S.D. Mayor’s Water Use Soars With 2nd Meter : Drought: Corrected figures show that the O’Connor household is in the city’s top 100 of residential users.
SAN DIEGO — Mayor Maureen O’Connor and her husband, Robert O. Peterson, consumed more than twice as much water at their Point Loma home last year as city water officials and the mayor have previously acknowledged.
The mayor’s 1990 average daily water consumption was so high--3,248 gallons based on December to December bills--that it would place her and her husband among the city’s top 100 residential water users. But the accuracy of that list now may be open to question because of the kind of discrepancy that kept O’Connor’s name off it.
O’Connor released the corrected water-use figures after The Times inquired about a second water meter operating from a separate billing address at her 2-acre residence. In the past, she and the city have released water use statistics from only one of her water meters.
The revelation of O’Connor’s extensive personal water use is likely to erode her credibility as the virtual sole advocate for a voluntary conservation program for San Diego.
“It undermines her credibility, if this is the case, because it looks like (O’Connor’s personal consumption) is why she’s urging that,†said Councilman Bob Filner, the council’s leading proponent of mandatory conservation measures. “It could be attributed that way.â€
However, O’Connor’s spokesman said that the mayor’s efforts to conserve water at her home should enhance her credibility in the mandatory vs. voluntary debate.
“I think, if anything, it will increase her credibility because she has put her consumption where her mouth is,†said the spokesman, Paul Downey. “If everybody was as conscientious as she has been, we’d have no problems.â€
As recently as Friday, O’Connor vowed to appeal the San Diego County Water Authority’s unanimous vote to impose mandatory water use restrictions in an effort to achieve a 50% cutback in consumption.
Arguing that such a reduction will hurt the local economy, and pit city residents against each other, O’Connor is pressing a voluntary conservation program that she hopes will show a 30% savings during the month of March.
But her insistence on that approach to the water crisis has irritated other leaders in Southern California and around the state, where mandatory cutbacks are largely the rule. Mike Gage, president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Commissioners, has noted that San Diego, which is 95% dependent on imported water, consumes more than its allotted share of Metropolitan Water District water.
O’Connor’s water consumption statistics, released publicly at least twice during the past year, have appeared lower than they actually are because the city Water Utilities Department has counted only consumption from the water meter at the mayor’s listed address in Point Loma.
But a substantial part of the nearly 2-acre parcel that O’Connor inhabits is serviced by a second water meter, one apparently left over from more than two decades ago when Peterson, founder of the Jack In The Box restaurant chain, demolished an adjacent house and combined the two lots to build his dream home, O’Connor said.
The second meter services Peterson’s prized fish pond, the couple’s swimming pool--unused since the water crisis began, O’Connor asserted--and expanses of mature trees. That second meter accounts for more water use than the first, according to figures O’Connor supplied.
“Just remember, I have two houses here,†O’Connor said in an interview. “It’s just that the fish and the trees live at one.â€
During 1990, O’Connor’s residence consumed an average of 3,248 gallons of water daily--1,467 gallons on the section that contains her home and 1,781 on the area that is primarily landscaped, according to the mayor’s statistics. That level is more than nine times the 349 gallons consumed daily by the average single family home in San Diego.
However, that rate was down 12.8% from the 3,725 gallons per day that O’Connor averaged in 1989.
For the period from Feb. 13 to March 14 this year, O’Connor and Peterson have registered an even more substantial savings of 51.5% over the same period in 1990, according to figures Downey said were read off the meter. The cutback was achieved by an overhaul of the couple’s irrigation system and, when rains came later in the month, by turning off the sprinkler system entirely, Downey and the mayor said.
In both comparisons, O’Connor exceeded the voluntary savings goals she set for the rest of San Diego--10% in 1990 and 30% for March, 1991, Downey said. “She’s exceeded the goal she’s given to everybody else, both last year and this year,†he said.
But O’Connor’s 1990 consumption rate would have placed her on the list of the city’s top 100 residential water consumers released by the city Water Utilities Department last month at the request of The Times.
That list, generated for a water audit program that the city is preparing, showed that the city’s biggest water users consumed a daily average of between 3,171 and 10,203 gallons, and sparked considerable controversy at a time when many residents are skeptical about the equity of various water conservation programs. In general, the top 100 list showed that homes with large landscaped estates used the most water.
The list covered the year ending Jan. 31, 1991. The Times calculated O’Connor’s 1990 consumption statistics based on the billing periods from Dec. 13, 1989 to Dec. 13, 1990. At 3,248 gallons of water consumed each day, O’Connor and Peterson would qualify for 93rd on the list.
Roger Frauenfelder, deputy city manager in charge of the city’s Water Utilities Department, acknowledged that other homes serviced by two water meters could conceivably belong on the list of 100 but might not have shown up when the computer generated the list if, like O’Connor’s, the parcels have two meters listed at two different addresses. Some homes in the city are also serviced by a separate “irrigation meter.â€
“If you’ve determined that that has happened in one case, it’s conceivable that it’s happened at other addresses,†Frauenfelder said.
The mayor’s water consumption statistics have been released at least twice since last June, but the presence of a second meter and the previously unacknowledged water use came to light after The Times requested information from the Water Utilities Department March 7 about possible multiple meters at the mayor’s home.
When statistics again showed O’Connor operating her 4,665-square-foot home on a 73,616-square-foot landscaped lot on just 1,282 gallons of water daily--3.6 times the average--during the most recent billing period, The Times questioned the mayor and filed another request for information with the Water Utilities Department March 14.
That request has not yet been fulfilled, but on Friday, O’Connor provided the corrected statistics, including the second meter, from her personal records.
“I don’t think she knew there was a (second meter) until she went and looked,†Downey said.
“We get two bills, but we pay with one check,†O’Connor said.
City Manager Jack McGrory said that the water utilities computer generates consumption information solely about the specific address requested. The Times’ first request, requests by other newspapers and, apparently even requests by the mayor’s office, listed the address for only one parcel, and information on that parcel alone was produced, McGrory said.
“As far as I know, we responded to the request that we received and we provided†the information, McGrory said.
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