How Rationing Would Affect Firms : Water: For some, the plan presents a formidable challenge. But others that have already cut use of water use could emerge unscathed.

Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposed mandatory water rationing plan could do more than turn lawns brown. It could put a crunch on Los Angeles businesses both large and small, including the 250 large companies and public agencies that use nearly 20% of the city’s water.

“Conservation is probably necessary,” said Peter Wheaton, general manager of Pacific Coast Laundry, a firm that washes and dyes clothing for the garment industry. “But it could create a problem for me. Our whole industry is centered on water.”

Bradley’s plan calls for businesses and others to cut water use by 10% below 1986 levels, with some exceptions, or face surcharge penalties.

For some users, that presents a formidable challenge. For others, it presents an added cost of doing business. And for some, it is a vindication of voluntary efforts already under way.

In any case, it is unlikely that the rationing will mean layoffs or production cuts, and the mayor’s plan allows companies to appeal rationing if such consequences seem likely.

The largest industrial customers of the DWP include electronics firms, aircraft makers and petroleum refineries.

The Unocal Corp. refinery in Wilmington, already the Department of Water and Power’s largest private customer with a monthly bill of about $250,000, has increased its water use by about 20% since 1986, said plant manager George Walker.

That means the refinery will have to cut water purchases from the DWP by about 30% or face fines. “That will be a real challenge for us,” Walker said.

“It will mean we’ll pay even stricter attention to conservation efforts here,” Walker said. The company is already curtailing landscape watering, vehicle washing and hosing off areas. Now, the company will re-evaluate operations to use less water and use water from its own wells more. All this will cost the refinery money, although it shouldn’t result in layoffs or a dip in production, Walker said.

Similarly, at the Texaco Inc. refinery in Wilmington, the DWP’s No. 12 customer last year, officials are “studying the potential effects (the plan) would have on the refinery, but we expect to be able to meet the rationing plan if it’s implemented,” said David Johnson, a Texaco spokesman. DWP records show that Texaco’s water use skyrocketed by 289.5% from 1988 to 1989, although Texaco disputes those figures.

Businesses that have already cut water use fear being pressed to do more.

“Similar businesses in Southern California already use less water (than those in other parts of the country),” said Benedykt Dziegielewski, a geography professor at Southern Illinois University and a consultant to the Metropolitan Water District. “On short notice, there’s not much more that can be eliminated.”

The Westin-Bonaventure Hotel, one of the city’s largest users of water, has cut its water use significantly in recent years by installing low-water toilets in public restrooms and each of 1,500 guest rooms and devices that restrict water flow from faucets and shower heads, said Robert Shivers, the hotel’s chief engineer. The hotel is installing automatic shut-offs on all kitchen faucets. As a result, the DWP gave the hotel a conservation award last year.

The hotel uses “considerably less” water than it did in 1986, but would be hard-pressed to cut back further, Shivers said.

Similarly, many Los Angeles restaurateurs have already adopted water conservation methods and would welcome provisions that would force their competitors to make similar sacrifices, said Stanley Kyker, executive vice president of the California Restaurant Assn., a statewide trade group whose estimated 1,000 Los Angeles-based members manage about 3,000 city restaurants.

Kyker said the restaurant association has tried to encourage members to conserve water, urging them to post notices that water is served only to customers who request it.

The Bradley proposal “rewards those who have been trying to conserve,” Kyker said.

While conceding that there is a need for water conservation, a number of executives and trade groups expressed concern that the Bradley plan might adversely affect businesses that have grown since 1986.

“Our goal is to grow and make money,” said Wheaton at Pacific Coast Laundry. “To reduce (water use) to 1986 levels is asking us to revert to the same business levels as 1986.”

“Unless the regulation takes into account greater (water) consumption based on the growth of a business . . . it would be penalizing successful business,” Kyker said. “And that wouldn’t be fair.”

Star-Kist Foods’ Heinz Pet Products Co. pet food plant on Terminal Island has grown into one of the city’s largest water users. The plant’s operations have expanded significantly since 1986 because operations at other plants had been consolidated, a spokesman said.

If the plant were forced to cut back to below 1986 levels, “we’re talking jobs now,” said spokesman William Goode. The plant is looking into installing recycling equipment to cut water use by 30% by year-end.

Roland Frenkel, general manager of the Wilshire Country Club, a Los Angeles golf facility, is among those looking for more direction about the proposal.

Frenkel said there has been much discussion of curbing lawn sprinkling but wondered how authorities would enforce such a curb on golf course operators. “Grass is our business,” he said.

Authorities should inform golf course operators how often greens can be watered, he said. He noted that his country club installed a new sprinkler system in 1987, reducing water usage by about 20%.

At Forest Lawn Memorial Park, water use has remained below 1986 levels every month but one since 1989, said Forest Lawn Chairman Fred Llewellyn. “It does create a hardship because in 1986 we were already being squeezed (by conservation) and squeezed hard,” Llewellyn said.

Still, Llewellyn, who served as chairman of a blue-ribbon commission on water conservation for Bradley in the late 1970s, said he supports the principle of a conservation plan with penalties. “I think something has to be done and it has to have teeth in it,” he said.

He argued that those who manage agricultural pastures and cropland are not being asked to conserve enough. Businesses in Los Angeles and other urban areas in California are bearing a disproportionate share of the conservation burden, he said.

But the city’s farmers and nursery owners say the loss of water is a greater potential burden to them.

The owner of one small neighborhood nursery in West Los Angeles said the only way he could obey a 10% cutback is to lower production.

“We do all our growing ourselves,” said the nursery owner, who requested that his name not be used. “Without water, we just can’t stay in business. Strictly retail nurseries can just buy whatever they need and cut down on water use that way. I grow everything. It stays with me at least a year. We have to water everything, especially when it gets hot.”

At Kenter Canyon Farms in Tarzana, co-owner Robert Dedlow said he thinks that Bradley’s proposal is a great idea and a long time coming. But he added that he is a native of Berkeley, where water conservation is already an integral part of life.

“In a general way, I’m definitely in support of water conservation,” said Dedlow, whose farm grows specialty lettuces for trendy restaurants. “When you see the water wasted in Los Angeles, a 10% cutback is totally credible.”

Dedlow said his operation could cut water use in toilets and sinks and will try to cut irrigation water as much as possible. He’s luckier than most, though. “We use some city water, but we drove a well, so we use some well water for irrigation,” he said.

Beyond such obvious measures, “to achieve measurable conservation savings, industries will have to undertake investments, and that may take months and years,” Dziegielewski said.

Times staff writer Maria L. La Ganga contributed to this story.

DWP’S LARGEST WATER CUSTOMERS

1989 Useage Rank Customer (in billing units*) 1 L.A. City Department of 512,043 Recreation 2 Unocal 258,110 3 Anheuser-Busch 228,520 4 L.A. Board of Education 201,914 5 L.A. County, including 119,752 County/USC Medical Center 6 L.A. City Housing Authority 184,611 7 UCLA 132,156 8 Caltrans 131,812 9 DWP’s power generating 74,907 system, primarily Valley Steam Plant 10 Veterans Administration 73,129 11 L.A. City Department of 59,261 Airports 12 Texaco Refining & Marketing 47,643 13 USC 46,292 14 Shashikant Jogani (individual 42,484 who owns a large number apartment buildings) 15 California State University 41,880 campuses 16 Park La Brea Management 39,290 17 Matchmaster Dyeing & Finishing 39,183 18 MCA/Universal 34,864 19 Kaiser Foundation Hospital 33,214 20 Star Kist Foods 31,099

* Billing unit equals 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons

Source: Department of Water and Power

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