California Imposes First Mandatory Water Restrictions to Deal With Drought
PHILLIPS, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown
on Wednesday ordered mandatory water use reductions for the first time
in California’s history, saying the state’s four-year drought had
reached near-crisis proportions after a winter of record-low snowfalls.
Mr. Brown, in an executive order,
directed the State Water Resources Control Board to impose a 25 percent
reduction on the state’s 400 local water supply agencies, which serve
90 percent of California residents, over the coming year. The agencies
will be responsible for coming up with restrictions to cut back on water
use and for monitoring compliance. State officials said the order would
impose varying degrees of cutbacks on water use across the board —
affecting homeowners, farms and other businesses, as well as the
maintenance of cemeteries and golf courses.
While
the specifics of how this will be accomplished are being left to the
water agencies, it is certain that Californians across the state will
have to cut back on watering gardens and lawns — which soak up a vast
amount of the water this state uses every day — as well as washing cars
and even taking showers.
California’s Extreme Drought, Explained
California is experiencing the worst drought in its history, and the effects are being felt nationwide.
By Carrie Halperin, Sean Patrick Farrell and Caitlin
Prentke on Publish Date April 1, 2015.
Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times.
“People
should realize we are in a new era,” Mr. Brown said at a news
conference here on Wednesday, standing on a patch of brown and green
grass that would normally be thick with snow at this time of year. “The
idea of your nice little green lawn getting watered every day, those
days are past.”
Owners
of large farms, who obtain their water from sources outside the local
water agencies, will not fall under the 25 percent guideline. State
officials noted that many farms had already seen a cutback in their
water allocations because of the drought. In addition, the owners of
large farms will be required, under the governor’s executive order, to
offer detailed reports to state regulators about water use, ideally as a
way to highlight incidents of water diversion or waste.
Because
of this system, state officials said, they did not expect the executive
order to result — at least in the immediate future — in an increase in
farm or food prices.
State
officials said that they were prepared to enforce punitive measures,
including fines, to ensure compliance, but that they were hopeful it
would not be necessary to do so. That said, the state had trouble
reaching the 20 percent reduction target that Mr. Brown set in January
2014 when he issued a voluntary reduction order as part of declaring a
drought emergency. The state water board has the power to impose fines
on local water suppliers that fail to meet the reduction targets set by
the board over the coming weeks.
The
governor announced what amounts to a dramatic new chapter in the
state’s response to the drought while attending the annual April 1
measuring of the snowpack here in the Sierra Nevada. Snowpacks are
critical to the state’s water system: They store water that falls during
the wet season, and release it through the summer.
In
a typical year, the measure in Phillips is around five or six feet, as
Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Survey Program,
indicated by displaying the measuring stick brought out annually. But on
Wednesday, Mr. Brown was standing on an utterly dry field after he and
Mr. Gehrke went through the motions of measuring a snowpack. State
officials said they now expected the statewide snowpack measure to be
about 6 percent of normal.
How Has the California Drought Affected You?
Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory water restrictions
for the first time in California history. How will water rationing
affect you?
“We are standing on dry grass, and we should be standing on five feet of snow,” Mr. Brown said. “We are in an historic drought.”
Water
has long been a precious resource in California, the subject of battles
pitting farmer against city-dweller and northern communities against
southern ones; books and movies have been made about its scarcity and
plunder. Water is central to the state’s identity and economy, and a
symbol of how wealth and ingenuity have tamed nature: There are golf
courses in the deserts of Palm Springs, lush gardens and lawns in Los
Angeles, and vast expanses of irrigated fields of farmland throughout
the Central Valley.
Given
that backdrop, any effort to force reductions in water use could be
politically contentious, as Mr. Brown himself acknowledged. “This will
be somewhat of a burden — it’s going to be very difficult,” he said.
“People will say, ‘What about the farmers?’ Farmers will say, ‘What
about the people who water their lawns?’ ”
Interactive Graphic: How Much Water Californians Use
Within
hours of Mr. Brown’s announcement, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the
California Republican who is the House majority leader, announced plans
to renew efforts in Congress to pass legislation requiring the building
of two huge water facilities in the state. The efforts had been blocked
by Democrats concerned that the water projects would harm the
environment and damage endangered species of fish.
“The
current drought in California is devastating,” Mr. McCarthy said.
“Today’s order from the governor should not only alarm Californians, but
the entire nation should take notice that the most productive
agriculture state in the country has entered uncharted territory.”
“I’m from the Central Valley, and we know that we cannot conserve or ration our way out of this drought,” he said.
The
newly mandated 25 percent cut is in relation to total water use in the
state in 2013. Cuts will vary from community to community, reflecting
that per capita water use reduction has been better in some areas than
others. In addition, the state and local governments will offer
temporary rebate programs for homeowners who replace dishwashers and
washing machines with water-efficient models.
Mr.
Brown said the state would impose water-use restrictions on golf
courses and cemeteries and require that nonpotable water be used on
median dividers.
Lawns
consume much of the water used every year in California, and the
executive order calls for the state, working with local governments, to
replace 50 million acres of ornamental turf with planting that consumes
less water.
The
order also instructs water authorities to raise rates on heavy water
users. Those pricing systems, intended to reward conservers and punish
wasters, are used in some parts of this state and have proved effective,
state officials said.
Felicia
Marcus, the chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, said
that California would leave it to local water providers to decide how
to enforce the reductions on homeowners and businesses. She said she
anticipated that most of the restrictions would be aimed at the outdoor
use of water; many communities have already imposed water restrictions
on lawns and gardens, but Ms. Marcus suggested they had not gone far
enough.
“We
are in a drought unlike one we’ve seen before, and we have to take
actions that we haven’t taken before,” she said. “We are not getting the
level of effort that the situation clearly warrants.”
Mark
W. Cowin, the director of the California Department of Water Resources,
said the state would tightly monitor compliance, in the hope that would
be enough to accomplish the 25 percent reduction. If it is not, the
order authorizes water suppliers to penalize offenders.
“We
are looking for success, not to be punitive,” Mr. Cowin said. “In the
end, if people and communities don’t comply, there will be
repercussions, including fines.”
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