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Napa residents performed like champs in 2015. They cut water use by 25 percent, which exceeded the 20 percent state mandate.

Napa’s savings exceeded the state target for every month but one since since the statewide conservation order took effect in June, said Joy Eldredge, city water manager.

Most cities reported steeper cuts during July and August— the peak outdoor irrigation months — than in later months. Napa’s estimated December savings of 25 percent is partly due to the comparison with an unusually warm and dry December in 2013 that required more irrigation than normal for a typically rainy month, according to Eldredge.

“We’ve said for several years that landscaping is the last place we can get significant gains,” she said last week. “It’s like a bell curve, where the summer months in the middle of the year are the time of highest usage.

“The way California set up its mandate, it’s very difficult for a place like San Francisco to get to 30 percent savings, because they don’t have a lot of outdoor irrigation. You can be more efficient, but it’s really difficult to lop off 30 percent of your consumption if it’s strictly indoors.”