Wellspring of Ideas Helps During S.D. Water Crisis : Conservation: South and East County residents cope with pipeline break, but stoppages still possible.

With two suburban water districts holding to their threat of possible intermittent stoppages beginning Wednesday because of a major line break, residents and businesses are doing a good job of conserving, officials said Monday.

Some efforts were more creative than others.

While automatic sprinklers were turned off at most business and industrial complexes, parks, playgrounds and residences, one East County woman told the Padre Dam Municipal Water District not to worry, because she would water her roses with her used bath water.

A La Mesa nurseryman was offering 10% off bedding plants so he wouldn’t have to water them himself.

At El Cajon City Hall, signs are being prepared to admonish people to just dampen their hands before sudsing them up in the restrooms.

An Alpine family plans to take dirty laundry to a relative’s house in North Park.

With efforts like that, along with self-appointed neighborhood watchdogs snitching on their neighbors whose automatic watering systems go on under cover of darkness, consumption was down by 20% to 50% in South and East County, officials said.

“We’re pretty pleased,” said Jim Melton, spokesman for the San Diego County Water Authority. “But we know there’s still room for improvement.”

The crisis was brought on Friday with the break of a seven-foot-diameter pipeline that delivers treated water from the Metropolitan Water District’s Lake Skinner reservoir in Riverside County into San Diego County. The pipeline, one of five that feeds imported water into the county, broke in the Scripps Ranch area, leaving three water districts downstream of it without their primary source of drinking water. What caused the 16-year-old pipe to break was still unknown Monday as workers prepared to replace the broken 20-foot section with two new 10-foot sections delivered from Los Angeles.

Melton said the pipeline should be back in operation by Friday or Saturday.

Given the temporary crisis, each of the three affected districts declared a water emergency Saturday and asked customers to reduce consumption by at least 50%, and perhaps as much as 75%. All outdoor landscape watering is banned, as are car washing, spraying at construction sites, the use of ornamental fountains, the filling of pools and the like. If everyone stops outdoor watering, Melton said, the 50% cutback should be accomplished.

For good measure, residents are also being asked to cut back on domestic water use by taking shorter showers, doing laundry less often and flushing toilets only when necessary.

Affected are the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, which serves Santee, Alpine, Lakeside and parts of El Cajon; the Helix Water District, which serves La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley and parts of El Cajon, and the Otay Water District, which serves Rancho San Diego, Jamul, parts of El Cajon, eastern Chula Vista and south to the Mexican border.

Of them, Helix was playing the hero of sorts, by offering extra water it had stored in its Lake Jennings reservoir to Padre Dam and Otay, which store only about three days’ supply in their tanks.

While Helix customers cut back 20% on their usage, the district sent 15.5 million gallons of water a day to Padre Dam and 11 million gallons to Otay, meeting about half those districts’ daily demands.

That extra water, coupled with reductions approaching 50% in both Otay and Padre Dam, allowed their reservoirs to remain at about the level they were before Friday’s break.

Still, the situation remained tenuous, officials warned.

“We’re hopeful that if the weather holds cool and cloudy, and if we continue to get the wonderful cooperation we’re getting from Helix and San Diego (from which Otay is buying additional water), and if our customers continue to conserve--which is the key--then we’ll make it,” said Keith Lewinger, general manager of the Otay district. “But if any of those factors change, we could be in for some serious consequences.”

For that reason, customers in both Otay and Padre Dam were told to brace for the possibility of planned water stoppages on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, beginning as early as Wednesday.

At the Sanyo manufacturing plant in Otay Mesa, where about 300 workers build compact refrigerators for Sears, General Electric and others, the company was preparing to shut down temporarily on Wednesday if left no choice.

“We have two machines that use a lot of water to operate,” said Sanyo spokesman Sam Gutierrez. “Without them, we can’t build refrigerators. We’ve already cut off our outdoor landscape sprinklers and we’re ready to bring in Portapotties, but if we don’t have water for those two machines, we will have to shut down.”

He said the company already had scheduled a factory closing on two days, Oct. 12 and Oct. 15, as part of the company’s job-sharing program when business slows, and he said those two days could be rescheduled for this week if events dictate.

At the Rancho del Rey residential development under construction in Chula Vista, grading activities--which rely on water for compacting and dust control--were curtailed on 600 acres Friday afternoon, and the bulldozers will remain silent until the water is back on, project manager Craig Fukuyama said.

“Some people are sitting at home who would otherwise be working,” he said. “It’s akin to when rain delays a construction project, but I guess this delay is for the opposite reason.”

Some people responded to the water crisis by using even more water Monday so they can cut back on it the rest of the week.

“I’m pulling my hair out,” said Bob Mazalewski, owner of Moennig Nursery in La Mesa. “We watered like you wouldn’t believe today, so hopefully we won’t have to water any more the rest of the week.

“And we’re trying to sell a lot of the stuff--petunias, marigolds, pansies, impatiens. We want to get them out of here as fast as we can. I’ve dropped my prices 10%.”

City governments found simple ways to save water. In El Cajon, for instance, all park and median watering--which accounts for about 70% of City Hall’s own water use--has been suspended, said John Owings, the city’s building maintenance superintendent.

Al Staab said he has cut water use significantly at his family-owned Sweetwater Car Wash. He cut back operating hours and has stopped spraying as much water on cars that go through.

“We’re just getting the cars wet enough to get them through the brushes,” he said.

Families adjusted in homes throughout East and South County, as well.

“We’re considering going to my father’s house in North Park to do the laundry,” said Louise Fuller, who moved into a new house in Alpine a week ago with her husband and 9-year-old son. “And my son is loving it because he doesn’t have to take a shower. That’s his contribution to water conservation.”

In El Cajon, Alvin Schofield said his family was using paper plates and plastic utensils.

“With four kids, you just can’t leave your dirty dishes to pile up to wash once a day,” he said.

Helix Water District spokeswoman Shirley Massie said a neighbor called her at home to complain that another neighbor’s sprinklers came on at 4 in the morning. Massie dropped off a flyer at the culprit’s front door.

Some people complained about foul-tasting water. “It’s yucky,” griped Norma Trost, who lives in Spring Valley. “I’m a native and I’ve been drinking San Diego tap water all my life--and I like it. But not any more. It smells bad and it tastes bad.”

The reason? Instead of receiving water directly from the aqueduct line, Trost and others are now drinking water that is being pumped from Lake Jennings. Even though it is treated, the lingering taste left behind by algae has tainted the otherwise healthy water, officials said. They suggested adding a twist of lemon.

Porter Truax, who lives alone in a trailer in Jamul, had a more fatalistic view of the crises that are suddenly affecting his life.

“Gasoline is too expensive, so you stay home because you can’t go anywhere,” he said. “You stay home but you can’t shower or water your plants because we’re running out of water. Lord, I’ll be glad when we can either afford to buy gas again or shower.”