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Tapping into the future

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It’s long past time for Los Angeles’ leadership to get serious about saving water -- and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s new water-supply action plan is a responsible effort to move beyond our hysterical past to a reasonable future.

Designed to make sure the city can meet all of its new demands for water through conservation and recycling, the plan calls for enforcing a 1991 ordinance restricting water use, including prohibitions against hosing down driveways and watering lawns in the middle of the day. It lays out a strategy to recover some of the millions of gallons of rainwater that flow to the ocean each year and promises to push the federal government to clean up the San Fernando Groundwater Basin, a key source that also happens to be a Superfund site. The city will spend $2.3 million on an awareness campaign. It will offer rebates for efficient appliances. It will install “smart irrigation controllers” in parks and will require new development to comply with green standards.

It was tiresome, if somewhat predictable, that the media focused on just one aspect of the plan: water recycling for indirect potable use, sometimes referred to, vividly, as “toilet to tap.” Gerald A. Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino and an opponent of an earlier recycling program, told The Times it was “grossly unfair” for the mayor to decide that residents should reuse water.

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Enough, already. Perhaps -- perhaps -- there was reason to fret in 2000, when politicians across the city, including Villaraigosa, forced the Department of Water and Power to shutter a spanking-new, $55-million plant that processed sewage to make it safe to return to underground aquifers. Back then, recycling technology was still too expensive, and water still seemed too plentiful, for this worthy project to overcome its howling opponents. It didn’t help that the city kept the public out of the planning process.

Today, Los Angeles gets almost 90% of its water from outsidesources -- all of which are under pressure. Imports from the State Water Project, for example, could drop 30% this year and are expected to remain low indefinitely, no matter how much it rains or snows in winters to come. If Los Angeles hopes to thrive, it must turn to local water supplies to make up for shortfalls. Recycling technology has improved. Orange County has already started recycling water for indirect potable reuse. The mayor said he plans to reach out to residents, as Orange County did, to make the case for recycled water. He must follow through.

Los Angeles residents must follow through as well. DWP officials say the utility will expand its incentive programs to encourage homeowners to cut back on outdoor water use, which accounts for 40% of residential consumption in the city. Homeowners must take advantage of offers like these and must install landscaping that is more water-friendly. In return, the city should do what it can to remove the red tape that can make it difficult for well-intentioned folks to experiment with water-saving projects, such as using gray water in the garden and installing permeable driveways and hardscapes that recover storm water.

We in Los Angeles live in a dry land with precious little local water. We need to recognize that we can no longer go out and grab water wherever we can find it, whenever we need it. This means not standing in the way of projects, including recycling, that will make Los Angeles more self-sufficient.

The mayor’s plan won’t get us all the way there -- it doesn’t address incentive pricing, a key component to reducing use, nor does it set aside all the money to pay for the new initiatives (though federal and state funds are available). But it lays a good foundation for the aggressive action the city will have to take to save water for decades to come. Antiquated attitudes about reuse can’t be allowed to thwart these essential first steps.

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