New Freeway Helps to Ease the Drought in Inglewood : Conservation: Because work on the Century Freeway has idled wells, the city is entitled to extra water in the next fiscal year--and so may avoid rationing.

Growling bulldozers, choking dust, traffic snarls. The Century Freeway project has rained inconvenience on Inglewood.

But there’s a silver lining: The freeway construction is indirectly helping thousands of residents avoid water rationing.

Because the roadwork has temporarily idled Inglewood’s municipal water wells, the city is using less than its allocation of ground water in the budget year ending June 30. That entitles the city to an extra share of ground water in the new budget year, which begins July 1.

The credit, about 500 acre-feet, is enough to serve 1,000 families for a year. Now that the city has resumed its well-pumping, it can use the extra water to help cushion the impact of drought-related cutbacks on imported water--the mainstay of the municipal water supply.

Largely as a result, Inglewood is heading into the hot summer months as the only South Bay water-provider without a rationing program. Whether the city can retain that status for long, however, will hinge on its ability to get customers to conserve water voluntarily, experts say.

“We hope they do well with it. This might end up being an interesting experiment,” said Richard Heath, a board member of the West Basin Municipal Water District, a wholesale water agency serving South Bay cities. “If folks can’t come through, though, I’m sure you’ll see a mandatory program.”

Normally, Inglewood draws about 35% of its drinking water from wells and 65% from imported supplies piped into the region from Northern California and the Colorado River, city officials say.

Since imported water is subject to a mandatory 20% cutback imposed by regional water authorities to combat the drought, the city can cushion the impact of that cut somewhat by drawing more water from its wells.

But well-pumping is no panacea. Under a decades-old court-supervised agreement governing public and private South Bay well owners, the city can draw no more than 4,500 acre-feet annually.

That’s why its extra allocation for fiscal 1991-92 is significant. Under the water agreement, well owners who pump less than their allocation can draw up to 10% more than their share the next year. Interruptions caused by the Century Freeway project have helped Inglewood benefit from that provision.

Of the city’s three wells--all of them along 120th Street, just north of the Hawthorne Municipal Airport--two were shut down from September to February by a Century Freeway project to widen a drainage canal. The third had to be abandoned to make way for a park-and-ride site for the freeway.

As a result, city officials say, Inglewood has only been able to draw 10% of its water from wells in the current budget year, relying on purchases of imported water for the rest.

But now, the officials say, the two idled wells are back on line, and a new well to replace the abandoned one is nearing completion. Taking full advantage of its extra allocation, the city plans to pump about 5,000 acre-feet of well water in fiscal 1991-92--nearly 40% of the water it expects to use.

“We’re sitting pretty,” said Ken Duke, Inglewood’s public services director. “This extra water will certainly assist us in the beginning summer months.”

Said Frederick Van Horst, the city’s water utilities superintendent: “It feels great.”

The open question is how long Inglewood will be able to avoid mandatory rationing. City officials acknowledge that since the extra allocation of well water only provides temporary relief, the key in the long run will be their efforts to encourage voluntary cutbacks.

Already, they say, the city is having some success. According to Duke, city customers used 22% less water in April than in the same month last year, and in May consumed 15% less.

He credits such steps as a program to promote the installation of water-saving devices on toilets and showers and the redesign of water bills so customers can see if their consumption is 20% below last year’s level.

“We’re telling people, ‘Congratulations, you’ve met your target,’ or ‘Oops, you’ve got work to do,’ ” Duke said. “It’s not forced conservation, but people pay attention to their bill.”

Water officials elsewhere in the South Bay, busy grappling with mandatory rationing programs, wish Inglewood well. Said Dwayne Beaver, superintendent of utilities in Manhattan Beach: “More power to ‘em.”