UPS AND DOWNS—This chart shows the amount of cumulative water use by customers of Waterworks District No. 8, which accounts for about 60 percent of Simi Valley. The flat bars represent the monthly targets and the solid bars represent actual usage. Although customers have missed the mark five out of eight months so far, they are still on pace to meet the required 15 percent reduction. Courtesy of the city of Simi Valley Thanks to rainy month, Simi Valley had a good February in terms of using less water.

After failing to meet conservation goals in the three previous months, Simi residents last month used just 263 million gallons of water—the goal was 355.

Ron Fuchiwaki, director of public works, gave a lot of the credit to the change in weather.

“We had pretty good rains in February. People (did) not need to irrigate their landscaping, so it was much easier . . . to conserve,” he said.

Still, if the city is going to meet its required 15 percent reduction as mandated by the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), conservation is still necessary over the next four months to make up for the months when residents fell short.

Simi gets its water from two purveyors: the Ventura County Waterworks District No. 8, which is overseen by the City Council and provides water to about 60 percent of Simi, and Golden State Water Company, which serves about 13,300 households.

Both purveyors purchase their water from the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which gets its water from the MWD.

After three years of drought, both MWD and Calleguas last July called for a 15 percent mandatory water use reduction over the next 12 months.

If the city doesn’t meet its lowered water supply allocations, it could suffer severe financial penalties beginning June 31 for any water use above the designated limit—and those fines would be passed on to customers.

When looked at cumulatively, the city is very close to meeting its goal, Fuchiwaki said.

Waterworks customers, collectively, are at a 15.2 percent reduction.

The public works director said he’s not overly concerned about penalties at this point, but the city will continue to closely monitor its water use.

He added that even if the city is a bit over, it may escape fines if the entire Calleguas region meets the 15 percent cutback.

Golden State customers are actually doing better than Waterworks customers, a fact that may have to do with Golden State’s instituting mandatory water rationing plans with each household’s allocation based on historical average of water use from 2004 to 2006.

Customers who went over their allocation saw premium charges pop up on their water bills.

However, because its customers have been so water-wise over the past six months, Golden State recently made its plan voluntary.

“Due to our outreach efforts and the knowledge of our customers . . . they’ve actually reduced their usage by 24 percent by the end of February from historic usage,” said Ken Petersen, Golden State district manager who oversees the region that includes Simi Valley.

Under the voluntary plan, customers who do not reduce by at least 15 percent will not receive premium charges, though Golden State can still issue fines for egregious water wasting activities and even suspend service for repeat violators.

If water use does go up in the Simi service area, the mandatory plan would be reimplemented, but Petersen doesn’t think that will happen.

“My experience is that after customers start to conserve and people understand how to conserve water, they don’t go back to what they were doing before,” he said. “They made changes so they don’t usually go back because it costs them more.”

Like Fuchiwaki, Petersen isn’t concerned about fines now, saying Golden State is “comfortable” with the progress in conservation made by Simi residents.

Still, both agreed it’s critical for residents to keep up their efforts in the spring and summer months.

“Though we’re experiencing a wet winter, the water storage level is still low in the state system,” Petersen said.

Fuchiwaki said many variables could affect how the city’s water usage and conservation moves forward in the next four months.

“Even though we are almost meeting our goal, we still need to look to the future,” he said.

For more information about the city’s water conservation program, e-mail waterconservation @simivalley.org, call (805) 5836420 or visit www.simivalley.org.

Golden State customers can learn more at www.gswater.com.