Water conservation by the 19,121 customers in the Laguna Beach County Water District remains short of a state-mandated 24 percent cutback, according to statistics released Tuesday, Jan. 5.
Cumulatively, consumption in the district that covers most of Laguna Beach has dropped 22 percent since June, but savings in November alone only dropped 17 percent compared to 2013 levels, Assistant General Manager Christopher J. Regan said.
| Statewide, Californians have reduced water use by 26.3 percent in the six months since emergency conservation regulations took effect in June, continuing to meet Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s 25 percent mandate though the water-savings rate for the last two months declined.
In November, when outdoor water use dramatically drops, the statewide conservation rate was 20.3 percent, down from 22.3 percent in October. In contrast, average statewide water use declined from 87 gallons per person per day in October to 75 in November – the lowest observed since the Water Board’s emergency regulation went into effect. |
In Laguna, since Dec. 1 water district officials have urged customers to take the “Irrigation Challenge” and shut off their sprinklers entirely for winter months. “It’s a no-brainer; look out the window,” Regan said Tuesday, when a downpour drenched Southern California and doused Laguna with 1.1 inches of rain.
For Bill Sharp, the challenge was easy to accept. For the past three years, he’s turned off irrigation between October and May on his corner lot on Bluebird Canyon Road, whose backyard got a lot larger after a 1978 landslide. Instead of a yard that sloped to the canyon bottom, his yard was filled in to buttress the hillside. Much of the yard is planted with grass. Though it gets brown in cold winters, the grass generally stays green because its fertilized every month, said Sharp, who still handwaters some plant from a five-gallon bucket.
So far 50 customers took up the district’s challenge and a yard sign to serve as a model to their neighbors, said Regan, noting that since water usage declines in winter anyway, eking out more conservation likely must come from scrimping on indoor use.
“Take shorter showers,” urged Regan, also offering customers free low-flow shower heads.
He hopes convincing more customers to discontinue outdoor watering will boost the district’s monthly conservation rate to 20 percent in December and January.
“The message gets lost when it’s pouring,” he conceded. “But we’re still a couple years away from recovery from this drought.”
Customers in the South Coast Water District, which serves South Laguna and neighboring cities, cumulatively are using 29.2 percent less water, exceeding the mandated cutback by 5.2 percent, the Water Resources Board figures show.
Storms this week won’t dry up conservation, predicted South Coast spokeswoman Sonja Morgan, who thinks consumers that have seen depleted reservoirs and boat docks stuck in mudflats understand the severity of the state’s water shortage.
“One El Nino is not going to solve the drought,” Morgan said.
