State Releases April Conversation Report, 2 Local Agencies Fail to Save

The overall message from state officials was that numbers released Tuesday show Californians are using less water

Ed. Note: Since this article was published, Escondido city officials informed NBC 7 the April 2013 data was incorrectly reported to the state. City officials say they conserved 11 percent in April when compared to two years ago.

In numbers released Tuesday, two water agencies in San Diego County reported using more water in April than two years ago, not less.

One had the lowest percentage of water saved in the state by a city of 40,000 or more.

California residents reduced overall water usage by 13.5 percent compared to the same month in the benchmark year of 2013, water officials said.

That's the second-best conservation achievement since state officials started closely tracking water use more than a year ago, but falls short of the 25 percent cuts Gov. Jerry Brown made mandatory for cities and towns as of June 1.

"Local communities are stepping up in a way they weren't before, and I'm hoping that's why we are starting to see the uptick" in conservation, said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state Water Resources Control Board.

"The real challenge is, we really have to step it up for the summer months," Marcus said. "If we miss the summer, we are toast."

The steepest reduction in the state, 45 percent, was reported by the water company serving Livermore. The worst was Escondido, reporting a 20 percent increase.

Santa Fe Irrigation District was up 9 percent when compared to water use in April 2013. The agency serves customers in Solana Beach and Rancho Santa Fe.

The Southern California coast, a region including Los Angeles and San Diego, cut just 9 percent in April, compared to a 20 percent reduction in the San Francisco Bay Area and 24 percent in the Sacramento area.

April's best conservers included Santa Rosa, a city of 170,000 north of San Francisco, which reported a 32 percent drop compared to 2013. The city offered a host of programs to achieve this, paying residents to reduce 52 football fields' worth of lawn and giving away 50,000 low-flush toilets since 2007.

This year's Sierra Nevada snowpack, which feeds the state's rivers, was the lowest on record -- a grim image that served as Brown's backdrop when he announced unprecedented conservation measures on April 1. 

Water districts missing their targets face potential fines of up to $10,000 a day once June numbers are in, although a far more likely outcome will be state-ordered changes in local regulations, like tougher limits on lawn-watering.

Each community was assigned a reduction target, with some ordered to cut back as much as 36 percent.

Water waste also is being tracked, and the board could penalize local agencies that don't crack down. Only a tenth of water departments reported penalizing their customers for water waste.

The shift to mandatory conservation followed lackluster savings through a voluntary effort, with water use slipping just 3 percent in February and 4 percent in March compared to the same months in 2013.

Percentage saved by local agencies in April 2015:
Carlsbad Municipal Water District: 10 percent
City of Escondido: -20 percent
Fallbrook Public Utility District: 7 percent
Helix Water District: 8 percent
City of Oceanside: 9 percent
Olivenhain Municipal Water District: 2 percent
Otay Water District: 6 percent
Padre Dam Municipal Water District: 11 percent
City of Poway: 13 percent
Rainbow Municipal Water District: 5 percent
Ramona Municipal Water District: 8 percent
City of San Diego: 4 percent
San Dieguito Water District: 24 percent
Santa Fe Irrigation District: -9 percent
Sweetwater Authority: 11 percent
Vallecitos Water District: 12 percent
Valley Center Municipal Water District: 9 percent
Vista Irrigation District: 4 percent
Lakeside Water District: 15 percent

No data was given for the City of Del Mar, Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District or Yuima Municipal Water District.

Only Sweetwater Authority and San Dieguito Water Districts were close to the percentages they need to conserve according to the levels set last month.

See the full report here.

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