Responding to dire warnings of potential heavy rains that might trigger another avalanche of mud and rock, Montecito Water District boardmember Dick Shaikewitz sought to provide grim reassurance at a community meeting held last week about Montecito’s future. Meteorologists with the National Weather Service had scanned the South Coast for future rains, he reported; there was nothing on the horizon. The bad news, he said, was no rain. The good news, he said, was exactly the same: no rain.
Santa Barbara, like much of the state, finds itself back in the saddle of more drought. Except for two catastrophic interruptions — last year’s heavy February rains triggered a smaller-scale debris flow that swept away cars and cabins at El Capitán Canyon — the county finds itself in the seventh year of one of the hottest, longest droughts in recorded history.
The good news here is that city residents are consuming less water per capita than any time since the 1950s. The bad news is that the high rate of conservation is beginning to trail off. City water czar Joshua Haggmark reported city conservation rates now hover at 32 percent. That’s down from 40 percent in previous months. The city’s target, Haggmark told city councilmembers this Tuesday, is 30 percent. If current trends hold, he warned, the city could find itself in a water deficit three years down the road.