Bradley Tells Staff to Curb Watering at Getty House

Mayor Tom Bradley has ordered city workers to reduce watering outside his city-owned residence after discovering that water usage at the property is not as low as he had thought.

While Bradley has urged city residents to cut their water usage by 10% compared to their 1986 levels, the most recent water bill for Getty House, the mayor’s 12-room home in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, showed that overall consumption was up 28%.

The mayor said he was “startled” to learn that water use had risen so dramatically during the month ending Aug. 14, compared to the same 29-day period in 1986.

During roughly the same period of time, city residents had cut their water usage. Consumption was down 13.7% from Aug. 1 to Aug. 23, according to estimates compiled by the Department of Water and Power.

But the larger water bill wasn’t caused by the mayor and his family taking long showers or forgetting to turn off the kitchen faucets. The city’s groundskeepers were merely keeping the grass green and the flowers blooming in the back yard.

“The mayor is not letting the water run in the bathtub,” said Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler. “For the inside of the house, there is a significant reduction since 1986. The mayor has relied on city departments to take care of the back yard.”

Chandler said one of the reasons for the higher-than-expected water consumption at the mayor’s residence is that city workers had not taken into consideration a second water meter that measures usage for the house’s sprawling yard.

He said the mayor and his wife have managed to cut water use inside the home by 17% compared to 1986 levels by installing low-flow shower heads and putting bricks in the toilet tanks.

Bradley in his statement said he had asked his gardener in May to cut water use by one-third and had relied on the Department of Recreation and Parks to employ water-saving measures.

After calling for an efficiency audit of the property’s water use earlier this month, Bradley last week called on city workers to install more efficient irrigation systems, cut by one-third the amount of time that the lawn and garden are watered, and clean the fountain only once or twice a year.

“I am confident that these steps will have significant results and reduce the amount of water used on the grounds at Getty House,” Bradley said. “We are all part of our water conservation team, and we must all work to save 10% from our 1986 levels of water use.”

Getty House, a three-story French Colonial mansion built in 1921, is named after George F. Getty II, the eldest son of J. Paul Getty, the late multimillionaire president of the Getty Oil Co. The property has extensive gardens and is often used to entertain visiting dignitaries.

Chandler said new conservation measures implemented at the property early last week have already shown results. He said readings taken Friday showed significant reductions in water use on the property.

In letters to officials in the departments of General Services and Recreation and Parks, Bradley called for watering of the lawn four days a week for a total of 48 minutes.

“If no brown spots or other signs of stress occur, the irrigation should be further reduced to two five-minute intervals four times per week, for a total of 40 minutes per week,” the mayor wrote.

Bradley told city workers: “A steel rod should be used to puncture holes deep into the root zone (of trees) to allow the water to flow down to the roots.”

In addition, he wrote, “soil enhancers and mulch” should be added around flowers and shrubs “to promote moisture retention.”