Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

If park grass and City Hall’s lawns must turn brown, well so be it, Mayor Frank F. Fasi said yesterday while ordering City departments to cut water use by 50 percent.

During Fasi’s cabinet meeting, he told department heads to follow water conservation measures advocated by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply. The City is only second to State government in Oahu water usage, statistics show.

"If the grass isn’t as green as it is supposed to be, then the public is just going to have to understand," Fasi said, noting that government should set the example for residents.

The Board of Water Supply has asked residents to voluntarily restrict water use by 10 percent and that large-scale watering of parks and roadside plantings be curbed by 50 percent….

Frequent complaints filtering in to the Board of Water Supply have been that government agencies were wasting water by allowing water to flow onto concrete or into sewers because of runoff from watering lawns or roadside plants.

City Hall lawns have been watered during the mid-day when the heat and resulting evaporation are the greatest, and pas-sersby sometimes have to step off sidewalks to avoid a shower of water.

The Board of Water Supply also has asked that lawn sprinkling be done between 5 and 7 p.m. on every other day.

According to the board’s July statistics, the State topped the high water users list with 284.3 million gallons of water.

Water use by the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation combined to make up more than half of the State’s total.

The City follows second with 162.7 million gallons used in July, and the City Department of Parks and Recreation accounted for about three-quarters of the total.

Third is the federal government, which used about 125.3 million gallons. The Navy used about three quarters of the federal … total.

Government use coupled with the other top 10 users, mostly industry and hotels, accounted for about 17 per cent of the total water usage last month. … Most of the water is consumed by residential users. An average family of four uses about 12,500 gallons of water per month.