Last June, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought and directed all water agencies to significantly increase water conservation efforts and implement stricter ordinances. At the time, Glendale Water & Power had enacted a 10% voluntary conservation effort, but that has yielded average cutbacks of only 4%, officials said.
“We got some conservation, but we didn’t get enough,” said Glendale Water & Power General Manager Glenn Steiger.
Utility officials added the outdoor watering restriction option in reaction to community concerns about the fairness of the original proposal, in which Glendale customers would be billed at least twice the regular rate for any water used that exceeded individually assigned benchmarks, which would be calculated at 10% less than their average consumption in 2006.
Residents who had already been conserving water questioned the fairness of proposed rules, arguing it would punish those who had already been conserving 10% or more.
City Councilman Ara Najarian agreed, noting that if the benchmark proposal were to be chosen, there would have to be allowances made for households that had changed in size or had already been conserving.
“And that’s a very difficult thing,” he said. “You almost have to do it on a house to house basis if it’s going to be effective and fair.”
The new option would simply limit any outdoor irrigation to three times a week for no more than 15 minutes at a time, Steiger said.
“This is a much easier option from both the user standpoint and certainly from our standpoint, in order to administer it and keep track of the actual usage,” he said.
