Port Hueneme's Honor Water System Works : Drought: About 57% of the city's 7,000 houses have no meters, but overall usage last year dropped 12% from the year before.

By JACK SEARLES

April 15, 1991 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

At this very moment, somebody in Ventura County may be taking a half-hour shower without worrying about his water bill going up.

Nearby, another county resident may be watering his lawn for hours on end, or even hosing off the sidewalk in front of his house--again, without an increase in his bill.

If you’re questioning whether such a water wonderland really exists, it does--in Port Hueneme, the only city in Ventura County where most residents are on an honor system to control water use because their houses have no meters.

About 57% of Port Hueneme’s 7,000 houses have no water meters. Residents of these homes, all of which were built before 1975, pay a flat monthly water bill of only $11.

There are no add-ons for extra usage--and no penalties such as those being imposed elsewhere in the county and throughout California.

All this may change if the coastal city goes along with a proposal that it become part of the Metropolitan Water District, which has been imposing 20% cutbacks on cities throughout its service area. Public Works Director Jack Duffy, who heads the city water agency, says the sacrifice might be worthwhile since MWD water is superior in taste and quality.

But right now, residents of Port Hueneme’s older neighborhoods must answer only to their consciences if they feel like wasting water.

Apparently, the vast majority of the more than 10,000 people in Port Hueneme who find themselves in such fortunate circumstances have been resisting temptation.

Thanks to an educational campaign and constant appeals to conserve water, overall usage in the city last year was 12% less than the year before, Duffy said.

“We’re on the honor system, and it’s working,” Duffy said. He added that the alternative--to install meters in the 4,000 single-family houses that don’t have them--”wouldn’t be worth the expense.”

Most of the unmetered houses were built in the 1950s and 1960s, when water was cheap and plentiful, Duffy said.

“In those days, the city apparently saw no reason to bother with meters. That changed in 1975, when it was decided that all newly built homes should be metered.”

And all of the city’s apartment buildings, condominiums and businesses have meters, regardless of their age, Duffy said.

David Moeschler, 39, lives on 5th Place, in a neighborhood where none of the houses are metered. He says that although they don’t have to, most of his neighbors try to save water.

“It’s unusual to see somebody washing a car these days,” he said. “Once in a while I’ll see somebody hosing down a driveway, but that’s becoming less and less common.”

Moeschler, a pre-nursing student at Oxnard College whose family has lived in the 5th Place house for 30 years, said he still waters the lawn, “but if I notice some overflow running down the driveway, I find myself thinking, ‘Gee, I hope nobody saw that!’ ”

Frank Brommenschenkel, president of the Ventura County Assn. of Water Agencies and general manager of the Santa Paula Water Works, gives Port Hueneme high marks for holding its usage down under such unusual conditions.

“They’ve done a lot better than Sacramento, which is the largest unmetered community in the state,” he said.

But Sacramento has much warmer summers than Port Hueneme--and even Duffy concedes that climate favors the Ventura County city.

“The cool breezes we get off the ocean reduce evaporation, so it takes less water to maintain a home’s landscaping here,” he said. “And, like most beach communities, we tend to have small lots.”

The city’s educational campaign has helped, he added.

“We pass along a lot of tips when we mail out our bills, such as asking people to use shut-off nozzles if they wash their cars.”

City government has tried to set an example by taking such steps as using a detection device to make sure that there are no leaks on municipal property, Duffy said.

He said the city has also planted a low-water xeriscape garden in front of City Hall to demonstrate that drought-tolerant landscaping can be attractive.

It’s possible that the city’s 20,000 residents are cooperative because they realize that water is a bargain in Port Hueneme.

Compare the $11 monthly rate paid by 99% of the households in Port Hueneme with the city of Ventura’s basic charge of $26.64 for single-family houses using the maximum amount allowable before penalties.

Even the 3,000 Port Hueneme residences that are metered pay the same modest $11 monthly, unless they’re among the handful that exceed a limit set by the city, Duffy said.

Metered households that use more than 11,220 gallons a month--1,500 cubic feet--pay 70 cents more for every additional 748 gallons.

Thus, a metered family that uses 17,952 gallons a month--the level at which steep penalties are imposed in Ventura--would pay only $6.30 extra, or a total of $17.30 for the month.

That’s still 35% below the cost in Ventura. And Port Hueneme does not clobber habitual heavy users with penalties that in Ventura can soar to 10 times the normal rate.

Duffy estimated that Port Hueneme residents use an average of 150 gallons of water per person daily. That is about 50% more than the nearly 100 gallons that may soon be allowable in neighboring Oxnard if proposed cutbacks are adopted this week. And it’s twice as much as the standard water allotment for Ventura residents living in single-family houses.

Port Hueneme now gets its water through the United Water Conservation District. If the city joins Oxnard in the Metropolitan Water District, it remains to be seen whether MWD would--or could--mandate steep cutbacks in Port Hueneme.

MWD spokesman Bob Gomperz said he had no idea that Port Hueneme is largely unmetered.

Gomperz said he knew of no other major unmetered areas among the 225 communities and 15 million consumers served by the district from Oxnard to the Mexican border.

“I can’t say how we would deal with that,” he replied when asked how MWD’s Ventura County distributor, Calleguas Municipal Water District, could pressure Port Hueneme into rationing the water of customers who don’t even have water meters.

“The situation would certainly be unique in our district,” he said.