A South Bay water district has one of the lowest water usage rates per capita in the state, but its customers will still have to cut back more under Gov. Jerry Brown's new drought mandate.
Many people in the Sweetwater Authority Water District -- which covers National City, Bonita and parts of Chula Vista –are already using water-saving appliances, drought-resistant landscaping and rainwater collection.
The district has the lowest average daily water use per resident (64 gallons) in the county, according to the Equinox Center, a nonprofit research center focused on sustainability. That’s compared to San Diego’s average of 73 gallons per day and the Santa Fe Irrigation District’s 504 gallons per day – the highest in the county.
Sweetwater has even implemented a 2010 request from the governor: a tiered rate structure that chargers big water guzzlers more per gallon.
So residents in the area are asking, what more can they do to reach 25 percent water reduction? In response, the utility is now issuing targets to customers, showing how much water they should be using based on their average use.
Leslie Payne, the Sweetwater Authority spokeswoman, said it’s hard to pinpoint what makes people save water. They’ve tried a number of triggers.
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“Some people are motivated by price; they're motivated by using more water and they're going to do everything they can to reduce their water bill,” she said. “And some people are just trying to have a sustainable lifestyle, and they're trying to be more efficient, doing the best they can.”
Spring Valley resident Heather Jagodinsky is the second kind of person. Whether it’s gas, energy or water, she likes to save.
She fashions water-saving devices out of anything, such as a bucket that uses gravity to collect precipitation. That liquid is saved up to water her plants. But even Jagodinsky said she could do more.
“Well if I could use the shower water to do the same kind of thing that I’m doing with the water to use, I could save some more,” she told NBC 7.
But others were concerned Thursday that they will now be penalized for being early adopters of water conservation.
According to Payne, at this time, there are not any penalties for going about the target water usage laid out for their homes.
“We used it as a tool to educate our customers and be aware of the amount of usage in their household,” she said.
The mayor of National City, Ron Morrison, has started a sort of game to get his water bill as low as he possibly can. He told NBC 7 reducing water any more in some National City homes could create health and sanitation issues.
