As California endures an epic drought, Southern Californians have seemed blissfully ignorant of the crisis, with water consumption actually growing in some areas.

Those days appear to be over, if the outraged reaction to plans to install a 1,000-foot waterslide in downtown Los Angeles and other California cities is any indication.

The slide, whose planned visit to Los Angeles on Sept. 27 was announced by promoters of “Slide the City” earlier this month, would take up three blocks of Olive Street on Bunker Hill. It’s a hilly section of street, and initial public reaction to the idea was enthusiastic.

California is suffering through its third year of drought, though, so it’s not too surprising that the slide would generate some backlash. Still, the reaction has been surprisingly negative. An online petition launched by Los Angeles resident Karina Soto demanding that the slide be kept out of L.A. and other California cities has gathered nearly 9,000 signatures and plenty of media attention. As a result, city officials seem hesitant to approve the event.

“It is extremely irresponsible for any city in California to allow an event like one featuring a giant waterslide to take place for the sake of money and fun while the state as a whole has been suffering from this drought,” wrote Soto in the petition.

Is the response a sign that urban Californians are finally becoming aware of the record drought?

Environmental activist Mike Prather thinks so. A longtime resident of the Owens Valley, the source of much of Los Angeles’ water, Prather says he doubts reaction to the slide would have been nearly as sharp a few years ago.

“California’s been dragging its tongue through the dust for three years now,” Prather said. “The state’s enacted fines against people whose sprinklers water their sidewalks, and Angelenos are being encouraged to rat out their neighbors who waste water. Of course a big water event like this is going to raise eyebrows.”

But Prather, who has been working for years to restore wetlands on the Owens River that have suffered from a century of water diversion for those Los Angeles lawn sprinklers, isn’t upset by the water slide. “It’s a drop in the bucket,” he said.

Slide organizers say the ride would consume between 12,000 and 16,000 gallons of water, which they plan to treat and reuse.

That would be a lot of water to have leaking out of your home plumbing, but in the larger world of water it’s minuscule. For instance, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is piping 12 billion gallons of water from the Owens Valley this year.

Actual numbers aside, does the slide send the wrong symbolic message when officials are trying to coax people to conserve?

Los Angeles journalist Emily Green is ambivalent. A veteran water policy writer, Green has expressed impatience in the past with water wastage for recreational purposes, recently suggesting that golfers should go play in Scotland rather than using California’s scarce water supply to irrigate golf courses in the desert. But she’s less willing to interfere with would-be watersliders’ chance to enjoy themselves.

“Do I approve of the waterslide? No,” Green said. “Do I disapprove? No. Sure, staging the event this year is bad taste. But I wish people would have put as much effort into making sure the city didn’t relandscape City Hall with acres of lawn. That uses far more water than the slide ever will.”

Green suggests that the water slide might even end up saving water in the long run if it brings people back to downtown L.A.

“Events like this remind people that downtown is a place where you can come have fun,” she said. “If events like this persuade people to move back into downtown from their individual houses separated by lawn, then L.A.’s overall water use will drop.”

The slide’s appearance on Olive Street is by no means a slam dunk. With more people saying the slide could well prove a slippery slope to more water waste, city officials are starting to express concerns over the event.

LADWP spokesperson Michelle Vargas has gone so far as to tell the Los Angeles Times that the slide “is not consistent with the water conservation lifestyle in Los Angeles.”

That’s OK with Prather, even though the slide wouldn’t use enough water to make a noticeable difference in the drought. “I’m glad the proposal came up,” he said. “Anything that gets people talking about the drought, among themselves, online, or in the paper, is fine by me.”

“My fear is that after the next good wet winter, Californians will stop caring about how much water they use,” he added. “Discussions like this help. As far as I’m concerned, those guys can offer to bring their waterslide to every city facing this drought. The more we talk about the issue publicly, the better chance we have of finding long-term answers.”