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Sen. Dianne Feinstein Pushes Senate Subcommittee for Water Bill to Address California’s Drought

/in /by /Los Angeles Times by Sarah D. Wire

El Niño’s rains didn’t end California’s drought, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein urged Senate colleagues Tuesday to hurry and find a compromise on a package of bills to address the water crisis in the West.

“There appears to be no immediate end in sight,” Feinstein said. “The drought is going to continue through next year.” Feinstein testified Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s Water and Power Subcommittee about her proposal, which includes short-term drought relief for California and long-term water projects for more than a dozen Western states.

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California lifts tough statewide water conservation rules

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Phillip Reese and Ryan Sabalow

Marking a major shift in California water policy, state regulators Wednesday voted to lift the statewide conservation targets that for the past year have required dramatic cutbacks in irrigation and household water use for the Sacramento region and urban communities across the state.

The new rules adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board allow individual water agencies to propose their own conservation standards, based on the health of their water supplies and anticipated local demand.

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In Sharp Reversal, California Suspends Water Restrictions

/in /by /The New York Timesby ADAM NAGOURNEY and IAN LOVETT

California on Wednesday suspended its mandatory statewide 25 percent reduction in urban water use, telling local communities to set their own conservation standards after a relatively wet winter and a year of enormous savings in urban water use.

The new rules are a sharp change in policy for a state struggling to manage one of the worst droughts in its history.

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State to Let Water Districts Take More Control Over Conservation

/in /by /The Orange County Register by By Scott Smith and Amy Taxin

California decided Wednesday to allow hundreds of local water districts to set their own conservation goals after a wet winter eased the five-year drought in some parts of the state.

The new approach lifts a statewide conservation order enacted last year that requires at least a 20 percent savings. Beginning next month, districts serving nearly 40 million Californians will compare water supply and demand with the assumption that dry conditions will stretch for three years. The districts would then set savings goals through January and report their calculations to the state.

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Slide over these photos to see the drought’s effect on some of the state’s big reservoirs

/in /by /The Los Angeles Times

As of Wednesday, California’s two largest reservoirs, Shasta and Oroville, are more than 90% full, a significant reversal from the summer and fall of 2014, when the state was locked in severe drought. Folsom Lake is filled to about 86% capacity.

After four dry winters, storms have helped replenish these Northern California reservoirs with rain and runoff from the state’s relatively healthy snowpack. California’s complex water delivery system helps move the water from the northern part of the state, where most of the rain and snow falls, to the southern part of the state, where much of the population resides.

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California board allows water districts to set their own conservation targets

/in /by /The Los Angeles Timesby Matt Stevens

For its first four years, the California drought spread its pain across most corners of the state.

The great peaks of the Sierra Nevada were snow-deprived. Central Valley agricultural fields lay fallow. And the trademark green lawns of Southern California suburbia slowly turned brown.

But this summer is going to be different. A strong series of storms have left parts of Northern California rehydrated, with reservoirs brimming with water and once brown and dry hillsides radiating green again. But to the south, residents are enduring another record-dry year.

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