Last Friday, the California Water Resources Control Board extended for eight months an emergency water conservation mandate that Governor Jerry Brown first ordered on April 1, 2015. The goal of the regulation, issued in response to California’s worst-ever drought, was to reduce urban water use by 25 percent compared to 2013, a year before water reserves began to plummet.

 

By and large, the mandate worked. Californians, despite bristling at the top-down order, followed the governor’s directive. Through November, the 411 urban water suppliers that are covered by the regulation had reduced water use by 26 percent. Homeowners tore out lawns, stopped washing cars, and took shorter showers,