With standards relaxed, water use on the rise throughout California

Californians continued to backslide on water conservation during the hottest summer on record, worrying regulators and frustrating environmentalists critical of a new policy enacted this spring that allows most urban water districts to avoid mandatory cuts in water use.

On Wednesday, the State Water Resources Control Board announced that conservation in urban California in August was still below the baseline year of 2013 – but by a far smaller percentage than in August 2015. In August 2015, Californians saved 27 percent compared with 2013. This year, that savings rate fell to less than 18 percent.