Most California water districts can ease conservation

SAN FRANCISCO – The drought is not over, but most California water districts will not be ordered to reduce consumption this year, according to results released by state officials.

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/2bDYp2l ) Wednesday that about 85 per cent of the state’s districts told the water board Tuesday that they believe they have adequate supplies to handle continued drought and should not be subject to state-mandated conservation targets.

The remaining districts must set conservation goals proportional to their anticipated shortfall.

The new approach to conservation is in sharp contrast to last year when the state imposed mandatory water-use cuts of an average 25 per cent statewide compared with 2013.

A relatively normal amount of rain and snowfall in Northern California last winter helped ease drought conditions, the newspaper reported. However, the National Drought Mitigation Center says about 60 per cent of the state remains in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.

Water board Chair Felicia Marcus encouraged Californians to continue to conserve water, even if it’s not mandated.

“It’s a question of degree,” Marcus said. “A bit of relaxation is OK. Abandoning water conservation is not.”

If the new rules of urban water conservation prove too lax, regulators said, the state is prepared to toughen them again.

“We’ve got fires going on up and down the state – tremendous impacts,” said Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager at the State Water Resources Control Board. “We’re still reeling as a state from the impacts of the drought. The water we can conserve in our urban areas is a bulwark against further impacts.”

Not everyone agrees with the new standards.

Tracy Quinn, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defence Council, said it is unlikely that almost nine out of 10 water districts would have adequate supply to meet three more years of drought.

“The requirements of the regulations allowed water districts to be overly optimistic,” she said. “The zero per cent (conservation targets) we are seeing aren’t real numbers.”

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Information from: The Sacramento Bee, http://www.sacbee.com