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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.