Saving water without prompting

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Congratulations, Modestans. You're doin' good.

On what, you might ask, skeptically thinking that with our dismal unemployment and foreclosure rates, gang problems and everything else, there isn't much to celebrate.

Ah, but there is! And it has to do with a very important topic -- water.

PDF: Average Daily Water Use by Month

Over the last several years, Modesto water customers -- city residents and people in surrounding communities that are part of the Modesto system -- have consistently been using less water. You can see the decline for yourself in accompanying chart.

The Legislature is on the verge of mandating conservation in urban areas; the most commonly discussed goal is a 20 percent per capita reduction by 2020.

In areas where the three- year drought has been most acute, local ordinances already require reductions. But in the Modesto area, at least so far, conservation has only been encouraged -- through education and through strategies such as day-of-the- week and time-of-day restrictions on yard watering.

But the response to that encouragement has been good, which we think reflects well on our community.

The decline in water use started well before the foreclosure crisis and its fallout, vacant houses where the water generally has been turned off. And it started before sizable numbers were on water meters.

Not everyone is happy with water meters, especially those who used a lot of water and who got used to paying based on their lot size rather than how much water they used. But many residents are seeing lower monthly bills because of meters, including those in one- or two-person households and those who already practice conservation.

We like water meters. And we see a basic fairness in them. For example, a two- person household more than likely uses less water than a similar-sized home with five or six people, some of them showering twice a day. And a yard with low-water landscaping and drip irrigation uses less than a a yard with lots of grass and water-guzzling plants.

Two communities served by the Modesto water system demonstrate how meters promote conservation. Grayson, which has been on meters since 2004-05, has shown a 13 percent drop in water use per household. Salida has seen a decline of 12 percent water use in its first year on meters.

City staff is still reviewing numbers, but it appears that only about 200 of the 3,200 Salida customers saw their bills increase with meters.

State law requires that all urban areas be on water meters by 2025; Modesto hopes to reach that point before then, perhaps as early as 2019.

Today about 40,500 of Modesto's 77,000 water customers have meters. Subdivisions built after 1991 all have meters. There also are meters sprinkled throughout some older neighborhoods, and ironically, many of the complaints over meters are coming from those areas where most of the houses don't yet have them. The city's policy for some time has been that when crews go out to repair a leaky pipe, they install a meter at the same time -- thus avoiding having to go back later and dig the area up again. That's a prudent practice, but it creates a situation where a few people are on meters while most of their neighbors aren't yet. While 2025 is the deadline for urban areas to be fully on meters, the state is requiring that all existing meters -- whether on a new or older home -- be read starting Jan. 1.

To people who still think they can use all the water they want whenever they want and for whatever they want, it's time to change your ways. Those days are gone, and, we think, not a moment too soon.

But to Modestans who already have come to appreciate how precious water is and the need to conserve it, we raise our glass -- of water, of course -- and toast you for doing the right thing without being forced to do so.