. . . And for All Angelenos, As Well : Why the City Council Should Approve Bradley’s Mandatory Conservation Plan

Mayor Tom Bradley today fires the toughest salvo yet in his campaign to make Angelenos more efficient consumers of water.

Though the City Council members who will consider the mayor’s proposal this week seem as ambivalent as Los Angeles consumers about the complex plan, the lawmakers do seem to be in general agreement that seemingly hard measures taken now will pay off many-fold in the months and years to come.

Bradley proposes a mandatory 10%, across-the-board reduction in water consumption by residential and industrial customers alike. The proposal, if adopted, will make Los Angeles a national leader in public water conservation.

Under the plan, every municipal water customer must reduce consumption to 90% of the amount the household used in 1986. Violators first face warnings and, after subsequent abuses, stiff fines. In effect, customers flagged as wasteful will pay the true cost of the scarce resource.

The plan incorporates opportunities for appeals and exempts already-conscientious consumers who had the foresight to conserve in or before 1986. A Department of Water and Power office will analyze data on each home to determine whether a customer already is conserving. Another panel appointed by the City Council will review records of cases in which homeowners feel DWP issued an unfair finding.

Moreover, consumers using less than nine billing units of water--a single adult with no yard, for example--will automatically be exempt from the compulsory cutback.

How landlords and tenants will share the burden of conservation in multifamily dwellings is a bone of contention. Mayor Bradley favors charging 75% of any needed fines to landlords and the remainder to tenants. Landlords, he reasons, should enforce cutbacks and install conservation devices.

Mandatory is a fearsome buzzword in a society that values convenience practically above all. But water conservation is an issue in which the public welfare is at stake. The council should endorse the mayor’s proposal and enthusiastically help keep the issue before the general public.

Water cannot be considered an inexhaustible resource. Although rain may fall in torrents tomorrow, or next year, such factors as Mother Nature’s fickle nature, Southern California’s population growth and even how well the economy fares all conspire to soak up every drop of water in the state: None of it can prudently be called “extra.”