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Responding to an increased statewide water supply, San Juan Capistrano is easing its state-mandated restrictions on water use while keeping conservation rules and guidelines in place.

The City Council voted unanimously at its July 19 meeting to maintain a Level 2 water alert while reducing a requirement that had mandated residents to cut their water consumption 27 percent compared with 2013.

Instead, residents are being told to use 10 percent less water than they did in comparable months in 2013.

Wildfires are nothing new in Southern California, but as the record-breaking drought stretches into its fifth year, conditions in the southern part of the state are ripe for severe wildfires.

“In the normal season, it’s (wildfires) still threatening. Put in five years of drought and it’s exponentially threatening,” said Cal Fire Capt. Lucas Spelman. Though Southern California saw some rain this year, it wasn’t enough for fuels such as dry brush and already beetle-stricken trees to recover.

The San Diego Sustainable Landscapes Program, a grant-funded partnership created by the San Diego County Water Authority, the City of San Diego, the County of San Diego, the Surfrider Foundation, the California American Water Company and the Association of Compost Producers, now has a website to help the region’s residents easily find the information they need to transform turf-based urban landscapes to ones that provide multiple environmental benefits, such as increased water-use efficiency and improved stormwater management.

San Diego is accelerating construction of its landmark water recycling system and making other changes that will save money, benefit the environment and make pipeline construction less disruptive.

City officials plan to begin recycling 30 million gallons a day of sewage into drinking water by 2021, much quicker than a previous schedule calling for 15 million gallons daily by 2023 and 30 million gallons per day by 2027. The faster schedule is possible primarily because officials have decided to do all of the recycling in Miramar instead of splitting it in half between Miramar and Otay Mesa.

Olivenhain Municipal Water District has teamed up with the Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection to present a free water and fire-wise landscape education event on July 30 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

The event, at Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District’s Station 2, 16930 Four Gee Road, celebrates the station’s newly completed fire-wise and water-smart garden, which OMWD helped construct. The garden was installed by Blue Skies Landscape Maintenance.