Prepare to use less water in OC and, perhaps, pay more for the privilege

Soon we’ll all be using less water — and some of us may be lucky enough to pay more for the privilege!

Happy Summer of the Drought, version 2022, folks.

Be warned: It might hurt a bit. Orange County’s cities and water districts used 25% more water this April than in April 2020, even with the state’s emergency regulations bearing down, urging us to shrink water use up to 20%.

There are many reasons why this April was so much thirstier – more on that in a minute – but the agencies that saw the biggest jumps were: San Juan Capistrano, up 61.5%; Trabuco Canyon Water District, up 43.9%;  Yorba Linda Water District, up 42.8%; Anaheim, up 33.7%; Irvine Ranch Water District, up 32.7%; and the Santa Margarita Water District and the city of San Clemente, both up 32.6%.

Only one — Mesa Water District  — reduced usage over those years, by 15.6%.

Restrictions on outdoor landscape watering are the first front in this water war — no more than two days per week in Santa Ana, three days in Orange, four days in the Mesa Water District, etc. — as well as prohibitions in many places on home car washing, sidewalk spraying, runoff and a requirement to swiftly fix leaks.

Details differ from city to city and district to district — north and central county residents can sink their straws into the groundwater basin, while deep south cities and districts must rely almost exclusively on imported water.

On the policy front, this drought is a wee bit less punishing than the last one. At least, so far.

Rate shock?

Back in 2015, the state issued conservation edicts — an exact percentage reduction that each city/district had to achieve or face painful penalties.

This was draconian for some and spawned bona fide water revolutions, perhaps nowhere more so than in the little Yorba Linda Water District, which had to slice use by 36%.

Here’s the problem: When water districts/cities sell less water, they have less revenue coming in. That can leave a gaping hole in their budgets. So the consumer’s reward for using less water may be to  pay more for it.

Yorba Linda tried to address the gap  mid-drought by dramatically raising the basic service charge, from $16.77 to, gulp, $41.57. And by slapping penalties on people and businesses who used more than the allotted ration of water, even if it was, indeed, 36% lower.

Furious residents mounted a recall against board members and tossed them out.

“When it comes to the financial side, water agencies will be vulnerable to conservation-based reductions in demand as long as we are predominantly variable in revenue (water sales) and fixed in costs (infrastructure investment),” said Fernando Paludi, general manager of the Trabuco Canyon Water District.

“Increasing our fixed revenue to minimize the impacts of selling less water will make us healthier financially and further encourage to do the right thing with respect to conserving precious potable water. TCWD is engaged in a new rate study and will be looking at different options along these lines.”

Dramatic and unplanned reductions in consumption can indeed put an agency in a financial predicament, and that was one of the big lessons of the last drought, said Damon Micalizzi, spokesman for the Municipal Water District of Orange County, who worked in Yorba Linda at the time.

But many agencies have adjusted their business model to better protect their solvency against mandates from the state, he said.

Protected

Water districts such as Irvine Ranch, Mesa, Trabuco and South Coast say they’re prepared for a dive in consumption and can handle it without rate shock to their customers.

It may be tougher for folks who live in cities that operate their own water departments — and thus have many other demands on their dollars.

“The city is prepared for this possibility should a demand reduction occur,” said Robert Ferrier, assistant to La Habra’s city manager. “The city regularly monitors water demand and the impact a reduction in demand would have on the water fund budget. We anticipate being able to cope with the expected change in consumer demand.”

Suffice to say lessons have been learned all around: The state hasn’t (yet) issued specific mandates on specific agencies, instead asking politely for more aggressive conservation of “up to 20%” savings and increased policing of scofflaws. No penalties for failing – yet.

While cities like La Habra prepare to contract with firms to help enforce the conservation rules, other agencies refuse to do policing.

“This one-size-fits-all does not work – it punishes people who’ve done a good job conserving and rewards people who’ve done crappy job,” said Peer Swan, a board member at the Irvine Ranch Water District, the pioneer in water recycling that gave the world the purple pipe.

“Twenty percent — we’ve never agreed with that. Our outdoor watering is already done with recycled water. We strongly encourage our customers to reduce usage and let our rate structure do it.”

Right now, the 20% is a guideline more than a rule. If reductions don’t materialize, however, they’re widely expected to become mandatory within the next month or so.

Mother Nature

The state publishes those month-over-month comparisons in water usage, but the water folks hate it. There’s a lot of complicated stuff going on there, they said.

Consider: In April 2020, the world shut down in response to the pandemic. Schools and businesses closed, restaurants and tourist attractions were shuttered. Plus, there was a lot of rain that spring, which greatly reduced the need for outdoor watering.

This spring was vastly different.

“In March and April of 2022, Santa Margarita Water District customers only saw a mere 2 inches of rain, while, in 2020, those same customers saw 10 inches of rain during those same two months,” said spokeswoman Nicole​​ Stanfield.

“California is in its third driest year on record and there’s still work to be done to meet the anticipated reductions.”

In a city like Anaheim — home to hotels, a convention center and the Disney resort, by far its biggest water user — the change in water use between April 2020 and April 2022 reflects resumed use, rather than new use, said spokesman Mike Lyster.

“In mid-May, we moved to the second level of our conservation plan and have implemented watering no more than three days a week on select days of week, along with other measures. We expect to see conservation gain traction in the months ahead,” he said.

To put things in proper perspective, it’s important to understand that Orange County never returned to the water usage levels we saw prior to the last drought in 2015 — even while adding another 100,000 residents, said Micalizzi.

In Santa Margarita there’s been a 10% overall reduction in potable water use since 2013 even with a 12% increase in population.

All told, per-capita water use in O.C. has dropped from 91 gallons a day in April of 2015 to 79 gallons a day now.

San Juan Capistrano transitioned its water and wastewater responsibilities to the Santa Margarita Water District in November, and is working with the district to bring more recycled water facilities to the city to reduce the demand for potable water, said City Manager Ben Siegel. The district has a meeting slated for June 27 for large irrigation customers, showcasing programs to help achieve reductions.

Longer-term, California needs a water solution. More than 236,000 acre-feet of water — enough to supply most of Orange County for a year — flushed into the ocean to prevent fish from being pulled into less habitable parts of the Bay-Delta between October and January, Micalizzi said. If the Delta Conveyance Project was operational, that water would have been available for use.

Supply here, though, remains strong despite drought and conservation demands, officials said. Districts have invested millions in “water banks,” storage and resiliency projects. The Orange County Water District manages the vast groundwater basin, the Groundwater Replenishment System helps replenish that will recycled wastewater, and investments like the Mesa Water Reliability Facility ensure that customers have several years’ supply of 100% local groundwater available, said Mesa spokeswoman Celeste Carrillo.

The giant Metropolitan Water District, which imports water from afar for many districts, also has a healthy supply of water on hand right now.

“My experience over several droughts now is that water use goes up in the first couple (and, in this case, three) years of drought because it is dry (and outdoor watering uses a lot of water) but then drought messaging and restrictions begin to take hold and the public responds and usage goes down,” said Trabuco’s Paludi.

“We are close to that tipping point now, I believe, but each successive drought we go through ‘hardens’ our demand because we implement more conservation measures like turf replacement so there’s less fat to trim.

That is also happening now. I believe that you’ll see the O.C. numbers come down as the drought awareness picks up deeper into the summer and the fall, particularly if the next water year (starting in October) doesn’t start off with a bang.”

Source: Orange County Register