California revises water conservation targets amid drought

SACRAMENTO — Water use must plummet in each California community under Gov. Jerry Brown's sweeping plan to get through a relentless drought, but regulators on Saturday offered some cities relief from drastic cuts, while ordering more severe reductions from others.

Brown this month ordered a 25 percent cutback in statewide urban water use. The agencies expected to make the steepest cuts have said the state's demands are unreasonable and unfair.

Regulators are facing such a backlash — they received 250 comments complaining about their first rationing proposal — as they try to figure out how to distribute the burden of conservation. It's not feasible to expect coastal cities with few lawns like San Francisco to make cuts on the same magnitude as resort towns in the desert. But the state also risks flaring up regional tensions surrounding how water is delivered in California.

'All Californians need to step up more and prepare as if it won't rain or snow much next year either,' said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board.

Homes and businesses use less than a fifth of the water Californians withdraw from surface and groundwater supplies, but state officials say conservation is the best way to maximize water supplies to prepare for future dry years.

The water board on Saturday released new mandatory conservation targets from 8 to 36 percent compared with 2013 levels, before the governor declared a drought emergency. The targets are now assigned based on water use last summer to reward communities that already started making cutbacks after the drought started.

On the North Coast, water districts in Healdsburg and Sonoma will be grappling with stricter reductions than they had been anticipating, while most other districts' restrictions were loosened or stay the same.

Among the 11 water districts serving the North Bay, the City of Sonoma, which had been ordered to reduce water use by 25 percent, now has a target of 28 percent. Healdsburg jumped 3 percentage points to 28 percent, as well.

Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Windsor and the Sweetwater Springs Water District in west county saw their targets fall from 20 percent to 16 percent.

The remaining districts' targets either stayed the same, or declined by 1 percentage point.

The updated regulations still didn't address some of the most common complaints from agencies.

Communities that slashed water consumption before the drought are grouped together with those who didn't. Water savings can be limited by factors unrelated to good conservation, including hotter weather, fiercer winds and economic growth. And some say regulators are ignoring local efforts to wean off the state water system and prepare for droughts, such as paying for desalination plants and local reservoirs.

'There are parts of the state that really haven't done much of anything,' said John Helminski, assistant director of San Diego public utilities.

He said San Diego residents are being asked to endure new restrictions even though they have been paying higher rates to become more self-reliant for water, such as an upcoming project to purify sewage into drinking water.

'The fact that we are being dinged additional costs doesn't seem fair.'

The board on Saturday said these concerns are valid but more appropriate for permanent conservation goals.

'All of those projects are in the long-term interests of the communities, but what we are talking about here is a short-term emergency,' said Marcus, the chairwoman.

The regulations are expected to be approved by the board in early May and take effect in June.

Local water departments that fail to conserve or reduce water use face possible fines and state intervention, which could include raising water rates and adding new water restrictions. State officials said they will start monitoring for compliance this summer but will remain focused on helping local agencies rather than penalizing them.

'Fines don't create water,' said Caren Trgovcich, the board's chief deputy director.

Some communities that aren't importing water and aren't facing shortages, particularly on the North Coast, can petition to make just a 4 percent cut.

The board Saturday also allowed water departments to exclude deliveries to farms when determining water cutbacks. Marcus acknowledged that the move would likely exacerbate the perception that agriculture, which uses four times as much as urban users, is exempt from drought cuts.

Farms have endured cutbacks from government reservoir systems, and many are likely to be ordered to stop diverting water from streams and rivers they have legal rights to take as early as next week.

This story includes information from the Press Democrat staff.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct information on North Coast districts' targets.