In Drought, Fair May Not Always Mean Equal : Water: As the county scrambles to deal with a 50% cut in supply, debate has begun over whether some must suffer more than others.

In the annals of water history, last week is likely to be remembered as the week when San Diego County began to face facts.

Monday came like a slap in the face: As expected, the Metropolitan Water District, the region’s wholesaler, announced a 50% cut in water deliveries beginning April 1. On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors scrambled to recover, voting unanimously to declare a countywide state of emergency.

On Thursday, the San Diego County Water Authority, the MWD’s biggest customer, began hammering out a plan to cut county water use in half. And that’s when the startling truth began to sink in.

Having run out of stored water and out of time, several authority board members reluctantly admitted that, to deal effectively with the drought, they may have to impose policies that cause some people--particularly those in water-dependent industries--to suffer more than others. In these drastic times, they acknowledged, what is right may not always seem fair.

“The bottom line is the water isn’t there,” said director Philip R. Pryde, who represents the city of San Diego on the board.

“We shouldn’t be seduced,” director Michael Parrish, another city of San Diego representative, urged his colleagues, “by the notion that fairness means perfect equality.”

However, judging by the public testimony at a water authority board meeting last week, many San Diegans believe that’s exactly what fairness means. For that reason, when the city of San Diego and the water authority seek to adopt tougher conservation policies during the coming week, debate is likely to center on keeping the rules equitable.

If the public perceives that conservation measures let anyone off the hook, many predict, it won’t matter how strict the rules are: Compliance will suffer.

“That has come through loud and clear,” said San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts, who has drafted several proposals to beef up the city’s voluntary conservation program that the council will consider Thursday. “When you talk to somebody who’s cut back, and they see their neighbors haven’t, they get mad.”

“When people think someone else is getting away with something . . . that’s what pits neighbor against neighbor,” said Councilman Bob Filner.

Alan Smith, the director of government affairs for the San Diego Apartment Assn., told the county supervisors this week: “There’s a lot of anger when people see (grass) on one side of the street, and brown on the other.”

When the water authority board of directors votes Thursday on a system of prohibitions and penalties designed to bring its 23 member agencies into line with the 50% cutbacks, that issue will weigh heavily on their minds.

They know that some disparities are inevitable. As Byron M. Buck, the authority’s director of water resources planning, explained this week, “some (industries) will have to reduce more than 50%, because the reality is some can’t make more than a 10% to 20% cut. A hospital can’t make a 50% cut and still perform safely.”

Some predict the success or failure of the program will be determined by how fair San Diego County residents perceive it to be.

“No matter how mandatory you make a program, you have to rely on the cooperation of the public,” said Dale Mason, who represents the Vallecitos Water District on the water authority board.

If San Diegans angrily thumb their noses at conservation, it will take precious time for punitive measures to force them into line.

As drafted, the authority’s Emergency Drought Response Program would levy hefty surcharges on--and, if necessary, restrict water deliveries to--the 23 member agencies if they do not adopt certain measures.

Those measures--the county’s first-ever mandatory water use prohibitions--include shutting off most outdoor sprinkling systems, banning most carwashing except in commercial carwashes and limiting new development by disallowing the issuance of most new water meters.

In the interest of fairness, the authority’s plan includes an appeals process that allows member agencies to propose minor modifications to the program. The plan also sets forth a system of “conservation offsets” under which developers may earn water credits to be cashed in for use on new construction projects.

For example, a developer could retrofit existing homes with low-flow shower heads, thus saving water that could be drawn upon for the project.

As yet, the county’s offset program does not specify how much mitigation would be required. But Councilman Roberts has proposed that developers in the city of San Diego be required to offset 100% of their water needs by finding water savings greater than or equal to the water to be used by the development. Roberts’ goal: no net increase in water demand.

Roberts’ plan is not likely to appeal to Mayor Maureen O’Connor, under whose leadership the City Council has rejected all mandatory conservation measures. Although San Diego is the County Water Authority’s biggest customer, it is alone among the member agencies to remain on a voluntary, rather than mandatory, conservation program.

But Roberts predicts that this week that may change.

“My feeling is that a majority of the council is going to want to have a stronger program than heretofore has been adopted,” he said. Stronger, he adds, and, ultimately, fairer.

Roberts wants to replace the city’s two-tier water rate structure with a five-tier plan that rewards those who conserve with greater and greater financial savings. He also wants water bills to come monthly, instead of every two months, so customers can monitor their progress more easily.

“All people are saying is, ‘Tell us it’s going to be fair.’ That’s what they’re saying very clearly,” said Ann Van Leer, Roberts’ aide who specializes in water issues. “That’s where this proposal comes from.”

The Roberts proposals will be among several issues discussed at 2 p.m. Thursday, when the San Diego City Council holds a special drought-related meeting at City Hall.

The County Water Authority, meanwhile, will hold a public hearing on its drought response program at 1 p.m. Thursday, and is scheduled to take action at a 4 p.m. meeting the same day.