There’s strong concern about the City of Ripon’s water conservation efforts.

In trying to reduce water consumption given the current drought, the City has gone from a promising 32.4 percent in July to 22.5 percent, according to figures for September as provided by Director of Public Works Ted Johnston.

“I wish I had better news,” he said at Tuesday’s Ripon City Council meeting.

The city’s goal – under state standards – is to conserve 36 percent per month, using the 2013 figures as a baseline.

Ripon has been in a downward spiral on the state mandate for the past four months, going from 30.8 percent in July and 26.7 percent in August.

Part of that trend could be due in part to having only half the homes in town being hooked up to water meters. James Pease, who is the City’s Engineering Supervisor, indicated efforts have already begun in getting every home metered.

 “We started (Monday) in the southwest part of town,” he said, with the plan to install 28 to 30 water meters per day for the next several months.

Pease added that five two-man teams are behind the efforts.

“We really won’t know what’s going on (in terms of water conservation) until all the homes are metered,” Mayor Leo Zuber said.

As it stands, Ripon, in failing to meet the standards on Oct. 1, is now out of compliance with the state mandate.

“There may be consequences imposed by the state including reduced water days,” Johnston said.

Going forward, the water conservation coordinator for Ripon was moved up to full-time duty for this month. Staff will increase its patrol around town to include late evenings and early mornings.

They’ll also circulate more information flyers, possibly hand delivered, and impose stiffer penalties. “They’ll only get one warning,” Johnston said.

All told , he noted 76 folks were recently fined. Included were 40 cited for watering on the wrong days and 32 overwatering their landscape. Another three were penalized for watering on wrong time of day with one was caught for washing the driveway and another eight cited as repeat violators.

Elected leaders are hoping for changes to the current water conservation trend.

“The fact is that we’re going backwards,” Zuber said of the informational item.”There’s something wrong in what we’ve been doing.”