County Revises Water Rule That Led to Disparity : Conservation: The old system required the same savings from all residents of an area, placing a burden on light users, especially in Antelope Valley.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors amended its water conservation ordinance Thursday to remove a provision that unintentionally forced some homeowners to reduce their water consumption as much as 60%.

The water conservation measure had sought to reduce household water consumption 20%. But the method of calculating those reductions led to unexpected disparities, particularly in the Antelope Valley, where thousands of residents are served by the county’s Waterworks Districts.

Under the original ordinance approved May 23, Waterworks officials calculated the average water consumption in each of the county’s 16 water districts. All residential customers were then required to cut back by the same number of gallons per month.

But in the Antelope Valley, residential water users cover a wide spectrum. They include residents of single-family houses with modest landscaping and owners of large properties with fruit trees and livestock, said Gary Hartley, assistant director for the Waterworks Districts.

As a result, customers who were assumed to be light water users were asked to save the same number of gallons as heavy users.

“It created an unfair situation for certain of our residences,” Hartley told the supervisors. “They were being asked to reduce their consumption not by 20 percent, but sometimes in the range of 40 to 60 percent.”

Under the ordinance amended on a 4-0 vote Thursday, household water use history, and not district averages, will be used to set conservation goals. This method was already being used for larger customers in the water districts.

Hartley said the districts received about 1,700 appeals from residences seeking relief from the conservation ordinance. About 1,100 of the appeals came from the Antelope Valley, where two-thirds of the 16 districts’ 250,000 customers live.