Strict rules adopted at the height of California’s drought, leading many people to let their lawns turn brown, may soon end. State regulators Wednesday will consider letting local communities decide how to keep their own water use in check.
The drought in California’s still a huge issue, but AP correspondent Sandy Kozel reports precipitation in the fall and winter could lead to lighter restrictions.
On Wednesday California revised its drought rules, ending a year of local conservation quotas handed down by the state.
The State Water Resources Control Board voted to abandon its formula — decried by some local agencies as a “one-size-fits-all” model — which required each water district to curb water use by a certain state-mandated percentage and instead, let districts determine how much they should save.
Some see the switch as premature.
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.
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.
The federal agency that manages fishing harvests along the Pacific Coast has strongly criticized drought legislation proposed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, saying it will cause “irreparable harm” to salmon and the coastal communities that depend on fishing.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, based in Portland, Ore., prepared a letter on May 11 analyzing Feinstein’s bill, in response to a request from Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena), both of whom represent fishing communities.
The Department of Water Resources’ new Water Footprint webpage features two online calculators designed to help individuals and households determine how much water they use.
According to Water Plan e-news, the GRACE Communications Foundation developed a calculator that individuals and households can use to calculate their water footprint. The Water Footprint Network also has a calculator that estimates an individual’s personal water footprint.
Stratford, California, is located in the Central Valley—where years of drought threaten the livelihood of the community. Lack of water in the region has severely decreased crop yields for farmers, meaning fewer jobs in rural communities. In this short documentary by Joris Debeij and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Stratford residents mull over what the decrease in food production means for the small farming town.
Lake Mead is less than a foot of dropping to its lowest point in history. Stefano Fasano says he’s been coming to Lake Mead for nearly 20 years and understands the water level is down. Fasano said even launching a boat has changed, but he’s an optimist pointing out there’s still a lot of lake left.
“They do a pretty good job marking things. I know where to go, I’ve been coming here my whole life, I know what to look for, for sure,” said Fasano.
This is the new normal. Stop calling California’s ongoing water shortage a drought. It may seem counterintuitive, but that’s the best way to get regulators and consumers to rethink the value of water, says Will Sarni, director and practice leader of water strategy at Deloitte.
“As long as the public sector continues to refer to this as the drought, public policy is not going to change, because everyone is going to wait for a good rain,” he said at Fortune’s Brainstorm E conference on Tuesday in Carlsbad, Calif. “That’s not going to happen.”
Have we finally learned our lesson? Water in California is a finite resource, and we can’t build our way out of drought. Fortunately, more and more people are realizing this from the bogus promises the State Water proponents told us in 1991: The Promise that State Water would solve our local water demand problem; The Promise that State Water would be relatively cheap; The Promise that State Water was reliable, delivered on time and when needed.
Now, in 2016, we know from independent studies that the state promised more water than ever could be delivered.
