Water securityWith drought easing, California rolls back water conservation rules

Published 19 May 2016

California announced on Wednesday that it was rolling back mandatory water conservation rules which were put in place at the height of a 4-year drought. The decision to roll back the restrictions came after water conditions in many parts of the state have improved as a result of a wet winter.

California announced on Wednesday that it was rolling back mandatory water conservation rules which were put in place at the height of a 4-year drought. The decision to roll back the restrictions came after water conditions in many parts of the state have improved as a result of a wet winter.

The Washington Post reports that the state Water Resources Control Board voted to end mandatory conservation of up to 36 percent in many communities, adopting instead to a system which requires only regions where a shortage of water supply is anticipated to conserve.

“We don’t want to cry wolf but we also don’t want to stick our heads in the sand,” said water board chair Felicia Marcus. “This is a compromise.”

Experts note that the wet weather has eased but not ended the drought which has resulted in farmers idling land, rivers too warm for salmon, and wells running dry.

Last year Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order which required the cutting of statewide water use by 25 percent. The order proved effective, as Californians saved enough water to supply 6.5 million residents for an entire year.

Global warming-driven El Nino, however, brought substantial volume of rain to Northern California and much of the Sierra Nevada, filling reservoirs, augmenting snowpack in the mountains, and leading state residents to complain that cutbacks were no longer necessary.

The new rules announced on Wednesday go into effect 1 June. They will require utility companies to estimate how much water they will have access to, and how much they will need for their customers, over a period of three years. Those estimating a possible water shortage will be required to conserve, but those with sufficient supplies will not.

The state’s water decided to keep in place a rule stipulating that restaurants should serve water only upon request from patrons.

On 9 May Brown ordered some water regulations to be extended – among them a prohibition on irrigating lawns and landscape in a manner which causes water to run down the sidewalk. He also instructed regulators to develop a plan which would make conservation a way of life in California.

Brown, however, did not order a continuation of the mandatory water use restrictions, so the board on Wednesday eliminated the cutbacks while developing a long-term water conservation strategy.

The board said that it hopes to release the new conservation strategy by the end of the year, a strategy which would reduce water use by 20 percent or more as a way to guard against future droughts.