LOS ANGELES -- In five months since a drought emergency was declared, Californians have cut their water consumption only 5 percent compared with usage in recent years, according to state officials -- a far cry from the 20 percent Gov. Jerry Brown called for in January.

So, faced with apparent indifference to warnings from state leaders and media alarms, cities across California have encouraged residents to tattle on their neighbors for wasting water -- and the residents have responded in droves. Sacramento, for instance, has received more than 6,000 reports of water waste this year, up twentyfold from last year.

Loretta Franzi has called the Sacramento water-waste hotline "a number of times" in recent months.

"You can hear people running their sprinklers when it's dark because they don't want to get caught watering when they're not supposed to be. It's maddening," said Franzi, 61, a retiree. "You can tell the people who are conserving because their lawns are brown. The lawns that are really green, there's something wrong."

Sacramento has issued more than 2,000 notices of violations since the start of the year -- including citations to some of Franzi's neighbors -- and the city is part of a region that has reduced its water consumption 10 percent from previous years, the highest percentage of any region in the state.

"It's becoming a competition to not have the greenest lawn anymore," said Dave Brent, director of utilities in Sacramento. "You want to have a lawn that's alive but on life support."

It does get personal. Some drought-conscious Californians have turned not only to tattling but also to an age-old strategy to persuade friends and neighbors to cut back: shaming. On Twitter, radio shows and elsewhere, Californians are indulging in such sports as shower-shaming -- trying to embarrass a neighbor or relative who takes a leisurely wash -- carwash-shaming and lawn-shaming.

"Is washing the sidewalk with water a good idea in a drought sfgov?" Sahand Mirzahossein, a 32-year-old management consultant, posted on Twitter, along with a picture of a San Francisco city employee cleaning the sidewalk with a hose.

Officials at water agencies denied wanting to shame anyone, preferring to call it "education" or "competition." But there are signs that pitting residents against one another can pay dividends.

In Los Angeles, water officials will soon offer residents door hangers that can be slipped anonymously around the doorknobs of neighbors whose sprinklers are watering the sidewalk. The notices will offer a prim reminder of the local water rules and the drought.

"Not everyone realizes what a severe drought we're in or understands how their actions affect the whole system," said Felicia Marcus, chairman of the State Water Resources Control Board, which issued the report on water saving. "Just showing people what they're doing vis-a-vis their neighbors motivates them. Shaming comes in when you're worse. You want to be as clever as your neighbor."

Of course, asking neighbors to inform on one another does have drawbacks.

In Santa Cruz, dozens of complaints have come from just a few residents who seem to be trying to use the city's tight water restrictions to indulge old grudges.

"You get people who hate their neighbors and chronically report them in hopes they'll be thrown in prison for wasting water," said Eileen Cross, Santa Cruz's water conservation manager.

The challenge of getting urban Californians to cut back is particularly difficult because they do not see the fallow fields and dry reservoirs across the state, Marcus said.

With water still flowing very cheaply from the taps and lawns still green in Los Angeles, many people across the city said they were not especially concerned about running out of water, whatever the warnings, and doubted their showers or dishwashing would have any discernible effect.

"I might turn the faucet off when I'm brushing my teeth or something," said Ragan Wallake, 34, a resident of the lush neighborhood of West Hollywood. "But I don't feel like that three seconds of turning off the water is going to make a difference."

But even those who are already water-conscious can occasionally benefit from guilt-laden reminders.

Femke Oldham, 29, a graduate student who has studied resource conservation at the University of California, Berkeley, was walking with her fiance on a sunny weekend when they passed a few children throwing water balloons. She suggested it would be fun to get some of their own.

He shot back: "Femke, we're in a drought."

"It made me feel guilty for wanting to use water in a way that was not necessary," Oldham said.

A Section on 07/06/2014