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Customer conservation combined with a surge in water supplies has prompted East Bay Municipal Utility District directors to vote unanimously to end a drought surcharge that has cost the average household about $8 a month for the past year. Directors approved the 25 percent drought surcharge last June, two months after they declared a stage four critical drought and imposed a mandatory 20 percent reduction in water use for the district’s 1.4 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

 

Reading the news earlier this month that Central Valley wildlife refuges were going to receive 100 percent of their federal water allocations would normally have made us thrilled for the Pacific Flyway birds that depend on wetland habitat. And we weren’t surprised to see this news greeted with outrage by those who have been suffering from the drought along with the birds for the past three years.

But we weren’t thrilled because we knew that the news wasn’t true.

While Stanford flaunts its lush lawns and recently restored fountains, nearby communities suffer from dried up wells and arsenic-tainted groundwater. We cannot afford to forget about California’s ongoing drought or to dismiss it as a slight annoyance. In this time of severe and prolonged drought — California’s worst in 1200 years — it is the responsibility of privileged communities, like Stanford, to educate themselves and take action on this issue.

It is critical to recognize that the drought is not just a climate event — it is also inextricably linked to the conversations about racial and economic inequality so prevalent on campus.

After years of drought, winter’s rain- and snowstorms generated close to a normal supply of water for California. As winter turned to spring, the Bureau of Reclamation announced allocations to farmers.

Rice growers and other farmers in the Sacramento Valley north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta were pleased to learn that they would receive 100 percent of their contracted water supplies. However, it was bad news for farmers south of the Delta, who were told they would get, at most, just 5 percent of the water they expected this year.

 

Governor Jerry Brown of California announced new changes to the state’s water-use policies Monday, extending some of the regulations the government had adopted to cope with the state’s ongoing, five-year drought and easing restrictions for those districts seeing more regular rainfall.

The changes include a ban on hosing down driveways or washing cars with hoses that lack a shut-off nozzle, and watering lawns within two days of a rainstorm. They also include reduced restrictions regarding mandatory water rationing.