South Lake Tahoe community exceeds water conservation goals

When Governor Jerry Brown told the residents of the state to cut back their water usage, he had the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) tell each region how much to cut back. That benchmark in South Lake Tahoe was 20%.

For the past three months, residents have cut much more than that. In May, water use at South Tahoe Public Utility District (STPUD) was down 34%, followed by 24% in June and 27% in July. This is on top of the 27% reduction in water use that the district's customer have accomplished since 2007.

"The community of South Lake Tahoe is doing a great job in conserving this summer," said Donielle Morse, the district's Water Conservation Specialist. "The reduction in usage has been better than I expected, given the heat we’ve experienced this summer. While I believe the rain we received in May, June and July helped quite a bit, we would not have seen these reductions without our customers making a conscious effort to conserve water wherever possible."

The state as a whole had a water reduction of 29.1% in May and 27.3% in June. It takes the state a few weeks to gather the figures from the state's larger water suppliers so the July figures won't be in until after the middle of August.

STPUD has issued 250 formal warnings/citations to businesses and residents for watering incorrectly since the mandatory restrictions were set in May. Only a few of those have resulted in fines though.

"We have been working with customers as much as possible to help them stay in compliance with water restrictions and to avoid imposing fines," said Morse.

Residents still need to abide by water restrictions. Those in place for STPUD customers are always in effect, and those included in the SWRCB emergency regulation and are in effect for 270 days after filling with Secretary of State (expiration without renewal would be in early 2016).