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“Thanks to many months of effort by residents and businesses, our region as a whole has saved enough water to meet the regional emergency conservation goal set by the State Water Resources Control Board,” said Mark Weston, chair of the Water Authority’s Board of Directors. “That’s a tremendous achievement, when you consider our region already had decreased per-capita water use by 39 percent compared to 1990, and the record-setting heat we recently experienced. However, conservation must remain a priority as we look toward summer and peak irrigation months; people still need to comply with water-use restrictions set by their local water agencies.”

El Nino conditions are calming down and several areas that normally see precipitation were left dry. This will magnify water management in the future and that will continue to be a driving subject of conversation.

Department of Water Resources Climatologist Michael Anderson says El Nino conditions are calming down but those weather pattern predictions don’t always mean precipitation. Anderson says we most likely will see some rain through the next month or two, however the storms are missing the areas that normally see water during El Nino conditions, such as the southern coast.

The first stretch of the legislative year is over, and lawmakers are going down under. Seeking to impart lessons from Australia’s 15-year “millennium drought,” the nonprofit California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy is paying for a handful of lawmakers to fly across the world during the Legislature’s spring recess next week. They’ll be joined by various interest group representatives.

The organization sponsored a drought-focused Australia trip last year as well. This year’s participants are Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, and Assemblymen Rob Bonta, Jim Cooper, Jimmy Gomez, Christopher Holden, Evan Low and Rudy Salas.

California’s rivers are running higher now than they have in years, and Central Valley farmers are upset that water project pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is not rising in tandem with the rivers. Water managers work in real time to maximize water supply from the Delta. Rather than bicker about project operations, it’s time to fix the projects for the long term. That’s what Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing with California WaterFix.