Amid Drought, San Diego Uses Millions of Gallons on Waterfront Park

The county administration complex on San Diego’s downtown waterfront has been using 1.3 million more gallons of water per month since a popular new park and splashy water feature went in. The $50 million park has been in the works since well before the drought but opened in May, as conservation calls by state and city water officials became louder.

Water-billing records obtained by U-T Watchdog show that the year-to-year jump started in the April 2014 billing period, when water usage grew by more than a million gallons.

The usage varied, but the biggest year-to-year increase was 2.3 million gallons in May.