City Hopes to Weather Water-Tight Summer : Drought: A water rationing plan that San Clemente officials hope will avert the crisis of last summer will go into effect June 15.

The beginning of last summer’s water crisis can be pinpointed on a smudged paper graph tucked away in a Tri-Cities Municipal Water District desk at Palisades Reservoir.

“There it is right there,” district supervisor Tony E. Gomez said, pointing to a line of red ink indicating that the water level began to dip toward the center of the platter-shaped chart.

It was Sunday, June 25, 1989, at 9 a.m., to be precise.

That was the moment, water officials say, when the 5.9-acre reservoir began a steady two-month decline from 44 million gallons of drinking water to less than half that amount.

The unexpected dip in the city’s major water supply sent ripples of fear through the beach community and created political waves that ended with passage of the strictest rationing ordinance in the county.

This year, city and water district officials in San Clemente are hoping that a slew of measures aimed at reducing water consumption will help the city get through another long, hot summer.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Mayor Candace Haggard said. “(But) I think that what we are doing is a very good first step” toward avoiding a relapse into the shortage.

Tri-Cities Municipal Water District serves San Clemente--its largest customer--the Capistrano Beach district of Dana Point, San Onofre State Park and the San Onofre Nuclear Power Station. Since last summer, the district has initiated a rationing plan that will take effect June 15, a 5-month-old building moratorium, a new well and an agreement to reroute some reclaimed water for irrigation and grading.

Because of increased awareness and unusually mild temperatures for the last few months, water use is down 4% in San Clemente and 20% in Capistrano Beach, in contrast with last year, Gomez said. For the last nine months, the district has kept filled to the brim its 48-million-gallon reservoir in the hills northeast of Interstate 5 off Avenida Salvador.

“But what happens when you get warm weather?” Gomez asked rhetorically. “Bam! You have increased demand.”

San Clemente, a 19-square-mile city of 39,100 residents, is not the only city facing water shortages this summer. With Southern California locked in a four-year drought, other municipalities, including Los Angeles, are pondering measures that range from surcharges for excessive use to simple warnings to residents.

Santa Barbara, the city with probably the strictest water rationing law in Southern California, recently mailed water bills that charged certain high-use customers thousands of dollars.

In Orange County, Newport Beach recently passed an ordinance fixing surcharges on residential consumption and construction water use, but the law is not expected to be as stringent, expensive or controversial as the Santa Barbara measure.

In addition, water districts in Huntington Beach, Orange, Anaheim, Fullerton, Laguna Beach and other county areas have been adopting or considering ordinances asking customers to conserve water voluntarily by up to 10%.

More stringent measures could be considered next year if the drought persists into a fifth year. But San Clemente officials said that after the 1989 scare, they decided not to wait for a law requiring fines and cutbacks.

Passed in October, the city’s ordinance takes effect during this year’s driest months and lasts through Sept. 15. Lawn watering and other residential irrigation will be permitted only on odd or even days, with the days determined by residents’ addresses. Further, residents will be limited to no more than 650 gallons a day. Violators will face fines of up to $100.

In addition, developers will be barred from using potable water during grading and will be required to treat exposed slopes with anti-erosion materials before planting, said Greg Morehead, the city utilities manager. More stringent restrictions will result if the reservoir’s water level drops to 35 million gallons, and even more at 25 million gallons.

“We know we are going to have a water shortage,” Morehead said.

Hanging on the wall beside the front door of Morehead’s office is a framed needlepoint that depicts a small well. Underneath is the slogan, “When the well runs dry, we know the worth of water.”

“People will have to think about that,” Morehead said. “We all have to learn how not to waste water.”

The reason for last year’s unusual water shortage is simple, city officials said. San Clemente, like other South County cities, has had rapid residential growth in recent years. But the only pipe that brings water to Palisades Reservoir has not been enlarged to accommodate demand.

Relief is expected to come from a $114-million South County pipeline project that will double the supply to San Clemente. It is expected to be finished next summer, but the project has been delayed by right-of-way issues.

Until the project’s completion, seeking some of the solutions to the water shortage will be left up to local politicians. Water activist Karoline Koester, who wants to regain a City Council seat she lost four years ago, and Councilman Thomas Lorch, a political ally, have criticized a plan to use treated waste water for irrigating the year-old Pacific Golf Course.

Reclaimed water would also be used to grade a large construction site for 5,000 homes in Talega Valley, just outside the city limits. Construction of a pipe that will link the private golf course and the residential project to the city’s reclamation plant is under way, city officials said.

But Koester and Lorch said the water is not treated enough and could pose a health risk to golfers and construction workers, as well as contaminate an underground water source that is used by the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton.

“It’s not that I am against reclaimed water,” said Lorch, a slow-growth advocate who has long been critical of the Talega Valley project. “We just want to make sure that the water is going to be used in a safe way.”

Morehead and other city officials dispute the claim that the chlorinated water is unhealthy. They also point out that the golf course uses up to 650,000 gallons of drinking water each day to keep the manicured fairways green.

The state Department of Water Resources is reviewing the proposal to use the reclaimed water.

WORST DROUGHT: Area between Monterey, Santa Barbara hardest hit. A3