Issue: Water Conservation

As the result of heavy winter rains, the Metropolitan Water District, which is Southern California’s largest water supplier, has ended its water rationing program. Should local water districts and cities also end mandatory water conservation?

Richard Atwater: General Manager, Central Basin Municipal Water District

Yes, everyone should lift mandatory conservation measures. However, we are recommending voluntary conservation to our customers (in 23 cities and 44 water districts). We need to remind the public that the drought isn’t over. We do have ample supplies for this summer, but next year is still in question. It all depends on the rainfall and amount of snowpack next year. We have enough water to go around now, but we don’t have a savings account of usable water built up. Water storage is vital right now, but Southern California just doesn’t have enough, so we don’t have a way to bank more water.

J. Dan Davis: General Manager, Long Beach Water Department

We went to voluntary conservation in March, and we’re starting this summer a lot better off than we were last summer. Of course, we’re still asking for a 10% reduction from our customers, but they’re saving even more water this year than they were last year when we had mandatory conservation. I think people will continue saving water because they have seen their bills really go down. People are saving 15% to 25% this year, and most of our conservation comes from people who really abused water before. If everybody returned to normal behavior, we would go into this summer with a real shortage. But I think we can trust our customers. We have water available now, so we should make it available to our customers. We don’t want to short ourselves just for the sake of shorting ourselves.

James Glancy: Director of Water Resources, City of Lakewood

I think, yes, we should lift all mandatory conservation. In fact, our City Council voted to lift mandatory restrictions last Nov. 1. We were kind of out there on our own. We could do this because people have been saving water, mostly with hardware changes. They’ve installed new shower heads and put in toilet dams, and those habits are going to stay for awhile. We’re still seeing conservation among users, even after the rainy season. Water usage is 27% to 32% below what it was two years ago, and we needed to be straight with people, let them know we’re a little better off. One year ago we had mandatory restrictions when the water table was low and we had to purchase from MWD and Central Basin. But now, there’s no need to place the burden of mandatory restrictions on customers, as long as they’ve learned their lesson and conserve.

Regina Murph: General Manager, Compton Municipal Water Department

We’ve had a lot of rain, but we’re not out of the drought yet. We still have to realize that we live in Southern California, in a semiarid region, and we need to be smart. We’re out of the critical situation we were in, but the reservoirs in Northern California still aren’t at the level they were, or need to be. But since we’re not in the situation of getting slapped with mandatory penalties (from MWD), we should pass that along to the customer--if you’re getting cooperation from your customers. We lifted penalties at the beginning of March. Our customers still have toilet dams, flow-restricting shower heads and the like, and I think the customers will continue to use those items. We didn’t make a big announcement (when mandatory conservation was lifted) because MWD hadn’t announced its decision yet. We’ll probably put a message on monthly bills saying there won’t be any more mandatory water conservation, but please use water wisely.