A year ago this month, Gov. Jerry Brown called for mandatory water conservation efforts throughout California’s 400-plus urban water agencies. This emergency measure calling for a 25 percent reduction statewide compared with usage in 2013 came during the fourth consecutive year of drought.

This week, the state announced that water users had slacked off, missing that target for the past five months and ending the nine-month cumulative savings at 23.9 percent—1 percent short of the target.