Debra Baer
October 24, 2007
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Long Beach recently became the first city in the region to announce mandatory water restrictions in anticipation of a shortage. KPCC's Debra Baer reports the program is generating big water savings and some heat.

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Debra Baer: Long Beach doesn't have a water shortage, but it expects one if drought conditions continue in California and the Colorado River Watershed. Like other Southland cities, Long Beach imports a lot of its water – about half of it. Ryan Alsop is with the city's water department.

Ryan Alsop: Water's boring. People don't care about it until the sky is falling, generally. And so we're trying to do some innovative things to get the word out.

Baer: Like posting videos on YouTube, and giving free landscape classes. Also big grants to nonprofits to install drought-resistant gardens. Water officials began a voluntary campaign last spring. In September, they announced 14 mandatory restrictions.

Cheryl Jordan: Kudos to the water and power department, 'cause these guys are right on top of it.

Baer: That's Long Beach resident Cheryl Jordan.

Jordan: I think it's a great idea. Personally, I don't spray off my patio when I water the garden. I sweep it off. I take showers, not baths.

Baer: The main focus is on limiting outdoor water use, because it accounts for half or more of the average household's water use, and most of the waste.

In addition to banning the hosing down of concrete and asphalt, plumbing and sprinkler leaks have to be fixed, and watering is allowed only Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, between sunset and sunrise.

Bernita Walbridge: I'm trying to keep my rose bushes alive.

Baer: Eighty-three-year-old Bernita Walbridge doesn't have sprinklers. She's out watering the bushes with the hose. Most of her lawn has turned brown.

Walbridge: But I don't water in the morning. I don't get up that early. But I'm wondering what I'm going to do this winter when it gets dark at six o'clock. I live alone and I don't want to be out here by myself.

Baer: In response to the concerns of the elderly, the water department is moving up watering times to 4 p.m. in November.

On the enforcement side, there aren't any water cops or patrols, like there were during the shortage in the early 1990s. Instead, water officials are relying on residents to report violators through a Water Waster Hotline, e-mail, and Web site program – in part to save money on staffing, says Long Beach Water deputy general manager Anatole Falagan.

Anatole Falagan: This is our Web site. Here is reporting a water use violation. It allows you to input information as to where you saw it, what kind of violation took place. And sometimes it's helpful for us to contact the person reporting, so you can leave your name and your daytime phone number or e-mail, and you can click to submit the report.

Baer: So far, four to five hundred people have reported water wasters, who will soon be getting a letter in the mail. No fines yet, officials say. But repeat offenders could pay up to $50 if a water department employee can verify the violation. Penalties and restrictions will get tougher if there's a shortage. Ultimately the department can shut off your water.

Falagan: We're taking a pretty cutting-edge approach and seeing if water conservation can be done by self reporting through use of the Internet and using phone and Internet to log calls and log incidences. We'll see how it all comes together in the next six months or so.

Kevin Islander: I told him I wasn't big on the idea of the neighbors ratting out the neighbors, causing more tensions in neighborhoods.

Baer: Resident Kevin Islander owns a sprinkler business. He supports the mandatory restrictions.

Islander: I'm in a fairly quiet neighborhood here, we all talk to each other fairly well; but there's a lot of neighborhoods where that's not the case.

Ben: It's stupidity. As if there's not enough fighting between neighbors, as there is in the world, being so close together, they want now the neighbors to be the cops.

Baer: Ben is a long time resident. He didn't want his last name used.

Ben: You got a neighbor that don't care for you much, think about it. They'll be looking at you: "Oh, he's out there a minute before six; e-mail the city!"

Baer: UC Irvine sociologist Calvin Morrill says Long Beach and other water agencies shouldn't be surprised at the resistance, or unintended consequences.

Morrill: If you set up a policy in which control is based on people having to call in and report their neighbors, as soon as people start to get letters or communication from the regulatory agency, that is what creates potential schisms, fear, anxiety, and creates divisions in a community that could otherwise be counted on supporting something like conserving water.

Alsop: The majority of folks we've heard from like it. This is no different from community policing or neighborhood watch.

Baer: Water department spokesman Ryan Alsop:

Alsop: The fact of the matter is, people are talking about it. And whether it kind of rubs them the wrong way, or makes them stop and think about it, or they like it, in all those cases we're doing our job.

Baer: And there seems to be proof of that. In September, Long Beach's water use was the lowest it's been in a decade.