REGIONAL REPORT : Pool Firms Trying to Stay Afloat in Drought : Water: With business down 40% to 70%, industry mounts campaign to promote image of conservation.

It was a chilly Saturday evening in West Los Angeles, but salesman Ralph Bottega, clad in a thin, gray dress shirt, ignored the blustery winds as he eyed the swimming pool in Sam Goli’s back yard.

“You’re losing approximately 500 gallons a week due to evaporation alone,” Bottega said to the shivering homeowner. “And we’ve got the solution. . . .”

For more than a decade, Bottega, 35, has designed, marketed and sold new swimming pools for Anthony Industries. But in the wake of the statewide drought, the phone has virtually stopped ringing at the offices of the Southern California-based industry giant.

So now, Bottega, who previously headed Anthony’s 30-employee San Diego sales office, has been forced to hit the road, making house calls for the firm’s new line of manual and electrically operated, energy-saving pool covers.

“People have been so scared of the drought that they’re not buying new pools,” Bottega said after a day of appointments in Riverside, Pasadena and West Los Angeles. “Now I’m running all over the place trying to keep afloat.”

Long a symbol of the luxurious, laid-back Southern California lifestyle, the back-yard swimming pool has become an inviting target in an era of water conservation.

“It’s just one of those things used against Southern Californians during a drought,” said Metropolitan Water District spokesman Bob Gomperz. “You fly over this area and see all the water shining back up at you and you say, ‘What drought? Are these people kidding themselves with all this water around?’ ”

In recent months, a handful of cities, including Santa Monica, have moved to forbid the construction of new pools. In Santa Barbara, pools filled with water must be equipped with covers--and if they are drained they cannot be refilled with municipal water. Elsewhere in the region, many communities no longer permit the refilling of pools unless they were drained for health or safety reasons.

Pool industry leaders say that they are taking a bath--with construction down 40% to 70%. To fight back, they have launched a public relations blitz, going so far as to tout pools as unsung blaze-battling reservoirs.

“We think it is important that people understand that a filled pool can provide the water necessary to help fight a fire, especially in drought conditions,” said National Spa and Pool Institute President Dennis Chapman, announcing industry plans to identify the locations of California’s 1 million pools for local fire departments.

Such drought-inspired tones of desperation are not lost on the average pool owner, who is sweating over whether his back-yard paradise will retain its practical and economic value in these times of water shortages.

Some, such as Goli, are considering pool covers--an investment that can range from $100 to $5,000 and can reduce daily water evaporation loss to a trickle.

Others, such as Los Angeles hot tub owner Herb Williamson, say that they are taking shorter showers and cutting back on their use of dishwashers and outdoor sprinklers to save water so they can top off their pools or refill their spas.

Still others are making do with less.

Robert and Jayne Wilson of Bel-Air have spent two years and $200,000 in the planning and construction of a custom-built waterfall and pool in their hillside yard. The 45-foot falls are designed to drop in four separate streams toward the pool and spa--before being pumped back up for another ride downhill.

Since the city of Los Angeles has no restriction against the initial fill-up of a pool, the Wilsons will have no problem operating their 28,000-gallon liquid nirvana.

“But we’re not going to take advantage . . . during the drought,” Jayne Wilson said as the five-man work crew toiled away at the back-yard equivalent of a Disneyland attraction. “We’ll only run the waterfall a couple of times a week.”

The Wilsons’ contractor, Don Goldstone, said his business is off by 40% this year as a result of “the recession, the Gulf War, and, of course, the water situation.”

His typical customers, albeit concerned about the environment, are not worried about neighborhood backlash.

“I build very high-end luxury pools,” said Goldstone, who owns Ultimate Water Creations. “I deal with mostly upper-class, wealthy people.”

That, however, is not always the case.

“We’ve had customers ask us: Can you build a swimming pool at night?” said Anthony Industries president, Richard Rodstein. “And we’ve had homeowners on the day that building was to begin ask us to stop because they are so scared.”

Westside real estate agent Saul Bubis said some clients shy away from buying houses with pools because of the drought.

“A lot of times people have wanted to buy a house with a pool, now a lot of people don’t want a house with a pool,” the Prudential California Realty agent said.

“But it’s a wash. I had one investor who wanted to buy a house with a pool in Santa Monica where you can’t build them anymore. Now, all of a sudden, it’s a premium there.”

Those who favor restrictions on new pools say that it makes little sense to approve new 20,000-gallon water holes while promoting conservation values.

“From a public relations standpoint, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot as a region if we don’t address the issue of continuing construction,” said Metropolitan Water District board member Christine Reed of Santa Monica. “It’s quite practical during an emergency not to allow new pools.”

But pool industry leaders say that restrictions are unjust both on economic and environmental grounds.

“There are deck people, gunite companies, steel companies, plastering companies and masons,” said Billy Harper, a Northridge contractor who heads the drought task force of the Los Angeles County Swimming Pool Trades and Contractors Assn. “When these people are out of work, they’ll be on welfare and the health and social service costs will soar.”

According to the California Spa and Pool Industry Council, the pool construction industry funnels about $1 billion a year into the California economy. About two-thirds of the new pools in the state are built in Southern California.

With limited exceptions, pool industry leaders say, the average pool, which costs $20,000 or more to build, does not have to be drained for almost a decade except to repair leaks or control algae problems. And in pool supply stores, at work sites and in executive offices, they cite their abiding shibboleth--that a pool, once filled, uses less water than a lawn covering the same area.

Asked for proof, industry leaders turn to a report prepared about 15 years ago by officials of the Arcade Water District, which serves Sacramento.

No complete copy of the report still exists, according to Arcade district officials. But the California Spa and Pool Industry Council distributes a modified version.

On the first page, it states that “a swimming pool actually uses substantially less water than that same area developed in lawn.” The line apparently refers to a one-year period because, two pages later, the report also points out that during the peak months of use--May 15 to Sept. 15--pools tend to use more water than lawns.

Considering the splash factor and evaporation from a pool, its decks and swimmers’ bodies, maximum pool use during the summer would amount to 7,110 gallons a month--compared to 4,270 for a lawn, the report states.

Donald C. Burns, legislative counsel for the spa and pool council, acknowledges that the report has its weaknesses. But he adds, “It has been accepted by all the water districts in the state that have looked at it.”

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is one such agency. “If a customer already has a swimming pool on his property, the loss of water due to evaporation wouldn’t be much different than the amount of water that would be used to water the same piece of land,” said spokeswoman Lucia Alvelais.

But in Sacramento itself, the current general manager of the Arcade Water District takes a different tack.

“My comment is that turf is not our best friend five years into a drought,” Walter Libal said. “So why would you compare (pool water) consumption to something that is not on your list of favorite things?”

The report, Libal adds, “is archaic by present-day standards . . . (and was) a management report, not an engineering report.”

As the pool industry scrambles to boost sales and bolster its image, it has geared up an intense publicity and lobbying campaign.

Next weekend a swimming pool consumer show billed as the first of its kind in Southern California is scheduled for Pasadena. The two-day Pool/Spa Expo, sponsored by the Southern California chapter of the National Spa and Pool Institute (NSPI), will feature pool design ideas, swimsuit displays and tips on how to conserve water.

“We want to promote the industry’s positive aspects, which no one has done before,” said show chairman Ken Chaubet, a sales executive for Teledyne Laars, a pool heater manufacturer. “If you have a choice, why not invest your money in your house, as compared to a motor home or a boat?”