California drought: Voluntary cutback falls short in Bay Area

To help save water, S.F. residents Josh and Cynthia Kelly use a pitcher of water to bathe their 3-month-old daughter, Eleanor. To help save water, S.F. residents Josh and Cynthia Kelly use a pitcher of water to bathe their 3-month-old daughter, Eleanor. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close California drought: Voluntary cutback falls short in Bay Area 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Nearly five months after Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and asked Californians to use 20 percent less water, almost everyone believes they're doing their part.

Wishful thinking.

Records from the Bay Area's largest water agencies, reviewed by The Chronicle, show customers across the region are conserving in only modest amounts, if at all.

Long showers continue to be the norm, cars still get hosed down, and sprinklers still soak green lawns despite pleas by local water officials to cut back.

In San Jose, water use in the first quarter of the year was actually up over the same period in 2013 - though officials there say conservation efforts are just kicking in.

Customers of the giant East Bay Municipal Utility District trimmed consumption by roughly 3 percent between early February and April, when compared to the average use for the period in the previous three years.

And in San Francisco, residents have scaled back about 8 percent by the same measure.

Though conservation numbers in San Francisco may be better than in some places, city officials say they need more savings soon and they may initiate rationing for the first time in more than two decades.

A few communities, such as Pleasanton and Dublin, already have.

Tepid response

The tepid response from water users comes as two statewide polls by the Public Policy Institute of California suggest that at least 75 percent of Californians see dwindling water supplies as a problem. As many as 92 percent say they're taking steps to address the drought.

"It's easy for someone to say, 'Yeah, I'm conserving water. I'm turning off the water when I brush my teeth. I'm not watering (outdoors) as much,' " said Tyrone Jue, a spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to the city's 180,000 homes and businesses.

But, he added, "We need them to do a little more."

The worst drought in decades has left water supplies in many areas critically short. Most Northern California communities saw just half their average rainfall this past winter, while the Sierra snowmelt that nourishes major rivers and reservoirs has been but a fraction of normal.

With the dry, water-intensive summer months ahead, supplies will only get thinner.

One kink in the Bay Area's conservation effort, water experts say, is that many residents have already taken steps to tighten up, making additional progress a challenge.

Households have installed water-efficient appliances and put in drought-tolerant plants. The region's per-capita water use is among the lowest in the state.

'Ethic for conservation'

So on Jan. 17, when Brown asked for his 20 percent cut - prompting local water agencies to follow up with their own calls for voluntary cutbacks - Bay Area residents had a tall order.

"If you're in a region that hasn't done a lot of conservation, it's so much easier to drop down," said Greg Weber, executive director of the California Urban Water Conservation Council, an association of statewide water agencies and advocacy groups.

"The Bay Area has an ethic for conservation," he said. "They just don't do it because someone tells them to. They do it because it makes economic sense, political sense and value sense."

Still, local water managers say residents can do more.

In Pleasanton, where deliveries from the State Water Project were slashed by a quarter this year - and residents didn't initially respond to calls for voluntary reductions - city officials mandated 25 percent cuts last month, with stiff penalties for violators.

Summer will be real test

The city appears to be closing in on that target, officials said, without providing exact numbers. The real test, though, will come this summer when residents endure longer stretches of 90-plus-degree days.

State officials would not discuss how the statewide conservation effort is going. An update is expected later this month, and the Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to meet June 17 to consider whether additional conservation measures are needed.

Some outside observers, though, suspect that consumption has not changed significantly since January.

"The anecdotal evidence is that it's not going down consistent with what the governor has asked for, and, in some cases, it's going up," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents nearly 440 water suppliers. "Urban agencies need to raise the bar and do more."

Just how bad off water agencies will be if more isn't done varies from community to community, depending on their source of water.

Multiple sources

In the East Bay, where the East Bay Municipal Utility District provides water from the central Sierra to about 400,000 homes and businesses, district officials say modest conservation efforts have been sufficient so far.

The district recently purchased additional water from the Sacramento River, and officials note that water consumption, though down only slightly over a three-year period, has actually dropped 11 percent over last year - more than the 10 percent the district is seeking from customers.

"If next year looks like this year, however, we're going to be in a much different situation," said agency spokeswoman Abby Figuero.

Three-year comparisons

In San Jose, officials at the San Jose Water Co., which serves 225,000 accounts with water from local wells and the state and federal water projects, say they haven't hit a crisis point either.

Company spokesman John Tang suggested that the increases in water use this year over last are due to dry weather in 2013. He hopes recent calls for conservation will bring a downturn.

Because the company is private, it did not provide the three-year consumption data requested by The Chronicle. The Chronicle's review of conservation efforts sought to compare water use this year to the three previous years - for when data was available - helping account for swings in weather.

In San Francisco, officials acknowledge that city residents and businesses have not met the city's conservation target, put in place Jan. 31. Though customers have cut back over the prior three years, officials are seeking a 10 percent reduction over what was initially projected for this year and say they are well under that.

City officials want to be sure their Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park holds enough water through the summer and part of next year.

What more can they do?

San Francisco resident Josh Kelly, 35, is among those who say they don't know how much more they can save. Last year, Kelly bought a water-efficient washing machine and retrofitted his toilets with dual-flush systems that he got at Home Depot. That's on top of being prudent about how much water he runs at the sink and checking for leaks.

This year, he got a new addition to his household, 3-month-old Eleanor. While he and his wife are trying to take steps to save more water, such as not washing their blue jeans - and even bathing their baby with water from a pitcher instead of the faucet - they don't expect big savings.

"I'm not sure I can reduce any more," Kelly said. "I'm trying."