SLO County residents conserve even more water in November than required

As rain soaked parts of San Luis Obispo County on Tuesday, state water regulators released new data showing that local residents met their conservation targets for November.

All nine cities and communities in the county surveyed monthly by state water regulators exceeded their conservation standards — several by wide margins.

The statewide conservation rate dropped to 20.3 percent in November, down from 22.3 percent in October and below the 25 percent mandate ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown. State officials said in a news release they expected the rate to drop off during the cooler months, when less water is used.

They also noted that average statewide water use declined to 75 gallons a person per day in November from 87 gallons in October, the lowest observed since the water board’s emergency regulation went into effect in June.

“As welcome as recent rain and snow are, we’ve been in such a deep drought that we won’t know until spring whether we can let up on conservation,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.

Californians have reduced water use by 26.3 percent in the six months since emergency conservation regulations took effect. The water conservation rate in November for the Central Coast region was 26 percent, according to the water board.

The state’s water conservation regulation requires urban water suppliers to save a targeted amount of water between June 2015 and February 2016. Their targets are based on their usage levels in 2015.

In San Luis Obispo County, the largest savings last November was in Arroyo Grande, where residents cut their use by 40.7 percent compared to November 2013. The city’s conservation target is 28 percent.

In Cambria and Grover Beach, which both have conservation targets of 8 percent, residents cut water use in November by 31.2 percent and 33.9 percent, respectively. Residential per capital water use ranged from a low of 37 gallons per person per day in Cambria to 94.9 gallons per day in the Nipomo Community Services District.

For more information, go to http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/.

This story was originally published January 5, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "SLO County residents conserve even more water in November than required."