Clovis misses state water mandate in August

Clovis reduced its water use 32.5 percent in August compared to 2013 but didn’t meet its state-mandated cut, city officials said Friday.

The city is required by the state Water Resources Control Board to cut 36 percent of its water use. Clovis met the standard in July but was slightly below the mandate for June. The water cuts are compared against water usage for the same month in 2013.

The 36 percent mandate is the most stringent issued by the state. Most of the communities facing the higher requirement are in warmer areas and have large-lot subdivisions.

Clovis also is hurt by its growth of 4 percent in the past two years. The water mandate doesn’t consider growth when comparing with 2013 water use.

City officials said they were concerned going into August that the city would have a difficult time meeting the state’s mandate because its water consumption dipped in August 2013 compared with July 2013. The reasons are not clear.

“We just didn’t use an excessive amount in 2013,” said Lisa Koehn, assistant public utilities director.

The city used slightly more water this August than the month before. There were 18 permitted watering days in August compared with 17 in July.

The city is going to face an even greater challenge to cutting water use as the year continues, because less landscaping irrigation typically occurs in the fall and winter, said Luke Serpa, the city’s public utilities director.

The larger reduction in July could have been the result of a slight dip in average high temperatures. In July 2013, the average high was 102.3 degrees. This July, the average was 96.8 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Hanford.

For August 2013, the average high was 98.3 degrees, compared with 97.1 degrees last month, said meteorologist Jim Andersen with the National Weather Service.

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Clovis misses state water mandate in August."