Residents urged to cut water use

The public agency that distributes water to much of the Southland is urging residents to reduce consumption by 10% to 20% to protect reserves during a worsening drought.

“We’re coming to the point in Southern California life where there’s no room for water waste,” said Anthony Fellow, vice chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Water District, which distributes imported water to 18 million people from Ventura County to the Mexican border.

After drawing down their reserves by half during the last two years, Fellow and other board members are preparing to move to Step 2 of their three-step conservation plan: a nonbinding water supply alert. It could come as soon as Tuesday.

The alert recommends that cities enforce water conservation laws already on the books. Los Angeles and Long Beach are enforcing such restrictions, but other cities need to update or better enforce their ordinances, said MWD General Manager Jeff Kightlinger during a conference call with Fellow.

The announcement comes days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought because of low reserves and court-ordered water restrictions protecting endangered fish.

Though cities cannot be penalized for ignoring the alert, if they tap reserves to dangerous levels, the MWD could move to Step 3 of its plan: allocating cities a set amount of water and fining those that exceed the limit. Cities often pass the fines on to consumers through rate increases and mandatory restrictions on water use.

“If we can’t get the right kind of response out of the public, at that point we have to move to more severe measures,” Kightlinger said.

The earliest the MWD could start allocating water, if the alert is issued next week, would be spring 2009, Kightlinger said.

The agency already plans to increase the rate it charges cities by 10% for each of the next three calendar years, a spokesman said.

The last time the board issued a similar alert, in 1991, residents reduced consumption by 30%, mostly through indoor measures such as installing water-saving shower heads, Kightlinger said. Now the agency is encouraging residents to conserve in their yards by installing sprinklers, sweeping instead of spraying driveways and planting drought-resistant shrubs.

Even if this year turns out to be wetter than expected, residents still need to conserve, Fellow said.

“The snowpack this year was good, we had some rain, but that’s only a dent” in the drought, he said. “It’s time for the three-minute shower, time to stop letting the tap run when you brush your teeth. We want these to become permanent changes in Southern California.”

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molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com