Difficult to believe that Menlo Park has surpassed the water reduction goal when you see water running down the street from private homes and businesses every day in addition to areas that the city of Menlo Park is responsible for watering.

Isn't there a large part of the district that doesn't have water meters?

Some of this article is incorrect. The Santa Cruz Area, Allied Arts and Flood Triangle are all served by Cal Water, not the City. Also, the only properties that don't have meters are in the O'Connor Water Tract in the Willows. This is a small area of roughly 100-150 properties that are on wells.

Editor's note: You are correct. We had meant to say Bear Gulch District. Check the map for areas served by the two water districts: Web Link

I live in the Flood Triangle and am a Menlo Park Municipal Water customer. I believe Suburban Park is serviced by Cal Water.

Waterwise - I'm in flood Park Triangle and our water is MP municipal. All mailings so indicate as do our payments.

I've been feeling guilty about not (yet) having converted our monoculture fake farms (i.e. grass lawns) to more climate-appropriate ground cover the way so many of my neighbors have. But my latest water bill shows my household to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Point is, last summer we did what we could afford to do, namely have a landscaper review our ancient sprinkler system, which was old when we bought the place ten years ago, and make indicated repairs. He found and fixed various leaks. So when I look at the handy bar chart comparing my water usage for March 2014 with that for March 2015, there's a dramatic reduction.

In a way, this story points out that Gov. Brown's "water austerity" program isn't really all that austere, unless you're one of the Orange County types we read about who go right on using as much as ever, or even more. I'll know Sacramento is serious when they ban fracking, stop corporations from bottling our water and shipping it out-of-state, and make it illegal to plant any more nut trees (not just almonds, but walnuts too) in the Central Valley. Up to this point, the water restrictions are mostly show, like strip-searching granny at the airport in the name of "transportation security".

Here is a link to a state water board fact sheet with information on how to submit comments on the proposals: Web Link

The deadline to submit comments on the current proposals is April 22.