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Most Top San Diego City Officials Are Conserving Water
March 20, 2009SAN DIEGO -- San Diego City Council members and Mayor Jerry Sanders often ask you to save water.
But are they leading by example?
We dug deeper and pulled their water bills to find out how much they’re conserving.
Most people know we're in a drought. There's no water to spare and every drop counts.
San Diegans have been told time and time again to conserve water and to expect mandatory cutbacks starting this summer.
So, we checked to see if the people telling us what to do are practicing what they preach.
We pulled all the City Council members’ and Mayor Sanders' past water bills for the last 3 billing cycles.
The city's water department says a person in San Diego uses an average of 150 gallons per day.
Using that calculation, Council Member, Carl DeMaio, tops the list.
On average, he uses 360 gallons of water per day.
That's more than double the amount of normal water use, so we asked him what's he's doing about it.
“In the last month, it shows that I've reduced my water intake by 30%. That's because we actually had the water people come out and do an assessment,” DeMaio said.
For the last three billing cycles, DeMaio has dropped his usage consistently.
DeMaio and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association says number of people in the household, house size, as well as landscaping area need to be taken into consideration.
“So, what you need to do is look at the model that takes a look at the number of individuals in the home versus the total acreage of land. That's a more precise and accurate depiction,” DeMaio said.
We asked the water watchdog group, San Diego Coast Keeper, to respond to DeMaio's use.
“They were far above an average person in San Diego. They were above most of the council members. Many of them have 2 or 3 or 4 people in their households, so, even on total water usage, he could be doing a lot to shrink his water usage,” said Bruce Reznik.
Mayor Jerry Sanders is also on the list.
He and his wife use an average of 160 gallons per day.
Although Sanders has reduced his water use by about 40 percent in recent months, his numbers are slightly above average.
A spokesperson says Sanders recently ripped out his yard and installed drought-friendly landscaping.
Those changes are not reflected in his most recent bills.
The other council members, Sherri Lightner, Kevin Faulconer, Toni Young, Donna Frye, Marti Emerald and Ben Hueso are at average or below.
Critics admire their efforts but say the reason for the drop could be because of the past rainy season.
Council member, Todd Gloria, lives in a multi-family dwelling with a single meter.
He was not included in our calculations.
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