City Won’t Enact a Water-Use Policy : Conservation: Success of voluntary water-saving program persuades San Diego City Council to reject proposal for mandatory plan.

Expressing satisfaction with a water conservation effort that has cut use by 12.3% citywide during the past two months, the San Diego City Council recommended Monday that San Diego stick with voluntary conservation and not adopt mandatory water-use restrictions.

City and county officials have acknowledged in recent days that water conservation has tailed off in recent weeks as the temperature has soared. But, despite the slip, San Diegans saved 1.9 billion gallons of water in the past 60 days, according to Milon Mills Jr., city water utilities director.

Water saved during the two-month period was more than enough to fill Lake Murray, one of the city’s major reservoirs, Mills said. Mike Madigan, a board member of the San Diego County Water Authority, told the council Monday that the city’s 16.5% savings during June was just over the 16% countywide reduction during June.

Bob Filner, the only council member to oppose continuing the voluntary conservation program, questioned whether voluntary measures were strong enough to change water-use habits. Filner noted that the reduction in water use was about 9% during July, down from the 16.5% during the cooler and wetter June.

“I’m still not convinced that a pure (public relations) campaign is going to get us where we have to be in the long run,” Filner said. “There is a permanent change that San Diego is facing in the availability of water . . . (and) the cost of water . . . and we need permanent changes in our behavior in regard to water.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who in May sparked a controversy by calling for voluntary controls at a time when most other agencies in California were opting for mandatory conservation, Monday defended the city’s water conservation campaign.

San Diegans have “shown that voluntary works,” O’Connor said. “This was much more than a PR campaign, this was a community caring about a major problem.”

However, O’Connor raised the specter of tougher controls should voluntary conservation not bring needed reductions in coming years. “If the water (shortage) is as bad as everyone says it is, then we should not be adding more problems” by allowing increased growth that boosts water consumption, O’Connor said.

In recent weeks, the city’s water department received nearly 7,000 water-related calls from the public, including 1,100 tips on neighbors who were wasting water.

A 12-member water conservation advisory board Monday submitted a report to the council that outlined several inexpensive ways to further reduce water demand.

In a related matter on Monday, the council failed to act on an ordinance that would have established a new water-rate structure designed to encourage water conservation.

With council members Abbe Wolfsheimer and Wes Pratt absent, the council was unable to muster five votes needed to defeat or pass the ordinance. It will come before the council again on Oct. 30.

O’Connor argued that the proposed “tiered” billing structure--that increase rates when costumers use more than a certain level of water--was unfair because it would penalize San Diegans who, in the past two months, have cut back their water use.

But Councilwoman Judy McCarty maintained that the proposed rates are “simply using water fees as a way to encourage conservation, to reward conservation, to punish waste.”