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San Diego water usage lower by 4% in September

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waterusage1There is continued good news on the water conservation front in San Diego County. We all drank up and washed down less water last month, less by a respectable 4% descrease, than during September last year. This is according to statistics kept and distributed by the County Water Authority.

The September of efficient resource usage follows an even larger savings in August of 2014, when water consumption was reduced by 6% compared to the previous August. This large increase is even more surprising and welcome considering that temperatures were higher this past August than they were the year before. August of ’13 was a cooler than the August average. In terms of ongoing weather, more good news is that a 33% chance of rainfall being higher than normal in San Diego County for the next 12 months has been predicted.waterusage2

Water management spokespersons have noted that the recent decreases in usage are the result of the increased efforts to publicize the drought and emphasize the need for conservation efforts in industrial, agricultural and residential areas. Usage of water had been higher than before by 10% at the beginning of the year, and up slightly less in June and July, very hot months.

In August the Board of Directors of the California Water Authority (CWA) requested that mandatory water conservation measures be enacted and that the amount of water in storage be increased throughout all storage facilities in California. Currently, all 24 state agencies that compose the CWA have now mandated water-usage limits. The Board believes it is very important that following the success of the last two months, conservation efforts are increased, not relaxed. More options to saving water, using less, and storing more must be sought and implemented.

waterusage3Over the past year Californians have used more than 1 billion gallons less of water than in the previous year. That is the amount of water used by 20,000 residents. In San Diego city, usage fell 4.2% since August 2013. In the longer term San Diego County has cut down water consumption by 20% over the past 7 years.

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