Group Drafts Water Conservation Proposals : Government: Experts believe the county task force’s suggestions if adopted could result in decreased usage.

Working quietly behind the scenes, a county water conservation task force has sketched a set of innovative proposals that water experts said Thursday could result in significantly reduced water usage.

The recommendations, still in draft form, include requiring developers to submit a water management plan before getting permission to build any new or rehabilitated development projects in the county.

Under the plan, developers would have to follow guidelines governing the kinds of vegetation they could plant, the irrigation equipment they would use and the procedures for maintaining landscaped areas.

Task force members said the final report, expected to be completed in June, will probably urge the County Board of Supervisors to immediately adopt the guidelines.

Observers say that if the recommendations are implemented, they could result in water savings at a time when the state is confronting the fourth year of a drought. But the proposals are likely to encounter some opposition from the development community.

“I’d hate to see a plan that applied to smaller lots and subdivisions,” Brian Theriot, director of investor relations for the J.M. Peters Co., said Thursday. “It’ll hurt the little guys, and sooner or later it comes out in the price of homes.”

Another section of the report, which task force members say needs more work, addresses longer-term solutions, including formation of a permanent advisory group on water issues. Another proposal in that area spells out a sophisticated new residential billing system for area water agencies that would allot water to homes based on the number of people in the household, the amount of landscape acreage on the property and an evaporation rate that would be computed monthly.

Homeowners who exceeded their allocation would be assessed steep fines, the proceeds of which would then be funneled back into a conservation advertising campaign, task force members said.

“We feel very strongly about the benefits of educating people,” said Robert L. Seat, chairman of the task force, which includes representatives of the nursery and development industries, as well as government and water district officials. “Putting the money that comes out of those incentives into advertising would aid that process.”

Although the recommendations are still not complete and the task force does not expect to issue a final report for more than a month, water experts are already enthusiastic about some of the group’s suggestions.

Jack Foley, manager of the Moulton Niguel Water District, predicted that water agencies could see their usage drop 10% if the recommendations were enacted.

Other water officials agreed. “What people at the water agencies are telling me is that if these recommendations were followed, they could make their 10% goals like that,” said Mary Jane Forster, special projects coordinator of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the largest water supplier in the county.

Stanley Sprague, general manager of the district, declined to predict a percentage but said “very significant savings” could be achieved. “What we’re seeing right now is that some landscape programs are failing because of the water application, and this group is addressing that by recommending that a management plan be put in place,” he said.

The billing recommendations, Sprague added, are less immediately applicable and require more fine-tuning before they could be implemented.

At the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, senior analyst Mark Dymally called the management plan suggestion a “wonderful idea” and said it would help curb problems with over-irrigating developments.