It’s a game you don’t want to have to play.

But if you’re going to enter the National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation, you might as well win – which Huntington Beach did last year for U.S. cities between 100,000 and 300,000 in population. This year, Huntington Beach (the contest runs through April 30) is in fifth place behind Ventura; Athens-Clarke County, Ga.; Torrance; and West Palm Beach, Fla. Laguna Beach is the only other Orange County city in the top 10 (in the under 30,000 population category).

Last year, Huntington Beach won a plaque personally delivered by the famous muralist Robert Wyland. This year, residents who participate are eligible to win a Toyota Prius.

To win again, the city must get the most people to sign up on the Mayor’s Challenge website (mywaterpledge.com) and answer a questionnaire in which they pledge to reduce their water consumption.

One telling statistic: Huntington Beach leads Orange County in turf removal applications (for which there is a $2 per square foot rebate). So water conservation is becoming more a part of residents’ routines.

As the drought conditions in Orange County get more serious, the Mayor’s Challenge is a contest with more urgent implications. Right now, residents are being asked to shorten showers, switch to drought-resistant landscaping and use shut-off hose nozzles – among other things – to comply with Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandate for a 25 percent reduction in usage for urban water agencies.

Brown’s proposal will go before the State Water Resources Control Board for final approval in early May.

“This is no joke,” said Huntington Beach Mayor Jill Hardy, who promotes the Mayor’s Challenge every chance she gets. “This is real. We need to do more.”

In May, the Huntington Beach City Council is expected to vote to move the city into a “Level 2” water supply shortage condition. At Level 2:

• Landscape irrigation with potable water would be limited to one day per week from November through March.

• All plumbing leaks must be fixed within 48 hours.

• Filling or refilling man-made lakes or ponds will be allowed to sustain only aquatic life.

• Washing vehicles will require a hand-held bucket and use of a hose with a shut-off nozzle. Vehicles can be washed at a car wash that uses recycled water.

• Refilling more than 1 foot of water in swimming pools would be prohibited.

What is Level 3, you may be wondering? Level 3 would be the most severe emergency situation. No new water permits would be granted, in effect shutting down all prospective businesses or home construction.

Each year, Huntington Beach uses about 29,000 acre-feet of water. The city gets water from Northern California, the Colorado River and local wells.

Brian Ragland, the city’s utilities manager, said the problem is that no matter how much it rains locally, the drought conditions don’t change much. Rain usually becomes runoff that flows into the ocean.

The problem, he said, lies in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where snowpack is alarmingly low. Snowpack becomes potable water.

Ragland said snow season in the Sierras runs from October to March, so there is not much we can hope for until October.

This year, the city will receive only 20 percent of the water it is contracted to receive from statewide sources, though that’s better than 2014’s 5 percent.