With a fraction of normal rainfall on the books, officials look for what will trigger serious rationing.

After a record dry December and January, rain finally fell on Monterey County in the first weeks of February, just in time for the AT&T Pro-Am. Golf got delayed, plants got a boost and spirits were buoyed. But our drought only budged a few inches, and local water officials are still faced with the delicate decision of when to sound the alarm.

“Everybody’s standing at the AT&T thinking, ‘Hey, great, it’s been raining,’” says Dave Stoldt, general manager of the the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District (MPWMD). “But the reality is: not so much.”

As of Feb. 9, the total rainfall at Carmel River’s San Clemente Dam was 2.2 inches for the current water year (which begins in October), only 18 percent of the long-term average of 12.43 inches.

“What felt like perpetual rain at Pebble Beach only produced 0.44 inches at San Clemente,” Stoldt says. “At the Los Padres Dam, it only raised the reservoir two feet, and as of [Feb. 10], water was still 25 feet below the spillway.”

The water district is currently in “Stage 1” of its water conservation and rationing plan, and has been for several years. Restrictions in Stage 1 are minor: Residents can only water on specific days, depending on where they live, and are prohibited from watering between 9am and 5pm.

Even those restrictions are now being simplified. The district sent out mailers this week to inform ratepayers of the change. Instead of allotting watering days based on odd – or even-numbered addresses, watering will only be allowed on Wednesdays and Saturdays. “We determined the hydraulics of the system could handle not splitting the customers into two,” Stoldt says. “It’s gonna be simpler for everyone to remember, and a lot easier for us to monitor or enforce if we have to.”

The next step, Stoldt says, is determining when to declare Stage 4 restrictions. It’s a decision complicated by the fact that once a stage is declared, it lasts for a year, and a good dose of rain between now and May could make it unnecessary.

Stage 4 restrictions are triggered when it’s determined the usable water in storage isn’t enough to last the next 17 months. Current assessments put the total in storage 563-acre-feet short of the required 23,690. Stoldt says the determination will either come out of meetings in mid-March, or at the end of the water year on May 1. “If we got 5 inches of rain,” Stoldt says, “we’d still be in pretty good shape. We haven’t given up yet.”

Still, there are no mandatory usage cutbacks on the horizon. Stage 4 restrictions call for a voluntary 15-percent reduction of water use by ratepayers and step up enforcement on large landscape irrigators to stay within their water budgets or face fines. Mandated reductions for ratepayers start at Stage 5, and Stoldt says there is enough water in storage to keep us from entering that stage this year.

To help encourage voluntary conservation, the district has been using various means to get the message out. “We’re always doing outreach,” says MPWMD Water Demand Manager Stephanie Pintar, who adds the community is already ahead of the curve. “We know how to conserve.”