Since November, Bill Stephens and his fellow water cops have issued more than 450 warnings and tickets to water wasters in Riverside County. They've targeted commercial, industrial and institutional customers in the Eastern Municipal Water District from Moreno Valley to Temecula.
HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
Bill Stephens, a conservation specialist with the Eastern Municipal Water District, took pictures of runoff last month at a shopping center in Hemet. The agency sends warnings to the responsible parties.
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This month, Stephens started to cite residents for excessively using water. After two warnings, homeowners will be fined $100 or more.
“You see a lot of waste. You just see it everywhere,” Stephens said.
He mainly writes citations when water is streaming off landscaped areas or sprinklers are spraying onto pavement.
Water cops are the way Eastern, California's fifth-largest water district, is emphasizing the statewide drought. There are few equivalent programs in San Diego County, where officials are relying almost entirely on voluntary conservation despite some calls for mandates.
One exception is the Padre Dam Municipal Water District in Santee, whose employees recently were deputized to report water misuse, including irrigating between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Violators are sent a warning, and repeat problems can result in fines of $75 or more.
“It's time to get serious,” said Mike Uhrhammer, spokesman for the Padre Dam district.
The odds are increasing that similar restrictions and enforcement measures will become the norm throughout California next year. Water levels of major Northern California reservoirs that also supply Southern California are dropping dangerously low: the Folsom, Shasta and Oroville lakes are one-third full. Last winter's snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada were meager and there wasn't much rainfall.
Next year “could be the worst drought in California history,” Lester Snow, the state's water chief, said at a recent hearing in Fresno.
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UCAN'S PROPOSALS
The Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego has these recommendations for instituting better water-conservation practices in the county.
 Ban new lawns and charge higher rates for customers with lawns larger than a certain size. The money would be used to promote drought-tolerant landscaping.
Require that swimming pools be covered when not in use.
Open specialized stores around the region to sell subsidized water-saving appliances and gadgets.
Create a “water waster” academy, patterned after traffic schools, for formal conservation training.
Start a door-to-door program in which volunteer “water angels” spread information about water conservation while looking for water wasters.
Online: For ways to save about 20 gallons of water per day, go to the San Diego County Water Authority's Web site at 20gallonchallenge.com.
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The actions of a few aggressive water agencies provide a glimpse of what 2009 and beyond likely holds for residents in San Diego County. They have raised rates for those who exceed allowances, threatened repeat offenders with flow restrictors and banned outdoor watering on certain days, according to a survey by the Association of California Water Agencies.
Sacramento-area districts have tried several tactics. One has adopted an odd-even daily outdoor watering schedule, another shuts off deliveries to farmers and ranchers three days a week and a third adds a surcharge to the bills of customers who haven't met its conservation standard.
As of Friday, homeowners and businesses in Folsom, along the American River, are allowed to irrigate landscaping only on specified days and never between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.
In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently signed an ordinance that doubles fines and prohibits watering lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
“We are stating unequivocally to all residents that anyone wasting our most precious resource will pay the price,” Villaraigosa said.
First-time violators in Los Angeles will receive a warning, and repeat offenders will be fined $100 – twice the previous penalty. The fine for businesses will climb to $200, up from $50.
HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
Conservation specialist Bill Stephens placed an irrigation marker at the source of a runoff problem last month in a housing development in Hemet.
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“Communities throughout Southern California must implement mandatory restrictions on the most wasteful outdoor uses of water and those restrictions need to be made permanent,” said Bill Townsend, president of the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners.
Long Beach adopted regulations in September 2007 that limit outdoor watering to Monday, Thursday and Saturday and only for a specified time on each of those days. The city also encourages customers to anonymously report wasters online. Such tips have generated 3,000 letters of warning to alleged wasters, but the Water Department hasn't resorted to fines.
“Our board wanted to make wasting water as socially unacceptable as lighting up a cigarette in a crowded room,” said Ryan Alsop, spokesman for Long Beach's water agency.
Alsop said Long Beach has recorded some of its lowest water use in a decade during seven of the past 11 months.
In San Diego County, only farmers have been subject to mandatory water cutbacks of 30 percent so far. They registered a 48 percent decline in use in the first seven months of 2008 compared with the same time last year. In contrast, voluntary conservation efforts by homeowners and industrial users have netted a 6 percent reduction year over year, well below the target of about 10 percent.
The independent San Diego-based Utility Consumers' Action Network says that is not enough.
“We are still in a state of denial. I think that most of the residents of San Diego and the policymakers think that we live in Michigan,” said Michael Shames, executive director of UCAN.
Shames recently issued a study that compared local conservation efforts with programs worldwide.
“I was really, really surprised at how timid and how uninspiring and modest our efforts have been,” he said.
His recommendations include prohibiting new or expanded lawns, forcing developers to offset new water use, changing prices to more heavily favor conservation and starting a door-to-door public education campaign.
“The most effective approach will be a combination of both restrictions and pricing, along with greater community involvement,” said the UCAN report.
Some water officials and local leaders such as Bruce Reznik, executive director of the environmental group San Diego Coastkeeper, have said the region needs to take stronger measures. San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre repeatedly has called for the city to force reductions in water consumption.
Decision-makers in the San Diego region have rejected mandates for several reasons. Those include the potential for economic disruption, public animosity and logistical challenges created by enforcing mandates.
They also point out that Metropolitan Water District, Southern California's main wholesale water supplier, hasn't said whether it will reduce deliveries next year.
“We don't want to get too far ahead to where we are overreacting,” said Dana Friehauf at the San Diego County Water Authority. The authority supplies water to 24 member agencies, who serve almost all of the county's residents.
Friehauf said the county's “thoughtful, planned approach” means giving the current voluntary conservation program and a countywide advertising campaign more time to work.
Behind the scenes, area water managers are preparing for the worst. Most districts are creating special drought pricing rates that, like power bills, will charge customers much more for greater use. Many also are preparing to stop allowing connections for new development.
The San Diego Water Department recently began publicizing its water-waster hotline, which has existed for several years.
In late July, Mayor Jerry Sanders issued a Stage 1 drought declaration. Among other things, it means that water wasters could eventually be fined.
“We're developing a protocol for how this would work,” said Kurt Kidman, a spokesman for the Water Department.
Kathy Wall of Scripps Ranch said she has adopted several conservation measures, including telling her children to take short showers. Wall said she dreads the prospect of mandates and water cops.
“I just feel saddened that voluntary solutions haven't worked,” Wall said. “I don't want to police my neighbors. I really don't want any part of it.”
Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee@uniontrib.com
