California’s drought is breeding a new culture of tattling for the sake of our aquifers.

In June, Seaside resident Ron Bird posted a photo to Facebook of a local home with a lush front lawn, sprinklers spraying beyond the grass onto the sidewalk and street.

“Anyone know who or where to report water wasters?” Bird wrote. “Maybe he hasn’t seen the news in a couple of years. Head in the sand mentality.”

Several suggested he report the water waste to California American Water Company or Monterey Peninsula Water Management District (MPWMD). Another Facebook friend admonished: “Quit being a tattle… Let him suffer when he gets his water bill.”

With more than 92 percent of California suffering “extreme” to “exceptional” drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, there’s increased social pressure to conserve water. In August 2014, new state rules targeting urban water waste took effect. Last July, the state launched the reporting website http://savewater.ca.gov.

There, people can anonymously report illegal watering habits such as irrigating on the wrong days of the week or at the wrong times of day. Also forbidden: leaky sprinklers; water running onto sidewalks; using a hose without a shutoff nozzle; and watering outside within two days of rain. Hotels must offer guests the option to decline towel laundry service, and restaurants must not serve water unless customers ask for it.

The state website claims to forward complaints to local water agencies. But Stephanie Locke, water demand manager for MPWMD, says the system hasn’t forwarded any to the Peninsula water district yet.

Since January, MPWMD has only gotten about 20 public reports of water waste, some of them through the district’s water-waste hotline (658-5653). Another 10 came from Cal Am and roughly 30 more from staff observations. MPWMD followed up with about 60 courtesy notices, she says.

Those notices led to four $100 fines, she says, when the problems weren’t fixed: at the Monterey Hyatt, due to leaky irrigation; at a Carmel vacation rental, where a sprinkler head popped off; at Mission Ranch, where waiters repeatedly served unsolicited water; and at the Carmel Women’s Club, which had a broken sprinkler.

Still, she says, MPWMD is taking a gentler approach than water districts in Los Angeles and Sacramento, which have hired “water cops” to patrol and enforce emergency conservation rules.

“Our goal is to educate, not to shame,” Locke says. “If we are going to have to fine somebody, there really is a good reason for that fine.”