Some Big City Agencies Miss Water Goals : Conservation: Overall, government has outstripped public’s saving at tap. Mandatory 15% cut is in effect.

As Los Angeles residents prepare to meet the new mandatory water conservation standard of 15%, officials released figures showing that half of the 10 largest city departments failed to meet Mayor Tom Bradley’s order to cut water usage by 10% during the past year.

But overall, city government has far outstripped the general public’s conservation rate since April 1, 1990, when Bradley first asked residents to voluntarily conserve 10% and ordered all city department heads to cut their use by the same amount. Bradley said the city government, as the single largest water user in Los Angeles, should set an example.

In the 12 months since, five departments--Harbor, Coliseum, Sanitation, Street Maintenance and Airport--were unable to reduce their consumption by the required 10%, according to figures compiled for The Times for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Overall, the 10 largest city departments had combined water savings of about 15.3% for the 12 months, according to the DWP. In the same period, total water use by DWP customers was down 9.3%, according to the DWP.

Mandatory conservation for businesses and residences did not begin until March 1, when they were required to cut their use by 10% from their 1986, predrought level. Since then, water conservation citywide surged to about 25%, the DWP reported Wednesday. Comparable figures for the city agencies were not available.

Now city residents are being required to cut water use by 15%, as the city enters the summer season when most water is consumed.

“With a long, dry summer ahead of us, and no guarantees that the next winter will be wet enough to pull us out of the drought, we must now move to the next phase of our water conservation program,” said Bradley in reminding residents that the higher conservation standard took effect Wednesday.

“If the millions of water users in the city continue their level of conservation from March and April, we will weather this drought” Bradley said.

Bradley said he was pleased with the overall effort by city agencies to meet his goal and urged the laggard departments to “take immediate steps to enhance water conservation” and meet the new 15% standard.

In a letter to the five departments that were unable to comply with his order, Bradley said, “It is imperative that we continue to push vigorously for increased water conservation.”

At the Los Angeles Coliseum and Sports Arena, water use went down only 4.5%, the DWP reported. “Our problem is they don’t consider the number of events we do. . . . Our events are way up,” said spokeswoman Alisa Spilman.

One embarrassed agency reported to have cut water usage only 6.8% went on the offensive, saying the DWP figures were wrong.

“We take real exception to that report,” said Don Hanson, assistant director of the Bureau of Street Maintenance. “We met and exceeded the goal.” Watering of 280 acres of landscaped street medians has been reduced by at least 10%, Hanson said, and up to 50% of the water nozzles on street sweepers have been shut off.

Protesting that the DWP estimates how much water his agency takes from fire hydrants for street sweeping, Hanson said, “They don’t have any way to accurately record whether we have saved 10%.”

Jerry Gewe, senior engineer at DWP, said the department’s computer program that determines water use by city agencies was improved in the past year and is accurate.

DECREASING WATER USE

Here are figures for 10 city agencies showing total water use, both for the 12 months since Mayor Tom Bradley ordered all departments to cut consumption by 10% and for the previous 12-month period. Only half were able to comply, but overall the city met Bradley’s 10% goal. On Wednesday, all city water users--residents, businesses and government agencies--were required to increase their conservation to 15%. Figures are in billing units, one of which equals 100 cubic feet of water or 748 gallons :

APRIL’90-- APRIL’89-- AGENCY MARCH’91 MARCH’90 % CHANGE

General Services Bureau 315,037 364,516 -13.6% Convention & Exhibition Center 10,183 13,862 -26.5% Dept. of Parks & Recreation 4,742,410 5,819,718 -18.5% Dept. of Water and Power 1,057,081 1,356,417 -22.1% Harbor Department 344,033 364,602 -5.6% Coliseum & Sports Arena 87,636 91,799 -4.5% Sanitation 763,107 823,990 -7.4% Street Maintenance 311,243 333,971 -6.8% Airport Department 652,302 687,783 -5.2% Housing Authority 1,891,438 2,156,892 -12.3% Total 10,174,470 12,013,550 -15.3%

SOURCE: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power