A revised water conservation plan announced by state officials Saturday would increase pressure on most of Orange County’s biggest water consumers while easing off others, such as Newport Beach and Santa Ana.

Changes in local conversation mandates, part of a statewide push by Gov. Jerry Brown to cut urban water use by 25 percent over the next year, followed 10 days of fierce lobbying by water district officials across the county and state.

Mandates across Orange County now range from reducing residential water use by 8 percent in Seal Beach to cutting it by 36 percent in Villa Park, Yorba Linda and some neighboring unincorporated areas.

Past conversation efforts and current water use per resident influence how much California water officials are proposing each water district across the county cut.

The mandates still aren’t final, however. California water officials plan to solicit public comment through Wednesday and then consider adopting the proposal at a State Water Resources Control Board meeting in early May.

For the new revisions, Orange County water officials wrote letters to the state taking issue with how the conservation mandates were calculated and asking for more time to meet them. The current proposal would compare water use starting in June with 2013 data.

Many north and central Orange County districts requested their mandates be lowered because they have invested in a local groundwater replenishment system, which treats 70 million gallons per day of sewer water and pumps it underground. Districts argued that such recycled water shouldn’t be part of water use calculations since the water is recycled.

“Not recognizing (it) undermines the state policy of encouraging expanded use of recycled water,” wrote Brian Ragland, the utilities manager in Huntington Beach, which would have to cut residential water use by 20 percent under the state’s latest proposal.

Many local agencies also called on the state to base mandates on total water use rather than only residential use. Expanding that would allow districts to find efficiencies in water use anywhere, regardless of whether it came from homes, businesses or landscapes at large institutions such as universities.

Some also asked for more time.

Moulton Niguel Water District general manager Joone Lopez argued drought-tolerant landscaping requires time to succeed and if homeowners are forced to kill their lawns to conserve water, they would lose trust in the water district. Moulton Niguel serves parts of Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel.

“Due to the lost trust, customers could replant their lawns at the end of the drought,” Lopez wrote.

In a conference call with reporters Saturday, water board chairwoman Felicia Marcus acknowledged that climate differences and other factors complicate setting fair conservation mandates. But she insisted that the state just doesn’t have enough time to engage in long-term policy discussions.

“What we’re talking about here is a ‘short-term emergency, we don’t want to hit the wall’ situation,” she said. “Those who use the most have the most opportunity to reduce the most.”

Marcus defended measuring conservation based on residential water use as a more fair metric than total water use, calling commercial water too great a variable across districts. It would be comparing “apples to camels” instead of “apples to pear apples,” she said.

Many Orange County agencies complained about the imprecise and potentially inaccurate gallons per person per day measurements. State officials used that measure to divide water agencies into four conservation tiers — 10, 20, 25 or 35 percent — based on a single month of data, September.

The state’s new plan addresses some of those concerns, increasing the number of tiers to nine and expanding the months of base data to three. These changes reduce the potential consequences of small changes in water use or single-month anomalies, state officials said.

The past 48 months — from April of 2011 to March of 2015 — have been the driest on record for California, the National Weather Service reported Friday. At the beginning of April, the statewide snowpack was measured at 5 percent — a record low.

Though brief rains in December and February caused grasses to green and grow, expected hot temperatures will quickly make those whither and add to fire danger this summer, forecasters said.