Big Water Users Face Painful Decisions : Conservation: The drought may force industry to conserve even more. When and if this happens, business leaders say they’ll have to make some unpalatable economic choices.

From strawberry fields to Disneyland to hospitals, California’s worsening drought is presenting Orange County’s biggest water users with another challenge: After a decade of conservation, how do they save even more without cutting into vital supplies?

Large manufacturers, schools, county parks and other businesses and institutions that consume millions of gallons of water per year say the next round of cuts is likely to be painful, resulting in slower assembly lines, dead landscaping, smaller crops and perhaps even layoffs.

“If we are told to cut back 10% today, we’d be like everyone else, really hard-pressed to do it,” said Steve Cockersell, spokesman for Kimberly Clark in Fullerton, a manufacturer of tissue paper that used 679 million gallons last year, enough to serve 4,500 families.

The Metropolitan Water District, which supplies Southern California with imported water, ordered water agencies to reduce industrial, commercial and residential use by 10% and agricultural use by 30%. Next month, the district will consider doubling those cutbacks.

Orange County’s water agencies have responded by urging voluntary compliance by all customers, but they warn that big price hikes and mandatory cutbacks will probably follow if the drought continues through the winter season.

Businesses and public agencies--which consume one-third of Orange County’s total water--say they are left with some unpalatable economic choices. For some, such as food processors, research labs and paper mills, water is an essential ingredient to their operations, and reducing it cuts into profits or services.

“It’s really tough to cut back on domestic water without shutting down buildings and telling people to move off campus,” said Larry Givens, assistant vice chancellor for facilities management at UC Irvine, which consumes about 600 million gallons annually.

“On the campus, we’d be down to critical uses. We’d have to do insane things like put hours on the toilets. We could put limits on research, but that’s our primary purpose. We’d be slitting our own throats.”

Many of Orange County’s businesses and institutions say they have cut consumption dramatically in recent years by installing water-saving technologies such as recycling systems. The Metropolitan Water District confirms that tremendous strides have been made in conservation, reporting that Southern California’s manufacturing industries reduced average consumption 40% per employee between 1977 and 1982.

Many companies believe that it is unfair to force them to make another cutback when they already have made such impressive gains.

“We’ve done this voluntarily, ahead of the game, in the early ‘80s,” Cockersell, of Kimberly Clark, said. “If industry hadn’t cut back voluntarily, we would have been in this (shortage) a lot earlier.”

Alan Reynolds, orchard manager for Treasure Farms in Irvine, worries that people who see his sprawling green fields and groves under rainless skies will point fingers, assuming that the irrigation systems waste water. But Reynolds urges anyone who believes that to come see the technology used at the 5,000 acres his company farms for the Irvine Co.

A computerized drip-irrigation system and soil moisture sensors have cut Treasure Farms’ water use by about one-third, he said. The company also has switched from thirsty crops such as corn and melons to low-water, dense crops such as red peppers and strawberries.

Reynolds said his only remaining option may be to remove some acres from production.

“We’re going to be hurt if there’s an across-the-board cut because we’re already using the latest technology available,” he said. “We’re putting as little as we can on the fields and still maintain a good yield.”

Hospitals face one of the biggest challenges. They use large amounts of water to disinfect and wash equipment, rooms and patients, and they can’t ask doctors and nurses to endanger patients by reducing sterilization. They are unable to make even the simple change of putting water savers in toilets, since they use high-pressure ones with no tanks.

Hoag Hospital is desperately seeking ideas. Vice President Kathleen Dooley said she contacted hospitals in Santa Barbara, which is suffering a much worse shortage. But the only advice they had for their Newport Beach colleagues was to let the lawn turn brown.

“We can’t do things as quickly as you can at home,” Dooley said. “We have 300 patients living here, and infection-control is the big issue. But we’re putting together our best minds to resolve this.”

Turning off the sprinklers and letting their thousands of dollars worth of landscaping die isn’t a solution for some major water users. Potable water is the resource in short supply, and many, such as Irvine Unified School District and Santa Ana Country Club, already use large amounts of reclaimed waste water, not drinkable supplies, for outdoors use.

Orange County’s manufacturers are struggling to find options that won’t slow production.

Twenty-five years ago, Rockwell International installed a system at its defense electronics group in Anaheim that now recycles 96% of the water used in its precision-plating of mechanical parts. The remaining 4% is lost to evaporation, and Rockwell officials already use water-saving automatic sprinklers for outdoors use, so now they ask: What more can we do?

Hunt-Wesson’s cannery in Fullerton, which uses water to wash and process tomatoes, reduced its use by 27% in two years with a new recycling system. But the plant still swallowed 409 million gallons last year, one of the largest amounts in the county.

“Any further cutbacks would hurt production,” said Kay Carpenter, Hunt-Wesson spokeswoman. “Water is a major part of our operation.”

Orange County water officials acknowledged that for many industries, it will cause tough times, but that everyone must sacrifice. Many cities, however, have agreed to consider whether layoffs and economic losses would result before imposing mandatory conditions on companies.

“We believe a 10% (reduction) can be achieved with proper management,” said Jim Smith, operations director of the Moulton Niguel Water District which serves Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and part of the Mission Viejo area. “Every drop of water that is used here (in South Orange County) is imported . . . yet people have a tendency to think they can plant rain forests in a semiarid area.”

Many of the agencies are working with their large customers. For example, Anaheim water officials and the county sanitation district have joined Disneyland Hotel in an experimental program to develop, install and test new ultra low-flow shower heads and toilets. At Mesa Consolidated Water District in Costa Mesa, officials are aiming to do water “audits” to help businesses pick out their wasteful habits.

Government agencies find themselves in the position of trying to persuade businesses to comply, while at the same time realizing that they have some hard work to do, too. Local governments own large amounts of land and parks, most of which are irrigated.

By far, the single largest user in Orange County is the county government itself. Most of the water is sprayed onto the county’s 20,000 acres of parkland, including eight urban parks that need year-round irrigation.

Many of the county’s large parks were designed in the 1970s and are filled with thirsty grass instead of drought-tolerant plants. Gradually, the county is converting them to California-native oaks, sycamores and ground cover that need no irrigation.

“We’re designing parks of the future with water conservation in mind,” said Tim Miller, manager of regional parks for Orange County’s Environmental Management Agency.

County park rangers last year began cutting sprinkler usage by 10%. But total use by the agency declined by only 4% last year to 9 billion gallons, county records show.

Knowing that the county must set a better example, Miller is searching for new ways to cut consumption. The parks have experimented with five types of moisture sensors in an effort to scientifically control water use. But the grass started to die.

“These sensors claim 30 to 40% reduction in water use, but none of them turned out to be reliable enough after 1 1/2 years of tests,” Miller said with a sigh of frustration.

Disneyland, which cares for a huge “family” of 14 million annual visitors who drink water, wash hands and flush toilets, is one of the largest water consumers in Orange County.

Disneyland officials declined to state the park’s total water usage. But the park uses about 50 million gallons of water annually from its own wells and about 20 times more water supplied by the city, which brings the total to at least 1 billion gallons a year.

Park officials said washrooms are their biggest water users. Water savers are being installed in the 500 or so toilets in the park, which should save 25 million gallons per year. Also, since last summer, employees wash down Main Street and other thoroughfares in clean-conscious Disneyland four days a week instead of nightly as they had for decades.

Both measures helped the park cut water use by 15% last year, said Disneyland spokesman Bob Roth.

Disneyland has long been known for its innovative conservation. It was one of the leaders in planting drought-resistant plants and for years has operated a water network that recycles 15 million gallons used in its pools, rides, rivers and other attractions, said Ray Merchant, a spokesman for Anaheim.

“We do a great amount of water conservation and always have,” Roth said.

It is especially difficult for growing enterprises to cut water use. At UCI, which eventually is expected to swell to the size of UCLA or UC Berkeley, water consumption rises with every new student and faculty member.

“We’re like a small city,” said UCI’s Givens. “We have laboratories, animal-care facilities, and students and faculty families who live here on campus. We have athletic use, pools and showers.”

Givens concedes that UCI, the county’s fourth-largest employer, has been “a little spoiled.” The campus’s Aldrich Park is planted with irrigated grasses and non-native trees, but UCI’s sprinklers use reclaimed water.

“Because of that, we haven’t needed to consider drought-tolerant plants much,” Givens said. “But with the drought, we have to consider it more. As a university we should be doing things like that as an example to the community.”

Times staff writer Anita Cal contributed to this report.

Where Our Water Goes

Households use two-thirds of the water consumed in Orange County. Of the commercial and industrial users in Southern California, schools and electronics plants are the largest.

All uses (Orange County)

Public: 10%

Industrial: 6%

Commercial: 18%

Residential: 66%

Commercial/Institutional (Southern California)

All other: 22%

Developers: 4%

Laundries 4%

Government: 4%

Restaurants: 4%

Nursing homes: 5%

Colleges/univ.: 8%

Amusement/rec.: 10%

Hotels/motels: 11%

Hospitals: 13%

Schools: 15%

Manufacturing (Southern California)

Dairy: 2%

Ships/boats: 2%

Office equipment: 2%

Metal products: 2%

Textile finishing: 3%

Communication: 4%

All other: 33%

Guided missiles: 5%

Paper mills: 5%

Beverages: 6%

Preserved fruits: 7%

Petroleum refining: 8%

Aircraft: 10%

Electronics: 11%

Source: Various companies and water agencies.

ORANGE COUNTY’S LARGE WATER USERS

These are some of the largest water consumers in Orange County. Many say they have dramatically cut their consumption in recent years with conservation measures. About 179 billion gallons of water are used annually in all of Orange County and a typical family uses about 150,000 gallons per year.

Orange County Environmental Management Agency

Maintains 20,000 acres of parkland

1990 usage: 9 billion gallons

Conservation Measures: Irrigation time cut by 10%. Some drought-resistant plants used.

Treasure Farms, Irvine

Farms 5,000 acres

1990 usage: 4 billion gallons

Conservation Measures: Electronic irrigation system. Soil moisture sensors

Disneyland, Anaheim

80-acre amusement park

1990 usage: 1 billion gallons (estimate only)

Conservation Measures: Water-saver toilets. Recycling system for water attractions

Kimberly-Clark, Fullerton

Manufactures tissue products

1990 usage: 679 million gallons

Conservation Measures: New system recycles 45% of water

University of California Irvine

Includes faculty and student housing

1990 usage: 580 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Reclaimed water used for irrigation. Domestic water banned for lab cooling systems

Hunt-Wesson Foods, Fullerton

Cannery for tomato products

1990 usage: 409 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Recycling system has cut consumption 27%

Unocal Corp. Chemicals Division, Brea

Manufactures products from ammonia, urea

1990 usage: 226 million gallons

Conservation Measures: No measures planned, plant to shut down in 1992

Southern California Edison, Huntington Beach

Power plant uses water in boilers

1990 usage: 213 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Seawater used when possible. Lines being checked for leaks and new technology is being tested.

Orange County Sanitation Districts, Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach

Operates two plants that treat sewage

1990 usage: 150 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Drought-resistant landcaping planted. Plans call for use of some reclaimed water.

Saddleback College, Mission Viejo

Irrigates about 60 landscaped acres

1990 usage: 83 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Plans call for using reclaimed water. Irrigation reduced

Steelcase Inc., Tustin

Manufactures office furniture

1990 usage: 77 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Options being studied. A painting operation was shut down, cutting water use by more than 10%.

Santa Ana Country Club

105-acre golf course

1990 usage: 60 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Some reclaimed water used. Watering of non-fairway areas may be cut.

UCI Medical Center, Orange

Largest hospital, with 493 beds

1990 usage: 48 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Watering of grounds reduced. Faucets checked for leaks.

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach

471-bed hospital

1990 usage: 43.4 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Panel convened to find options.

Newport Beach Country Club

110-acre golf course

1990 usage: 18.9 million gallons

Conservation Measures: Use of reclaimed water planned. Watering of non-fairway areas may be cut.

Source: various companies and water agencies