Commentary : Southland’s Waste of Water Jars Newcomer

It’s the water-in-the-gutter factor that most dismays transplanted Northern Californians like myself.

The state is in its second year of severe water shortages caused by below-normal snowfall. Some Bay Area cities have been asked to cut consumption by up to 50%. Stiff fines have been imposed for residents who don’t conserve.

Yet, here in San Diego, I see people hosing sidewalks with abandon, or groundskeepers flooding downtown landscapes, creating urban rivulets rushing to the sewer.

Maybe it was my relative proximity to the source--Northern California’s only source of water, the Sierra Nevada--that has made me so sensitive about waste. Or possibly it’s my memory of mandatory rationing in 1977--bricks in the toilet, saving dishwater for plants, short showers--that seem to have instilled in me and many of my former neighbors a regard for the limits on one of the state’s most precious resources.

This is what rationing looked like then and what could happen here if the drought continues another year: My roommate and I were limited to using about 40 gallons a day. We tried to reuse all our dishwater, religiously hauling it one story down to the back yard for thirsty plants, or into the bathroom to flush the toilet--an inconvenient but water-saving procedure. We were lucky not to have a lawn--many of them died that year. Baths became a rare luxury, suspended for “Navy” showers: Get wet, turn off water, soap up, rinse off.

Those who exceeded their monthly allotments found a stiff fine on their bills. If the abuse continued, the water department attached “flow restrictors” on the water wasters’ meters that cut their flow to a trickle.

Heaven help anyone who heard nature’s call while out in public. Gas stations and some department stores locked their bathrooms, refusing service even to patrons.

One of the first things I noticed after moving from San Francisco to Southern California nine months ago were the great expanses of arid San Diego land east of Interstate 5 that were being converted into clusters of lushly landscaped housing tracts. The second thing I noticed was the seeming disregard for the singular resource that makes all that development possible.

In residential areas, I saw sprinklers running full blast at high noon--the worst time to water because the sun evaporates a good portion of the liquid. People washed cars with abandon, hotels nourished landscaping as if drawing from a bottomless well. One time, I saw a whole battery of sprinklers at an office building watering bushes during the middle of a rainstorm.

When I see such waste here, I join in spirit the ranks of Northern California legislators who are staunchly opposed to sending more of this natural resource to Southern California, drought or no. Their opposition, and mine, goes beyond politics. It points up a basic difference in attitude--shaped strongly by geography--between San Franciscans and San Diegans.

San Francisco teeters on a peninsula tip limited to about 45 square miles. Budgeting space, not squandering it, is the prime consideration in building. The city’s population is marked more by changes in its ethnic mix than growth--the population grew by just 300 residents last year, to 740,000, one of the lowest growth rates in the state.

San Diego, on the other hand, ranks among the fastest-growing cities in the country. It is the state’s second-largest city, encompassing 328.26 square miles, with a population of about 1 million. Space alone gives the city a sense of unbridled limits. When life gets too crowded in one area, people simply move on to the next.

San Diegans pride themselves--with the same smugness as San Franciscans--on preserving a quality of life that Los Angeles has squandered, and they look with disdain upon the smog problems of their urban cousins. Yet San Diegans gulp down their water--virtually 90% of which is imported--with the same disregard with which Los Angeles residents pollute their air.

In normal years, San Diegans receive anywhere from 35% to 50% of their water from Northern California via the California Aqueduct. Because of the drought and low supplies in the north, water from the Colorado River has been slaking 70% of San Diego’s thirst, according to the San Diego County Water Authority.

But, even though Colorado River supplies are currently running about average, growing populations in Phoenix and Tucson will probably claim more water from that source. And a three-year study on the diversion of Northern California water to the Southland is revealing ecological damage to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. As the evidence mounts, requests for more water are likely to be met with hostility from Northern California.

Meanwhile, the spigot tightens. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which pumps northern water to San Diego, has approved a proposal giving it the power to cut off water altogether to agricultural users--including San Diego avocado, tomato, citrus and flower growers--if the shortage continues next year.

San Diegans have been asked by the County Water Authority to voluntarily reduce consumption this summer by 10%. Customers have been asked to water their lawns in the mornings or evenings and to take their vehicles to car washes, which use a fifth the amount of water typically used at home. Restaurants have been asked not to serve water unless it is requested by the customer.

The Water Authority describes its public relations effort as trying to establish a “water ethic” among its residents. Its purpose is not simply to persuade people to become more ecologically accountable; it is also designed to prepare people for a mandatory rationing program that will surely be instituted if the state experiences its third consecutive dry year.

But, judging by one survey, the Water Authority may be paddling upstream. It conducted a poll a while back, which revealed that most San Diegans don’t even know the origin of their water. And a spokesman from the agency conceded that an entrenched us-versus-them attitude exists among San Diegans--the drought is perceived as primarily Northern California’s problem--that will be hard to change.

But all is not waste. The county recently started a reclamation program designed to capture and reuse waste water for such things as golf courses and freeway landscaping. Despite some resistance to the plan, the county hopes that, in 20 years, 12% of all water used in San Diego will be reclaimed.

Voluntary rationing at this point is mostly an exercise in public relations. But perhaps such measures will get San Diegans to begin thinking about conservation as a primary impulse--in lush as well as lean years--rather than a concept foreign to their life style.