SAN DIEGO COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Why Buck the Water-Rationing Tide?

As the dominant local water consumers, residents and businesses in the city of San Diego can make or break the County Water Authority’s urgent call for conservation this summer. San Diego uses about 40% of the county’s water supply; without its participation, the countywide goal of a 10% water savings between June and September would be difficult to meet.

Sadly, instead of adopting the modest mandatory water-use restrictions recommended by the Water Authority, San Diego has decided on a 60-day program of voluntary conservation. In addition to undermining the effort for a uniform countywide conservation program, the city’s initiative, drawn up by Mayor Maureen O’Connor, is the kind of gamble that the county can ill afford this summer.

Before Monday’s San Diego City Council vote, 16 of the Water Authority’s 24 member agencies had adopted its call for mandatory restrictions on washing cars, watering lawns and hosing sidewalks.

Customers of those agencies now can reasonably argue that mandatory restrictions unfairly target them, while the county’s major users are free to water their lawns at mid-day. And what are San Francisco Bay Area communities, some of which have rationed water, to think of the cooperative spirit of the city at the end of the state’s pipeline?

Under the 60-day test, O’Connor will ask some of the city’s biggest water users to find methods of conserving water. If the plan fails, O’Connor argues, the council can switch to a mandatory system. But by then, we will be two months into the four-month summer season, with little time left for a strategy change.

The crux of O’Connor’s gambit is that San Diegans are somehow different, that they are more than willing to sacrifice if government embraces them as partners instead of mandating behavior.

Perhaps. In 1977, during a bad drought, county residents racked up a 16% savings under a voluntary program. But in 1988, when the city and county called for voluntary conservation, only 4% was saved.

O’Connor also claims that her plan is more equitable than the Water Authority program, which largely targets external irrigation.

The program is just the kind of against-conventional-wisdom venture that Maureen O’Connor loves--and that she has pulled off in the past: Witness the success of last year’s arts festival. This time, however, it would have been wiser to follow expert advice and set an example for the rest of the county.