San Diegans cut back on their water usage last November, consistent with a 10 percent reduction in water usage across California in a statewide effort to preserve water and work toward ending the drought, the state Water Resources Control Board said in a newly released report.
The numbers come after the city went into “drought alert status” and issued tighter water use restrictions that took effect at the start of November across San Diego after approval by the City Council to combat the state’s prolonged drought.
Residents used less water in November – an average of 65 gallons per person daily - than they did in the same month in 2013. In 2013, the monthly per-person average was 64.9 gallons.
In comparison to its California counterparts, San Diego remained relatively low on the list of biggest water users for the state last November, taking the 322nd spot out of 398.
Rancho Santa Fe, the prominent North County community that was criticized last fall for using the most water in the state, dropped to the third largest user of water in the new report.
Residents of Rancho Santa Fe used an average of 377 gallons per day in November, considerably less than the previous month’s totals of 518 average gallons of water per day. Last September, the community came under fire for using the most water in the state at a whopping 585 gallons a day.
Officials said that despite the decrease in November water numbers, the heavy rains in December did not do much for the prolonged drought. The drought only delivered about one-third of the rain needed to end the drought.
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State water production from June to November of 2014 decreased and the California saved more than 105 billion gallons of water.
