Mayor Proposes Shorter Pool Season to Save Water

Mayor Tom Bradley on Monday unveiled a series of actions--including a proposal to close the city’s outdoor pools for three weeks this summer--to cut water consumption at the Department of Recreation and Parks, the single largest water user in Los Angeles.

The mayor also said he plans to write to each of the 20 largest water users in the city, and follow up with personal phone calls if necessary, to urge them to reduce their consumption immediately.

“I believe we must target the large water users . . . to ensure that we save water and also to set a good example for the individual residents who want to make sure the program is fair to all,” the mayor said.

“It’s easy” to cut water use, Bradley declared. “Everyone can do it.”

But not everyone at City Hall is in agreement on how to do it.

City Councilman Richard Alatorre said water use is just one factor to take into consideration when shaping public policy. He called the early closing of city pools “foolish” and vowed to oppose the proposal that would limit the season for the city’s 49 outdoor pools to nine weeks, instead of the budgeted 12. It means that the outdoor pools will close on Labor Day instead of Sept. 22.

“The pools are more than just for cooling off,” said Alatorre, who represents a poor inner-city district. “They are a safe haven for kids.”

Last week, Bradley asked the City Council to approve a mandatory water rationing plan, under which city residents would be required to cut their consumption 10% from 1986 levels. The mayor said rationing may be the only way to “get the message across” that Southern California is facing a projected 10% water supply shortage this year. A four-year drought has cut snowpack runoff from the Sierra Nevada, Los Angeles’ primary source of water, to just 50% of normal.

The City Council’s Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold its first hearing on the rationing proposal today.

The mayor, meanwhile, continued efforts to cut usage by city government. Last month, he sent a memo to each department head asking them to find ways to cut usage by 10%. And on Monday, he met with the heads of several city departments to discuss water use.

At a press conference later, Bradley focused on the Recreation and Parks Department because it is the largest user of water in Los Angeles, consuming 2% of all water used in the city. The department uses more than twice as much water as the second largest user, the Unocal refinery in the Wilmington area.

“Two percent of all the water used in the city goes toward watering the (recreation) department’s 13,000 acres of parkland, filling its 60 swimming pools and 10 lakes, as well as maintaining recreation centers and senior citizen centers in every community,” Bradley said. “Its success in saving water will serve as an example to the other large users of water.”

City Councilman Joel Wachs, whose Arts, Health and Humanities Committee overseas the parks department, endorsed the mayor’s proposal. “We have found from past experience that when you approach the kind of crisis that we are now approaching, if you don’t act to do something that is reasonable, you will be faced later with something that becomes almost unbearable. A 10% (cut in use) now is probably the surest way to avoid 25% later.”

Other proposed cuts at the Recreation and Parks Department were easier to make than the swimming pool proposal.

Officials said they will save millions of gallons of water because of two unrelated projects that will require draining the lakes at MacArthur and Hollenbeck parks later this year.

The lake at Hollenbeck Park on the Eastside is to be drained this summer and remain empty for two years so storm drains can be built in the area, said James Hadaway, the department’s general manager. The lake at MacArthur Park is to be emptied in the fall and remain dry for at least two years during Metro Rail construction.

Hadaway said that draining the two lakes will save nearly 10% of the department’s total annual use.

Other cuts by the Recreation and Parks Department include cutting back on landscape watering, installing low-flow plumbing fixtures in department facilities, and providing better training to employees who use water in their jobs at city facilities.

But longer-term solutions are also needed, Hadaway said. Among the plans are to increase use of reclaimed waste water for irrigation at city parks and golf courses. Some areas in Griffith Park already use treated waste water and plans are being drawn to use this source of water in the Sepulveda Dam recreation area.