Higher Rates Proposed to Curb Water Use : Drought: Under city manager’s plan, consumers who failed to cut back by 30% would face an 88% increase in their monthly bill.

Urging water conservation, San Diego’s city manager recommended Tuesday that the City Council adopt a billing plan that would nearly double the water tab at some single-family homes beginning next month.

Driven by drought and by the Metropolitan Water District’s recent vote to cut water deliveries by 50% starting April 1, the message behind City Manager Jack McGrory’s plan is plain, though the details of the tiered billing structure are intricate.

The plan calls for consumers who don’t cut down sharply on water use to pay the price.

The plan would raise the average monthly bill for single-family homeowners who do not cut back on water use from $16.80 to $31.65, an 88% rise, according to McGrory’s projections.

If, however, homeowners cut water use by 30% a month, they still will pay more--but just barely. If they conserve 50%, the cost would actually go down.

“Cuts will be measured, month by month, against the same month in 1989, city officials said. The 1989 bills are serving as a base because city officials had begun urging conservation last year, said Deputy City Manager Roger Frauenfelder, who supervises water utilities.

City officials said the plan, if approved, would mark the city’s first increase in water rates since 1987. The City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on the pricing schedule.

The program is based upon an assumption that next winter will be rainy, said Frauenfelder. If it’s not, rates are likely to rise even higher, he added.

“This is a very serious situation,” he said. “Very serious.”

The driving factor behind the proposed rate increases is the 50% cut ordered last week by MWD, the region’s water wholesaler, Frauenfelder said. Beginning next month, when the cut takes effect, the amount of water people are expected to buy is likely to go down, so rates have to go up to keep the city’s water fund going, he said.

Meanwhile, The Metropolitan Water District on Tuesday added teeth to its call for stringent water conservation by threatening to cut off millions of dollars for new water projects in cities or districts that fail to adopt mandatory conservation programs and cut water use by 20%.

Cities and water districts in the MWD’s six-county service area could lose from a few hundred thousand dollars to as much as $5 million in funding for a wide variety of proposed projects and programs.

At least 10 major water reclamation, desalination and ground water extraction projects, and numerous smaller conservation programs, could lose MWD funding as a result, officials said.

In an attempt to shore up its own drought-ravaged finances, the MWD board also approved a 24% rate increase to make up for the huge reduction in water sales it will suffer this year. As its supplies from the State Water Project and the Colorado River have dried up, the MWD has had 35% less water to sell this year, and officials have projected that its supplies will not improve for the next three years.

Officials say it is likely that dozens of local water agencies will be forced to pass the increase on to consumers.

The board also passed without debate a resolution to punish agencies that do not adopt some mandatory conservation measures and save 20%.

With the resolution, the board may silence some of the bickering that has erupted in recent weeks between districts that have been successful in saving water and those that have not.

Cities such as Los Angeles, which have saved more water than others, have called for a sharing of the conservation burden. San Diego and a number of other cities have said individual cities should make their own decisions on how to conserve.

But Francesca M. Krauel, an MWD board member representing San Diego, said that much of the extra water purchased in February was put in storage and that the city’s conservation rate is now nearing 50%, almost double that of Los Angeles.

“For Los Angeles to point at San Diego is just absurd,” Krauel said. “It’s an outrage.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and San Diego Mayor Maureen F. O’Connor are scheduled to meet in Los Angeles today to discuss the drought.

On Thursday, the San Diego Water Authority is scheduled to vote on a series of tough mandatory water conservation measures, including bans on watering lawns and washing cars at home.

If San Diego City Council approves the city manager’s proposed increase, a five-tier rate structure would take effect April 1 for single-family homes, with a separate five-tier schedule for apartments and condominiums. Just over half of San Diego’s water goes to single-family homes, apartments and condominiums, Frauenfelder said.

The plan also proposes a three-tier rate structure for commercial and industrial users that would take effect April 15, and a single tier for agriculture.

Under the tiered plan, the more water a homeowner uses, the more each unit of water costs. The average single-family home in the city now uses 349 gallons a day, city water officials said.

It’s that usage figure that McGrory’s plan targets. Under the plan, if the average family trims water use by 30%, the monthly bill would rise from $16.80 to $17.65, an increase of 5%.

If use is cut 50%, the cost would drop to $11.95, a 29% decrease, according to city projections.

Times staff writer Frederick M. Muir in Los Angeles contributed to this story.