MWD Reduces Water-Use Curbs, Hikes Its Rates : Drought: Many of Orange County’s water agencies will maintain their conservation requirements or ease them slightly. Others have not decided.

With drought conditions easing, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday voted formally to roll back water rationing, but state and regional officials agreed that conservation--though on a greatly reduced level--must continue indefinitely.

Local agencies dependent on the giant MWD for water supplies, including Orange County agencies, also moved toward relaxing conservation plans.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley as he called on the Department of Water and Power to end mandatory rationing and replace it with a voluntary program to cut use 10%. “The (water supply) picture is looking brighter, but the problem is not over. . . . You’ve still got a job to do.”

Although more water will be available, consumers will be paying more for it. MWD directors approved a 21% rate hike Tuesday that will cost average consumers about $1.25 a month, depending on how much water their local agency purchases from the MWD.

Despite MWD’s easing of rationing, many of Orange County’s water agencies say they will maintain their conservation requirements or ease them only slightly, while others say they have not yet decided.

Some Orange County officials said they want to retain their restrictions and pricing incentives to instill in residents the idea that conservation should be the norm.

“We wanted ours based on a permanent conservation ethic rather than just reactionary to (weather) conditions,” said Joyce Gwidt, a spokeswoman for the Irvine Ranch Water District, which has a billing structure that charges customers a higher rate the more water they use. “Drought can happen at any time and conservation should be a permanent way of life.”

In San Clemente--a city that was hit hard by the MWD mandates because it is totally reliant on imported water--a ban on washing off sidewalks and buildings will be lifted, said Greg Morehead, the city’s utilities manager. Other restrictions, however, will stay in place, including a ban on washing cars without trigger nozzles and a doubling of water rates for customers who exceed their allotment.

“People will be told to use water sparingly, to treat it like the precious resource it is, but they will be allowed to wash off some buildings or sidewalks if necessary,” he said.

Some officials said it is human nature to backslide when restrictions are lifted and conservation is made voluntary.

Roger Frauenfelder, the deputy city manager of San Diego, said he is afraid indications that the drought is easing would threaten recent strides in conservation. “We made such inroads in changing the mind-set of the average citizen to recognize the importance of conservation that it seems like a shame to quite hastily say, ‘Well, the drought’s over,’ and then we slip back into old ways,” Frauenfelder said.

But others expect the conservation ethic to stick. DWP officials said that even a voluntary conservation program will probably reduce water usage by 10% to 15%.

Based on statewide rainfall to date, California appears headed for an unprecedented sixth consecutive year of drought conditions. But February rains, coupled with a successful conservation program in the last year, have left reservoirs at higher levels.

The MWD action followed the state Department of Water Resources’ announcement Monday that it will nearly double the amount of water it will deliver this year to members. The state agency said it will increase deliveries to State Water Project members--including the MWD--to 35% of water requested, up from 20%.

Under the action unanimously approved by the MWD Board of Directors without discussion Tuesday, the agency will reduce from 31% to 17% the conservation restriction it has imposed on water it sells wholesale to 27 agencies. The MWD supplies about 60% of the water consumed by 15 million people in its six-county service area stretching from Ventura County to the Mexican border and inland to Riverside.

Even though more water will be available, many officials said consumers probably will continue to conserve. They note that after the drought of 1977-1978, water demand did not return to normal levels for three years.

This time, officials said, habits are being helped along by plumbing.

Unlike past droughts, in which conservation was based primarily on changing consumer behavior, officials and homeowners got smart and changed the hardware that consumes the most water in a home: toilets and showers.

In the last three years, Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power spent $27 million to subsidize the installation of 225,000 low-flow toilets and millions of dollars more to distribute 1.5 million low-flow shower heads.

The MWD subsidized installation of an additional 100,000 low-flush toilets and distributed 1 million shower heads.

The shower heads, which deliver about 2 1/2 gallons a minute, compared with eight to 11 gallons a minute on standard models, could save 56,000 acre-feet of water a year--enough to provide all the water needed for 110,000 to 150,000 families for a year.

The savings from these fixtures equal about 2% to 3% of the water used in Southern California, said Tim Quinn, director of the conservation division of the MWD.

Cooler weather also helped consumers to cut water use, which fell by nearly 30% in San Diego and Los Angeles in the last year, Quinn said.

But consumer habits accounted for the bulk of savings, he said, and much of the savings was in the home.

DWP figures show that sewer flows, which measure water leaving household drains, dropped 15% during the last three years.

It is unclear just how much outdoor water use was cut, but conservation’s impact on the state’s nursery industry was evident.

Michael Kunce, president of Armstrong Garden Centers and vice president of the Council for a Green Environment, said 30,000 jobs were lost in the landscaping industry as homeowners let lawns and shrubs die and postponed landscaping projects.

Although it was good news that some restrictions will be eased, Kunce said it will probably be a slow recovery for his business. “People will be hesitant about running out and landscaping without knowing if this will happen again,” he said.

A few districts in Orange County will consider easing their rules to mimic the MWD’s new requirements.

Pat McCarron, Brea’s maintenance service director, says the city will consider relaxing its mandatory 10% water restriction, which penalizes residents with higher rates if they don’t comply.

“We would ask the City Council to possibly go back to voluntary restrictions, do away with penalties. If (MWD) does away with their penalty system, we’ll do away with ours,” McCarron said.

The El Toro Water District also “would be happy to ease the burden on our customers” and would probably lower its 20% cutback mandate to 10% to comply with MWD’s, said John Concar, the district’s general manager.

Other cities and districts have not yet decided whether to relax efforts. In Anaheim--where mandatory restrictions include a ban on watering yards from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.--the issue will be taken up by the public utilities board and the City Council.

Dale Heuerman, general manager of the East Orange County Water District, which mostly serves parts of Orange and Tustin, said the board will consider relaxing its 15% water cutback later this month. “But we’ll probably continue the way we are and then evaluate it monthly,” he said.

Orange County gets about half of its water from MWD, while the rest comes from local ground water. The southern half of the county, however, has very little usable ground water, so most cities there are 100% reliant on MWD’s imported water.

Times staff writers Greg Braxton, John Chandler, Marla Cone, Aaron Curtiss, Michael Granberry, Tracey Kaplan, Carlos V. Lozano and Donnette Dunbar contributed to this story.