Benicians can water their yards and landscaping only between 7 p.m. and 8 a.m., and the days they can water depends on their house number, Benicia City Council decided Tuesday in passing an emergency measure that is a temporary fix until a longer-term ordinance can be conventionally adopted.

Homes and commercial addresses with odd numbers may water Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Even-numbered addresses may water Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Nobody may water Sundays.

The measure passed unanimously on the recommendation of City Manager Brad Kilger and interim Public Works Director Steve Salomon. The restrictions became effective immediately.

In addition, the Council began the two-vote procedure that would extend the restrictions.

Salomon said the recommendation to restrict outdoor water comes from the way most people irrigate their lawns and plants. “People overwater,” he said. Outdoor watering also is one of the largest uses in the city, he said.

“Our hope is this will get you to 20 percent,” he said. The Council, using Gov. Jerry Brown’s numbers as a guide, has asked residents to cut back water consumption by 20 percent, and has told staff to accomplish the same goal in municipal water use.

City employees proposed the measure to address the statewide drought, which has forced the city to examine how to provide residents and businesses with enough water in one of the driest years on record. The city uses about 10,000 acre-feet of water each year.

The city contracts annually for more than 17,000 acre-feet of water from the State Water Project. Benicia, which counts on the SWP for 85 percent of its water, is required to pay for the full contract, even though the state normally doesn’t give its contractors their full measure of water.

However, Benicia and other contractors learned in January it would get none of its share of water, though that has been revised to a possibility of 5 percent, or 860 acre-feet, in September.

This reduced allocation could continue throughout the duration of the drought, which Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and others have said could last several more years.

The Council has authorized purchase of water up to $900,000 and launched a public outreach program to explain the need for the public to cut back consumption by 20 percent. By May 31, the city announced it had made it halfway to that goal.

“You have the ability to bank 2,000 acre-feet a year,” Salomon said, referring to Benicia’s agreement with the Solano County Water Authority, which stores water in Lake Berryessa. That lake can hold 1.6 million acre-feet of water, and currently has 1 million acre-feet, he said.

In addition, Salomon said, city employees are trying to secure grants that would let Benicia explore other water-saving projects, such as irrigating Benicia Community Park with groundwater or water from Lake Herman; performing leak detections; studying ways to reuse water; and installing drip irrigation in median strips and evapotranspiration systems in other city parks.

Getting those grants would give the city much of the money it would need to do those tasks, but Salomon said Benicia also would be required to match grant money, too.

“We’re trying to provide the city with a two-year cushion so we have some comfort levels,” Kilger told the Council.

Salomon said the watering restrictions were recommended in hopes it would change people’s behavior and make them more aware of the drought.

Even with the Council’s approval of the water restrictions, “we cannot rest for two years,” Kilger said. “We need to think about long-term issues.”

He said a citywide outreach effort, including door hangers and other methods, would explain the new restrictions. Those who don’t observe the restrictions would get additional information from the city, though repeated offenses could lead to warnings and the possibility of a fine.

However, he told the Council that city employees are hoping peer pressure and comments from neighbors encourage reluctant residents to comply.

“Brown is the new green,” Councilmember Christina Strawbridge said after noticing that some residents have let their lawns fade. She worried, however, about linking watering days to odd or even address numbers. “Is this the simplest way to get people to do this?” Salomon assured her it had worked in other areas, and Patterson said similar restrictions in Marin and Sacramento have been successful.

Councilmember Alan Schwartzman said he purchased a cover for his pool, which has reduced evaporation dramatically, but added that some residents may have older controllers that accept time settings but don’t have ways to adjust for alternate-day watering.

“We’re all in a drought,” he said. “This shouldn’t be that hard to do.”

Steve Goetz, a member of the Benicia Tree Foundation board, asked that his organization be given permission to continue watering newly planted trees.

He told the Council that a tree can be a reservoir of water, holding twice what it would take to water it, and eventually the tree gets moisture from its roots and needs no extra water.

Vice Mayor Tom Campbell asked whether Benicia Unified School District also would have to follow the same rules.

So long as it is using city water and paying a city water bill, it’s included, contract city attorney Kat Wellman said.

Constance Beutel, chairperson of the Community Sustainability Commission, said the city needs to explore other water conservation methods, such as using cisterns and capturing rainwater off buildings.

Sharon Maher, also a member of the CSC, said she saw on a recent trip to Europe that water there is treated and served as a precious commodity.

Councilmember Mark Hughes said he normally opposes programs that can impose penalties. But he said he expects Benicians would use the restrictions as encouragements “to do the right thing.” He added, “We do have a serious water supply issue.”

The drought is affecting the city’s finances, too, the Council heard Tuesday.

Kilger, Salomon and interim Finance Director Brenda Olwin sought the Council’s guidance on developing a drought surcharge that could help Benicia pay the additional costs and make up some of the revenue losses attributable to the drought.

In addition, the city may consider an improved metering program, installing more accurate equipment, as well as another evaluation of its rate system, Kilger said.

“The drought gives us the opportunity to modernize,” Patterson said.

She said the state is in the 10th year of a likely 15-year drought, and noted that Australia has just emerged from a 10-year drought.

As water costs rise, she said, consumption declines.

Salomon conceded that such a surcharge could be challenging to propose. “You’re asking people to conserve and asking them to pay,” he said. But the city has had to buy water, an unforeseen purchase that hadn’t been put in the current budget.

Like the water restrictions, the surcharge is expected to give Benicians “the incentive to reduce what they consume,” he said.

Schwartzman, however, was concerned that the city can’t account for the use of 26 percent of its water. “That’s huge,” he said, calling for an examination of that loss in addition to studying the question of a surcharge.

“We should have looked for leaks years ago,” he said.

Describing Benicia’s water infrastructure as “aging,” producing leaks that are in unknown locations, he suggested that when streets are opened for other construction, pipes could be upgraded at the same time.

That rate of loss was noted in a letter to the city from Valero Benicia Refinery, responding to Kilger’s letter that apprised the refinery about the city’s water situation and the consideration of a surcharge.

Valero accounts for about half the city’s water consumption, though its take is raw water from Lake Herman rather than water that has been processed from the city’s water treatment plant.

Kilger wrote a letter April 16 to notify the refinery that Benicia couldn’t guarantee delivery of water because of the drought.

“That situation continues,” he said in another letter sent June 12 to John Hill, the refinery’s vice president and general manager. “The city’s Water Enterprise Fund will incur substantial unbudgeted costs and reduced revenues that could total over $2.5 million.”

He explained the surcharge, which could be in effect for a year “or until the costs are recovered.” He said staff has recommended Valero pay half of the proposed surcharge for its untreated water use, because the refinery is limited in its ability to reduce its water consumption.

Kilger reminded Hill that the rest of the community is being asked to cut its water use by 20 percent, a number the refinery hasn’t been able to reach and still maintain its operations.

“Valero’s share will rise to 50 percent,” Kilger wrote. “In addition, since there is limited water supply, the capital projects and conservtion efforts to reduce water consumption help the city provide water to the refinery.”

Kilger wrote that under the proposal, Valero’s treated water would be surcharged the same as it is to other customers of treated water.

He acknowledged that Phase I of the refinery’s steam condensate recovery project saves 23.5 million gallons of water each year, and that once the drought was declared, Valero “stepped up immediately” to curb its use of both treated and raw water.

“The city has no mandate to provide water to Valero,” Kilger wrote, “but we realize water is essential to your operation.”

Sue Fisher Jones, Valero public affairs manager, replied Tuesday that since Valero bought the former Humble and Exxon refinery in 2000, it has reduced water consumption by more than 15 percent, and in 2009 paid $2 million so Benicia could contract with the Solano Irrigation District to transfer up to 2,000 acre-feet of Lake Berryessa water to Benicia each year.

She said Valero disagreed with the city staff proposal, and reminded Kilger that Benicia has reported “an annual amount of ‘unaccounted for’ treated water of approximately 1,400 acre-feet. This amounts to approximately 456,400,000 gallons of ‘lost’ water — enough to supply over 4,000 single-family homes with water for a year.”

She said her company believes water surcharges should be levied “only on water that is accounted for, and everyone should share in any surcharges on unaccounted for volumes.” She said the refinery shouldn’t be subject to a 50-percent surcharge on its untreated water “when Valero’s water is accounted for and verified.”

She reminded Kilger that Valero sent a letter June 18 agreeing to withdraw “the $1.6 million credit it was scheduled to receive in 2014 for the Condensate Recovery Project Phase II,” and the Council’s June 17 vote to grant Valero $829,000 for a water-saving boiler project in exchange for that agreement.

“This leaves a balance of $771,000 of CRPII money that has now not been allocated,” she wrote. “Directing these funds toward significant water-saving projects could lessen the burden of any water surcharges for all Benicia water users, residential and business.”

Kilger told the Council on Tuesday night, “Staff has taken the approach we’re trying to be as equitable as possible.

“Valero is a valuable member of the community; 45 percent of the water we purchase serves their needs,” he said. “To be fair, they can’t conserve, but they should participate.”

Salomon agreed, saying, “We tried to be fair to everybody.”

Campbell commended Valero for its water-saving measures so far, but added that if residents are asked to change how they consume water and still face a surcharge, “you ask Valero. It’s an equitable thing that’s fair across the board.”

The Council took no action on that matter Tuesday; instead, the panel will hear a staff report at a future meeting.

“We do need to consider the surcharge,” Hughes said. “We’ll take a lot of heat, but it’s the right thing to do.”