S.D. Water Authority Delays Mandatory Cuts : Conservation: The voluntary 30% goal will remain in effect until April 15, while snowpack is evaluated.

County Water Authority directors, encouraged by indications that the state will soon increase water allocations to Southern California, voted Thursday to delay the imposition of mandatory water prohibitions until April 15 and to retain the current 30% conservation goal at least until then.

Just before the 28 to 1 vote, board chairman Michael Madigan told the directors that “inconvenient timing” made the delay necessary. If the board implemented a 50% cutback and its prohibitive rules on April 1 as originally planned, he said, they would very likely be overtaken by events a few days later.

In early April, state water officials will begin measuring the Northern California snowpack--a process that will help determine how much water comes south. Then, on April 9, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), the region’s water wholesaler that supplies 95% of San Diego County’s water, will consider a proposal to reduce its deliveries only 30%, not 50% as planned.

“We ought not to implement our ordinance until we have that information available to us,” Madigan said.

Several directors said they were worried, however, that by voting to delay countywide action they could be sending the wrong message to the public.

“I’m very much concerned that we don’t use this wonderful rainfall to temporarily buy us some relief and end up buying a bigger problem down the road,” said Michael Parrish, who represents the city of San Diego on the board and who was the only director to vote against the delay. “I want to be a little more cautious.”

Director Linda Brannon, who represents the city of Poway, said she was alarmed by the “political grandstanding” she has heard recently from San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and several others in other water districts.

“I’m seeing individuals congratulate their customers for savings,” she said. “It’s like we have a euphoria here. But we’re in the middle of a very extreme emergency. I can live with (a delay of) two weeks, but I don’t want to give any indication that the crisis is over.”

Anne Omsted, who represents the San Dieguito Water District, underscored the idea that the drought has not ended, describing the board’s switch from 50% to 30% with an analogy.

“Up till now,” she said, “we’ve been expecting quintuplets. But now the doctor has told us we’re having triplets. It’s still going to have a great impact on our lives--just not as much.”

The authority’s staff told the board that water consumption countywide is down 46% in March and that rainfall has been 200% of average. Still, officials said, the water levels in the Oroville and San Luis reservoirs, upon which San Diego County largely depends, are well below normal. And the impressive local figures may not continue, they warned, once the rain stops falling.

“We’re not claiming that this 46% savings is conservation,” said Chuck Rhodes, the authority’s assistant general manager of resources. “It’s simply a reflection of the weather conditions.”

Director John (Mike) Leach, a city of San Diego representative, said his primary concern was that San Diegans are not lulled into thinking that conservation is easy--or worse, that the need for it is over.

“I don’t want to leave this boardroom today with the thought in anyone’s mind that we are walking away from those measures,” he said, referring to the prohibitions, approved by the board on March 14, that would ban most residential irrigation and lawn watering, among other things.

Director Cary F. Wright of the South Bay Irrigation District agreed.

“The people of San Diego County see the rains come and the cars on TV that are stuck in the rivers that they should have never attempted to cross, and they think the drought is over,” he said. “But, if people think 30% is relatively easy, they’ve got another thing coming.”

The board’s action Thursday keeps San Diego County at the current 30% conservation level, called Stage V. Under that stage, residents are encouraged not to use their sprinkler systems and to water their lawns only with a hand-held hose or drip irrigation system. Suggested Stage V conservation measures include capturing shower warm-up water with a bucket for use in toilets.

Paul Downey, a spokesman for San Diego’s mayor, said that O’Connor felt “vindicated” by the authority’s reaffirmation of a 30% goal.

“All along, she has been advocating staying at the 30%,” he said. “Essentially, water officials panicked back in February. That’s the only explanation. We went from 10% to 50% (cuts) in a very short time frame. They didn’t have faith that the people could make some cuts. . . . The people were laughing at (O’Connor). And now everybody is having to come around to her way of thinking.”

Downey continued, “She’s extremely happy and feels that the water officials are finally vindicating her position. The public has always been on her side. . . . She just hopes that some of the people up and down the state who have been bashing her may take a moment to thank her.”

But one San Diego County resident who addressed the board Thursday expressed anything but gratitude for the mayor’s approach.

“The mayor putting forward the message that we can depend on the rain--that’s as irresponsible as a guy who takes his family’s food money for the rest of the year to the race track,” said Bob Geile, a lawyer who resides in Cardiff. “You judge his actions not by whether he wins or loses. The sin is committed when he lays down the bet.”

But, before the County Water Authority voted Thursday, chairman Madigan reminded them that, in effect, they too were making a calculated gamble.

He presented a memo sent Thursday by Carl Boronkay, MWD’s general manager, that expresses confidence that the water agency--now scheduled to go to 50% cuts on April 1--will be able to return to 30% cuts instead. On April 9, if MWD’s board votes to approve that action, San Diego has nothing to worry about.

But, if for some reason MWD does not take the expected action, Thursday’s vote by the San Diego County Water Authority board could result in penalties--for 15 days, theoretically, San Diego County will have been conserving 30% while the MWD continued to ask for 50%. Under that scenario, said Lester A. Snow, the general manager of the authority, the board could choose to use some stored water to make up the difference.

So, in effect, Madigan said, “We are betting a certain amount of local storage that the outcome (between now and April 15) will look something like (a) 30%” cutback regionwide.

The prospect of drawing on the county’s limited stored water reserves prompted a flurry of comments from board members.

“I am very, very concerned and somewhat chagrined that the wise water planners last year made a very serious mistake” about how much water the region needed in storage, said director Leach. “We need to understand as a board what we’re doing, not just leave it up to the water experts.”

County Supervisor Susan Golding, who represents the county on the board, worried that the public will misunderstand the board’s action to mean “there isn’t a problem.” She said she wanted some guarantee that MWD will be consistent in its actions.

“Credibility is very important,” she said, pressing the water authority staff for an assurance that MWD is likely to stick with the 30% cutback goal through the summer. “If in July we’re being told we didn’t ask the public to conserve enough, that’s going to be very bad.”

In other action, the board voted to begin its ultra low-flush toilet rebate program April 1, instead of May 1. Under the program, San Diego County residents who replace their older toilets with new, water-saving models may receive up to $100 to defray the cost.