Mandatory Water Cuts Voted Down by Council

Impressed by the success of voluntary conservation efforts, the City Council on Friday defeated Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposal to impose mandatory water rationing in Los Angeles this summer.

By a 10-2 vote, council members approved a rationing ordinance, but with an amendment that blocks its implementation as long as the city’s residents and businesses cut their normal water use by 10%. If residents fail to meet that goal in any month, the council would reconsider implementing Bradley’s program of financial penalties and surcharges.

“I think this sends a clear message to the people. As long as they continue to save as they have been doing, there will be no penalties and punishment,” said Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores. “But if they backslide, the program will move forward.”

“Before we embarked on a costly and burdensome plan, the council wanted to give the public an opportunity to voluntarily conserve,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

Bradley, however, vowed to continue to fight for a tougher conservation plan when the issue comes up for a required second vote next week.

In June, city residents cut their water use by 15%, according to the Department of Water and Power. It marked the third consecutive month of lower water use since Bradley first called for conservation in the face of a four-year drought and projected short water supplies.

The reduction in June followed similar cuts in water use of 11.7% in May and 12.2% in April, according to the DWP. The department arrives at the conservation figures by comparing actual usage against what the DWP calls “expected normal use,” a figure compiled from historical use patterns, changes in population and weather.

The earliest that rationing now could be implemented would be Sept. 1, Flores said.

Under the plan tentatively approved Friday, fines ranging up to $150 will be imposed on those who hose down sidewalks and driveways, water their lawns between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., or fail to repair leaks.

The council vote came despite a personal lobbying effort by Bradley, who has championed the rationing proposal as the only fair way for Los Angeles to conserve water and prepare for a possible fifth year of drought in 1991.

Council members wanted to settle the matter for good, but the issue will return to the council floor for a second vote next week because it was not unanimously passed in Friday’s vote.

Bradley plans to seek changes in the measure before that vote, said Mark Fabiani, the mayor’s chief of staff. During the next week, the mayor will attempt to persuade council members that a stiffer and more reliable measurement of conservation be used, Fabiani said.

Bradley’s aides lobbied council members and their staffs throughout the 1 1/2-hour debate on Friday. Fabiani buttonholed council members and their aides in council chambers, arguing that the conservation statistics were not precise enough to use for public policy.

That effort failed to overcome the impression that the public has responded to repeated calls for conservation, council members said. Fabiani said that a wave of constituent complaints also helped sink the mayor’s proposal.

“We had more than enough votes two weeks ago,” before the latest conservation figures were announced, said Fabiani. “But a vocal minority flooded (council) offices with phone calls. And that has an impact on some council members.”

Under Bradley’s rationing proposal, residents would have been limited to using 90% of the water they used in 1986--before the drought and city-sponsored conservation efforts began.

Residents and businesses using more than their allotment would have faced a surcharge of $3 per billing unit of excess use, plus 15% of the water bill on the first violation. A second violation would cost $3 per billing unit plus 25% of the bill, and a third violation would boost the surcharge to $4 per excess billing unit and 75% of the bill.

Implementation of rationing would have cost more than $1 million and all residents would face an increase of 9 cents per billing unit--about $2 to the average residential bill--to cover the costs of the program and reduced water sales.