By Kurtis Alexander and Michael Cabanatuan
Hundreds of East Bay residents are being fined for using too much water during dry times, including many of the same people who snubbed local water limits during last decade’s drought.
Former Chevron Vice Chairman George Kirkland consumed an average of 5,223 gallons of water per day at his Danville estate over the summer, making him one of the region’s top 10 biggest water users and subject to an “excessive use” penalty, according to the East Bay Municipal Utility District. In 2015, Kirkland was fined for averaging 12,578 gallons of water a day.
Steven Burd, former Safeway CEO and Alamo resident, was also a repeat offender, using an average of 5,498 gallons per day over the summer, records show. So was Alamo resident Tom Seeno, member of a powerful local family known for developing land across Contra Costa County. He ranked as the top user this summer averaging 9,138 gallons of water per day. Average household water use in the region is about 200 gallons of water daily.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which covers much of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, enacted penalties for excessive water use in late spring. The goal is to conserve water supplies amid California’s extraordinary three-year drought. The district’s practice is the most aggressive conservation policy in the Bay Area this year and the only one to put hard limits on consumption.
On Tuesday, district officials released their first full list of customers who violated the excessive use ordinance, per a public records request by The Chronicle.
The limits put in place by the district are relatively generous: Households can use an average of 1,646 gallons of water per day over the billing period. Once that threshold is hit, customers face a $2 penalty for each additional 748 gallons used.
The biggest penalty so far is about $1,200 over a two-month billing period.
Perhaps more punitive, the names of those who violate the district’s ordinance are public record under state law. During last decade’s drought, the identification of the big users opened the door to waves of scrutiny in what became popularly known as drought-shaming. Billy Beane, an executive with the Oakland A’s and subject of the Oscar-nominated film “Money-ball,” became notorious for using too much water. He was not on the new list.
None of the top 10 biggest users this year could be reached by phone by The Chronicle.
“We’ve sent them courtesy letters, we’ve sent them warnings letters, and now we’re fining them,” said district spokesperson Andrea Pook. “It’s unfortunate.”
Of the list of about 300 violators released Tuesday by the district, at least 130 were also fined for excessive water use in 2015.
While the first bills with “excessive use” penalties this year were sent out last month, the initial list of violators released by the agency on Sept. 27 reflected only three days of billing — over the rolling two-month cycle — so it included just a fraction of those in violation: three households. Before being put on the list, customers are given a warning for their first exceedance during a billing period.
Several water agencies in California have been asking residents to cut back and sometimes limit outdoor watering to certain days of the week amid the drought. Few water departments, though, have enforced caps on total customer consumption.
The district is the Bay Area’s largest retail provider of water, serving more than 1.4 million people. The bulk of the utility’s water is piped in from the Mokelumne River watershed, which is fed by snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada. Most parts of the Sierra have seen far less precipitation than average over the past three years.
East Bay water officials credit the excessive use ordinance with doubling the level of conservation. Over the summer months, residents cut back as much as 16%, compared with 2020.
In recent decades, residential water consumption across California has steadily declined as more people have embraced water-efficient landscaping and appliances, particularly during the 2012-16 drought. Going into the current drought, water use was down 16% compared with what it was at the start of the prior drought, according to the state.
With the warming climate and recent spate of dry years on top of the state’s increasing population, however, water supplies have also been diminishing.
Residential water use, combined with commercial use, accounts for about 20% of the water consumed in California. Agriculture is responsible for the other 80%.
Staff writer Yoohyun Jung contributed to this story.
Kurtis Alexander and Michael Cabanatuan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander, @ctuan