sit well with consumer activist Michael Shames.

“The city should be targeting the 'wasters' and getting them to tighten their belts,” said Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego.

He proposes a “savers” rate that “rewards people who don't use much on a per-capita basis and makes those who do use more water pay for that privilege.”

Likewise, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure that the city is fair to companies that have been conserving. Its president, Ruben Barrales, said the new proposal needs work but is headed in the right direction.

“The fact that they have asked for input and are taking it is a good sign,” he said. “It's tough on everybody to figure out a good allocation that is fair to all parties.”

Ruiz of the water department said he rejected pricing as the primary conservation tool because the models he reviewed showed that San Diego would have to double the price of water to achieve a 20 percent reduction in consumption. He called that “a tremendous burden for our customers.”

In Santee, the Padre Dam Municipal Water District plans to use higher rates to reach a similar conservation benchmark. It is basing its prices on water allotments developed for several parcel sizes.

Proposed rate increases range from 1 percent for the most frugal users to 600 percent for the most liberal customers under the most extreme conditions, such as a 50 percent shortfall in water supply, agency spokesman Mike Uhrhammer said.

“We are just trying to move large users toward average water use. We think that is a fair approach,” he said. “The last thing we wanted to do is penalize people who have been conserving for the past 20 years.”

Staff writer Michael Gardner contributed to this report.

Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee@uniontrib.com  

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