Drought requires fresh thinking on residential water use

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San Diegans have responded well to calls for water conservation in the face of California’s extreme drought. Average individual water use is down 20 percent since 2007. An unexpected spike in local water consumption in October can be blamed on exceptionally warm temperatures — nearly 6 degrees higher than normal.

But the message from county water officials and anyone who monitors California water issues is that the need for significant water conservation isn’t just a priority in the short or medium term. It’s likely the new norm going forward — and the reductions that have been accomplished so far must only be the start.

That’s not just because of the strong possibility of reduced supplies for the county in 2015 from the Metropolitan Water District of California, the giant water wholesaler that is the main source for most of Southern California.

It’s also because even if it were to start raining and snowing in the Sierra Nevada tomorrow and keep it up for weeks a time, we’d still be far from replenishing state water reserves. Lake Oroville is now near its all-time low, set in 1977. Lake Mead is at its lowest level since the reservoir was filled in 1930.

The wisdom of the county water authority seeking to broadly diversify its water sources after a 1991 drought nearly brought disaster has been confirmed over and over again. It’s great news that the authority relies on MWD for less than half its supplies, down from 95 percent in 1991. The authority also deserves praise for championing the Carlsbad desalination plant — the largest in the Western Hemisphere — which will open next year and is expected to provide 7 percent of regional supplies by 2020.

The city of San Diego has also been smart, this month embracing a purification project that will turn wastewater into safe drinking water, possibly providing a full one-third of city supplies in 20 years.

But in one potentially game-changing area, our elected officials haven’t been nearly ambitious enough. We refer to the fact that in San Diego County and other arid parts of California, fully 60 percent of residential water use is outdoors, for watering lawns and landscaping. That’s nearly twice the national norm.

Existing water-rate disincentives haven’t done nearly enough to force a fundamental shift away from a status quo in which billions of gallons of drinking water are used every day in California for what might be termed cosmetic purposes.

It’s time for lawmakers to enact major state and federal tax incentives for homeowners and homebuilders to shift to drought-tolerant landscaping.

There are reasons beyond water conservation why Californians might like this. Water rates have soared in recent years, and there’s little hope of that trend changing anytime soon. We’re not far from a time in which a homeowner with a grass-covered, medium-size yard may find his water tab to be his biggest monthly bill after his mortgage.

So let’s get on with crafting this policy innovation. Strong incentives can change behavior. Such incentives are needed to end the folly of dumping precious drinking water on lawns and shrubbery.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...-on-water-use/