San Diego allegedly used 12 percent less water last year than was used in 1990, when 700,000 fewer people lived here.

The San Diego County Water Authority is crying foul when it comes to implementation of water-use reductions called for statewide last week by governor Jerry Brown.

"The Water Authority strongly supports additional conservation and the governor’s goals are laudable — but they haven’t been translated yet into proposed regulations that are equitable, protect our economy or advance sensible long-term water policies," authority board chair Mark Weston said in an April 9 release. "The current approach will stifle economic activity and undermine the long-term ability of water agencies to invest in new supplies if ratepayers don’t stand to benefit from investments they are asked to make."

Specifically, when ordering reductions of between 20 and 35 percent in various San Diego area water districts, the local authority says state demands fail to take into account past efforts to reduce consumption or improve water supply.

Water use throughout the county, the water board noted, was down 12 percent in 2014 as compared to 1990, despite population growth of 700,000 people during that time. Taking a shorter view, however, the numbers aren't as pretty.

The cutback demands, water districts say, also fail to account for investments in new technology, such as the billion-dollar Carlsbad Desalination Plant, projected to provide 50 million gallons a day of treated seawater, though at a cost far higher than other sources.

The local authority says it will file formal comments with the state prior to its Monday deadline asking that these concerns, as well as a plea not to stop "industrial 'process water'" from flowing, instead recommending further cutbacks in residential use — such as further tightening on the number of days individual customers are allowed to water their lawns and gardens.

Critics, however, have already argued that Brown's "little green lawns" approach to conservation is unlikely to be sufficient to meet the full conservation target, claiming that industrial and agricultural use is responsible for between 65 and 90 percent of the state's total water consumption, leaving individual consumers as too small a market segment to shoulder the burden of conservation demands alone.

The State Water Resources Control Board is expected to issue its final rules sometime in early May for a targeted implementation date set at June 1.