Water Conservation Meeting Brings Out Angry and Concerned Residents

This story was posted by Craig Clough. It was written by Natalie Rivera. 

About 50 residents attended a special meeting that was held Tuesday in Sierra Madre’s City Hall over the water conservation enforcements the city has been forced to take.

Many of them were angry over the new restrictions and the city's handling of the problem. Some offered possible solutions. Malcolm Hardwood offered some sarcasm.

"I’ll do my best to cut back. I’ll quit brushing my teeth and I’ll quit going to the bathroom inside my house," Hardwood said.

According to the city council, Sierra Madre has suffered a loss of 30 feet in water local aquifers due to a reduction of rain this past year. This has caused for the council to enforce a reduction of 20 percent of water usage for residents, which was passed last month. If residents do not meet the 20 percent water reduction requirement they will have to pay double for the units of water that are overused.

The city council opened a discussion over possibilities as to how to receive more water after it was confirmed that they have three months until one of their wells close. Some of the possibilities discussed included creating a water conservation committee, obtaining water from other cities and using a new system to further record the usage of water.

All of the suggestions were further discussed by the council, and most of the suggestions were agendized for future meetings.

Many of the residents explained their outrage over the enforcements and told stories of how their plant life has died out due to the water conservation requirements. 

David Stanford was one of a handful of residents that suggested that there should be a water conservation committee appointed. The committee would be responsible for managing the budgets for water and for also recording the city’s water usage.

"It sounds like there’s 3,800 records that need to be dealt with in any billing change," said Stanford. "If it truly is impossible to generate a software upgrade in enough time for an appropriate cost, I would encourage the council to think about using folks in town that may be unemployed or underemployed, yet have the skill set to manipulate this data. It is clear that we have very brilliant and talented people here."

This suggestion was met with much agreement from the council and from the residents, including June Davidson, who also said that another way residents can stay atop of their water conservation is by having more information on the city’s website.

"I wrote to the city manager to see if there was a forensic audit and they didn’t know," Davidson said. "You don’t post your salaries, you don’t post anything.  You go to Arcadia and they have everything posted on their website, I can’t even understand the website, it’s all convoluted."

According to Elisa Cox, the city’s public information officer, the suggestion of monitoring the water usage on the city’s website is already in works and that it will soon have a graphic that "is an image of a well that will show everybody where the city’s water levels are."

Davidson also said she thought that the city’s construction projects have taken up much of the council’s attention.

"You spend money on this, you spend money on repairs, and I think it should be managed in the right department. I don’t think we should have any more construction until we have faced this crisis," Davidson said. 

Some residents also said that the new enforcements and the possible 40 percent to 50 percent water conservation that might be implemented if the situation gets worse is, as Heather Allen said, "… punishing those who have already been conserving."

Allen went on to say that the formula used to calculate water usage should also consider other factors.

"Why doesn’t the formula take into account the size of a property, how many people are in the household?" Allen asked. "These things, I think, would make more sense."

One resident expressed his concern over the water restrictors that the city has been using, explaining to the council that "those restrictors are going to lead to lawsuits. All you need is one child to die because of the lack of water and you’re going to be looking at about a million dollar lawsuit that the city can’t afford to have."

Over half of the residents present at the meeting left as the council further discuss the urgency and costs of each alternative. Council members, including Chris Koerber, nonetheless said they were grateful for the public’s participation.

"I’m so excited that there was such a good turn out," said Koerber. "We have a lot of good minds here in town. A lot of the times the residents will come up with good ideas that we didn’t even think of."