Central Coast Hardest Hit in State Drought : Climate: Nowhere is the water shortage that is gripping the state more severe than between Monterey and Santa Barbara. Draconian measures have been taken to deal with it.

At Lake Nacimiento, one of two major reservoirs that serves Monterey County, the water level has receded so much that some boat docks are now eight miles from water.

At the Salinas Reservoir near San Luis Obispo, fishermen now walk on inlets that were once underwater, sketching maps of the dry lake bottom to get an edge over the fish, once the reservoir fills up again.

And the Gibraltar Reservoir, which once provided Santa Barbara with about a third of its water supply, is now completely dry, and the parched, cracked earth, dotted with sun-bleached tree trunks and faded beer cans, looks like a windblown patch of the Mojave Desert.

The reservoirs along the parched Central Coast between Monterey and Santa Barbara tell the story of the drought in this region: seven straight years without enough rain to fill the reservoirs; reservoir storage levels down to 15% of normal; runoff from the nearby mountains less than 10% of normal this year.

While the entire state is suffering from a drought, the water shortage along the Central Coast is the most severe. No region in the state has been so far below its average rainfall levels as the Central Coast, state water officials say. This has devastated the area because these communities are not connected to any water sources in Northern California or to Colorado River water and rely almost entirely on rain and ground-water supplies.

“The Central Coast is pinched from all sides,” said Suzanne Butterfield of the state Department of Water Resources. “Without rain, their supplies are drying up, and the alternatives to bring in water quickly are extremely expensive.”

Throughout the region the drought has taken its toll. The Carmel River, a principal water source for the city of Monterey, has not flowed to the ocean for three straight years, and a strain of steelhead trout is now endangered because the fish can’t swim upstream.

To the east, in the Salinas Valley, some farmers have had to leave fields fallow because they can’t get enough water for irrigation. Others had to shut down wells because their ground-water levels are so low, seawater has contaminated their supply.

Down the coast in Morro Bay, city officials have decided to pay some farmers not to farm, to conserve the shrinking underground water supplies.

And in Santa Barbara, the area in the Central Coast hardest hit by the drought because of extremely low reservoir levels and minimal ground-water supplies, the city is considering importing water by tanker from Canada and building the country’s largest seawater desalination plant.

Because the drought is so critical in this region, cities along the Central Coast have the most innovative and far-reaching conservation programs. Santa Barbara’s Draconian new water laws--including a ban on lawn watering and sharply higher rates--have received nationwide attention. But the drought has been a reality in the region for years now, and other communities quietly instituted conservation programs long before Santa Barbara.

In January, 1989, the Monterey Peninsula Water District began charging residents a stiff surcharge if they did not cut their water use by 20%. And the district, which serves six cities in the area, also instituted a series of restrictions on new construction. No new businesses are licensed if they use more water than a single-family house. This rules out all hotel and motel construction, large commercial projects and restaurants that seat more than 11 people.

In addition, hot water must pour instantly from every faucet or showerhead in residences that are built, sold or remodeled, even if contractors must install new water heaters in several rooms.

Throughout Monterey, residents are reminded to conserve water. Water district ads in local newspapers suggest that residents “shower with a frond,” to water their houseplants. Other ads remind residents that when they have “guests from hell,” they can apply for extra water rations. In a local shopping center, there are signs in all the bathrooms: “In the land of sun and fun, we never flush for No. 1.

The rationing program has been successful, and the district has cut water use by about 30%. But some residents still aren’t accustomed to the higher rates, and about 2,000 people a month call the district office to complain about their water bills, said Jerry Koenig, rationing manager.

“I spent 29 years in the service, but I was never called the kind of names I’ve been called since I took this job,” Koenig said.

San Luis Obispo also began a rationing program last year, and residents who don’t conserve by 35% pay sharply higher rates. Water bills are now so high that the president of the local restaurant association asked the City Council to allow restaurants to charge 50 cents for a glass of water. The proposal was rejected.

“When we serve a glass of water it really costs us three glasses--the one that we serve and the equivalent of two more glasses to clean it,” said Dennis Barney, owner of a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant and president of the California Restaurant Assn.’s local chapter. “Why shouldn’t we charge for water? We charge for soda, and that’s just water plus some sugar.”

Local reservoirs traditionally have supplied San Luis Obispo with all of its water. But because reservoir levels are so low, the city was forced to drill dozens of exploratory wells during the last year and now relies on wells for half of its water supply.

But most of the wells now pump contaminated water that must be treated, and in the last year the city has spent more than $1 million for purification and drilling costs.

The high cost of water has forced local businesses to drill their own wells. Model Linen, which provides a linen service for restaurants and markets, had regular water bills of about $2,000 a month before they invested $50,000 in their own well.

“If we had to keep paying water bills like that we’d be out of business now,” said Ed Page, vice president of the company.

Residents who want to keep their water bills down have been lining up at coin-operated laundries. Some laundries are now charging more than $2 per wash to cope with the new water rates. Many customers have washing machines at home, but they want to save the water for other uses, said Kevin King, who owns five coin-operated laundries.

“People are coming in who’ve never been to a Laundromat in their lives--people from very expensive neighborhoods, people who’ve just built brand-new homes,” King said. “They tell me: ‘I’d rather use your water than mine.’ ”

The city of Goleta, which increased water rates last summer by 30%, recently proposed tripling the current rate. Goleta instituted many innovative conservation measures long before the current drought, measures that are now common among cities throughout California.

“Higher water rates will just be another thing we’ve done that other communities will be forced to follow,” said Larry Farwell, water conservation coordinator for the local water district. “People around the state are going to see their water rates doubling before too long.”

Santa Barbara has been able to cut water use by more than 40% since the city instituted harsh conservation measures in late February. But the community still needs emergency supplies to get through next year, and the City Council recently asked the governor to declare a state of emergency in the community.

The longstanding controversy over whether Central Coast communities should tie in to the state Water Project has again resurfaced as a result of the prolonged drought. Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, and a section of Monterey County, have long been partners in the Water Project, which transports water through a series of dams and aqueducts in Northern California to water districts throughout the state. But while the counties share the project’s construction costs and pay fees to ensure entitlement to the water, they have not yet received a drop of it.

Long before the drought, voters rejected bond measures to raise money to build an aqueduct that would connect coastal areas to the projects. But the drought has renewed interest in state water and some business leaders in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo want to qualify initiatives on ballots next year and vote again on the issue.

Other residents are opposed because, they say, state water is an unreliable source during drought years. And they fear that greater water resources will result in more development, which would simply create new water shortages.

An effective conservation program, they say, is often more practical than buying new water supplies, and they point to the successful water-saving programs throughout the area. But while residents in cities from Monterey to Santa Barbara have endured strict conservation measures, there are no mandatory conservation laws in the largely agricultural Salinas Valley.

Some Monterey County residents have accused local politicians of ignoring a worsening problem. Tony Leonardini, who farms 1,000 acres in the Salinas Valley, said he has to reduce planting by about 30% because he does not have enough water to irrigate his fields. And some farmers in the southern section of the valley may have to shut down their entire operations by late summer because the underground water levels are so low, a local water district official said.

Seawater seeping into the underground water supply has been a problem on the western edge of the valley for decades, but the drought has exacerbated the problem. Seawater is now within two miles of Salinas’ underground water basin, which supplies drinking water for the city’s 100,000 residents and to thousands of acres of surrounding farmlands.

“Our local officials haven’t done anything, except hope it will rain,” said Ed Boutonnet, manager of the California Artichoke and Vegetable Growers Assn. “They’ve been way too slow to react. They haven’t even come up with voluntary conservation programs.”

But Joe Madruga, an engineer with the local water conservation district, said it is easier to get city dwellers to conserve than to force farmers to ration their water supplies.

“If a farmer can sink a well, he can pump as much water as he wants . . . it’s beyond our legal capability to stop him,” Madruga said. “And rationing other water sources is a serious economic hardship for farmers . . . that’s taking away their livelihood.”

If the drought persists, the battle over water between urban and agricultural areas in the Central Coast will intensify, many water experts predict. And the way in which Californians view water will be inalterably changed.

“Before the oil crunch in the 1970s, gas was 30 cents a gallon and everybody took it for granted,” said Ron Munds, water conservation coordinator for San Luis Obispo. “Then all of a sudden people realized it was a finite commodity and they’d have to pay for it. The same thing’s happening now with water. People are realizing that the days of cheap water are long gone.”